Pendeen is a village on the Penwith peninsula

Penwith

Penwith was a local government district in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, whose council was based in Penzance. The district covered all of the Penwith peninsula, the toe-like promontory of land at the western end of Cornwall and which included an area of land to the east that fell outside the...

 in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It is 3 miles (4.8 km) north-northeast of St Just

St Just in Penwith

St Just is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish encompasses the town of St Just and the nearby settlements of Trewellard, Pendeen and Kelynack: it is bounded by the parishes of Morvah to the north-east, Sancreed and Madron to the east, St Buryan and Sennen to...

 and 7 miles (11.3 km) west of Penzance

Penzance

Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...

.

The village has a community centre, a shop, a post office, a primary school, and a few small businesses. Community activities include an art club, silver marching band

Brass band (British style)

A British-style brass band is a musical ensemble comprising a standardised range of brass and percussion instruments. The modern form of the brass band in the United Kingdom dates back to the 19th century, with a vibrant tradition of competition based around local industry and communities...

 and a football club. Nearby settlements include Carnyorth

Carnyorth

Carnyorth is a hamlet in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is approximately one mile south of Pendeen and six miles northwest of Penzance....

 and Trewellard

Trewellard

Trewellard is a small village on the north coast road between St Just and St Ives in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated 7 miles from Land's End and 7 miles from Penzance...

 and the historic Geevor Tin Mine

Geevor Tin Mine

Geevor Tin Mine is a tin mine in the far west of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, between the villages of Pendeen and Trewellard. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history...

 is immediately north of the village.

The village gives its name to Pendeen Lighthouse

Pendeen Lighthouse

Pendeen Lighthouse is located to the north of Pendeen in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. Designed by the Trinity House Engineer Sir Thomas Matthews, the 17 m tower, buildings and surrounding wall was constructed by Arthur Carkeek of Redruth. The five-wick Argand lamp provided by Messrs...

 which is a mile from the village. Like many other Cornish villages near the coast, Pendeen had a reputation for smuggling activities.

Pendeen is overlooked by a hill referred to locally as 'The Carn', the site of a quarry which provided the granite to build Pendeen church. Overlooking Pendeen, above the Church, is a hill which the locals have nicknamed "Raw Carn", because of the wind which seems always to blow cold at the summit.

Buildings and antiquities

The Church of St John was built of granite: it was designed by the parson (Robert Aitken) and built by the villagers in 1851. At Pendeen Vau is a picturesque farmhouse of the 16th century (front added in 1670) and a fogou

Fogou

A fogou or fougou is an underground, dry-stone structure found on Iron Age or Romano-British defended settlement sites in Cornwall. Fogous have similarities with souterrains or earth-houses of northern Europe and particularly Scotland including the Orkney Islands...

 [56 ft (17.1 m), with a side passage of 24 ft (7.3 m)].

Horsefield's Life in a Cornish Village

Pendeen was the subject of the book 'Life in a Cornish Village' by the Rev. F. J. Horsefield in 1893. Horsefield, being an amateur historian, wrote of a multitude of fascinating aspects of Pendeen's past.

He wrote, for example, that Chûn Castle

Chûn Castle

Chûn Castle is a large Iron Age hillfort near Penzance in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The fort was built around two and a half thousand years ago, and fell into disuse until the 6th century AD when it was possibly reoccupied to protect the nearby tin mines. It stands beside a prehistoric trackway...

, on the 'gump' (Cornish for moor) was most likely a Danish (pre-)viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

 castle. It was built when the indigenous Celts (viz. 'Cornu-Britons') were joined by Danish military allies against the invading Saxons

Saxons

The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...

. The gump itself was a battlefield with many discovered urns indicating this violent history. There remains little trace of provenance for this assertion. Chun Castle is much older than first thought and is possibly Bronze Age or earlier, and much more likely to be the site of a fortified village. It was excavated in 1930 and is thought to have been built in the third century BC, far later than its neighbouring Chûn Quoit

Chûn Quoit

The best preserved of all quoits in Cornwall, UK is Chûn Quoit, located in open moorland near Pendeen and Morvah. The uphill walk is worthwhile because this is perhaps the most visually satisfying of all the quoits...

.

Boscaswell

Boscaswell

Boscaswell is a village in the extreme west of Cornwall in the United Kingdom.It lies towards the cliffs looking west from Pendeen. It is a village consisting mostly of granite terraced cottages with a council house estate. Some of the cottages used to house tin mining families who would be working...

, arguably a part of Pendeen, traces its name to Bos Castle. Horsefield suggests that what is now Boscaswell was once the site of another Danish castle. Again now not thought to be true, again a wrongful supposition and the name has nothing to do with castles. At the lower end of Boscaswell, recent archaeological excavations are said to have suggested that the land has been occupied for more than 10,000 years. There is an ancient pagan well in Boscaswell which is where the name is thought to have its origins, the name suggests that it is the place (Bos) of Cas' (a person or entity or abbreviation thereof) Well (as in the English word). Problems often exist with such names when they become a hybrid of the indigenous Cornish and the persistent waves of English administration, land ownership and tourism that stretch back into time and continue today.

Geevor tin mine

Pendeen is famous for its Geevor Tin Mine

Geevor Tin Mine

Geevor Tin Mine is a tin mine in the far west of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, between the villages of Pendeen and Trewellard. It was operational between 1911 and 1990 during which time it produced about 50,000 tons of black tin. It is now a museum and heritage centre left as a living history...

. The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....

 visited the mine in 1957. Little in the way of corroboration exists for the following speculations; however, mining has occurred in Pendeen for over 3000 years. 2000 years ago the Romans

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 brought Jews to Pendeen to work the mines. These Jews, suggests Horsefield, came as slaves from the then recently sacked Jerusalem. Moreover, when Horsefield wrote his book, he claimed that locals still called a piece of tin a 'Jew's piece'. Jewish influence can be witnessed around Pendeen through names such as the village 'Bojewyn' (meaning 'abode of the Jews'); (Bojewyn is more likely to be translated from its Brythonic origins as meaning "John's Place", Jowan being a common Cornish family and first name whilst the prefix "Bos" could be most likely referring to a location or domain; Bosjowan is converted to Bojewyn through development of the indigenous dialect of West Penwith. 'Market Jew street' in Penzance

Penzance

Penzance is a town, civil parish, and port in Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is approximately 75 miles west of Plymouth and 300 miles west-southwest of London...

, and the small town of 'Marazion

Marazion

Marazion is a civil parish and town in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated on the shore of Mount's Bay, two miles east of Penzance and one mile east of Long Rock.St Michael's Mount is half-a-mile offshore from Marazion...

' (of St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount is a tidal island located off the Mount's Bay coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is a civil parish and is united with the town of Marazion by a man-made causeway of granite setts, passable between mid-tide and low water....

 fame). Horsefield is now considered to be incorrect in his assertion about these names, with his interpretation of the place names; Market Jew Street and Marazion. Both places could derive their names from the Cornish language. Marghas yow is Cornish meaning Thursday market and Thursday is still considered as market day by many local people. Many Cornish place names survive in the form of the Middle or Early Cornish language and in this context the English meaning of the word Jew is probably completely different to that of its original Cornish Language meaning. For example dialectically the word Jew could be a phonetic version of the written Cornish word "Dhu" meaning Black, as Cassiterrite tin ore is often black in colour until smelted when it turns white this further complicates the debate whilst clarifying the assertions made by Horsefield and similar speculations.

Geography

Horsefield also writes of a large natural cave named 'Pendeen Vau', the entrance of which is to be found on a cliff. Apparently this cave is vast, going far below & into the sea but its existence is disputed by many villagers.

Below Boscaswell is an area known as 'The Craft' which is mostly overgrown by gorse, fern and brambles, although many pathways exist. Here can be found abandoned mine buildings dating from the 19th century (including wash houses, engine houses and arsenic baths).

Pendeen boasts three beaches although some are more accessible than others. The largest of them was for many years the home of a wrecked ship until the army was called in to clear the wreck as it was presenting a danger to swimmers.

Below Pendeen Lighthouse can be found the wreck of 'The Liberty', although most of it has now been eroded away but the sea parts of the wreck are still visible at low tide on what locals call 'Liberty Rock' which is a favourite fishing spot.

Pendeen Primary School was one of the schools studied in the 1950s by Iona and Peter Opie

Notable residents

William Borlase

William Borlase

William Borlase , Cornish antiquary, geologist and naturalist, was born at Pendeen in Cornwall, of an ancient family . From 1722 he was Rector of Ludgvan and died there in 1772.-Life and works:...

, naturalist and antiquary, was born at Pendeen: he was vicar of St Just for 40 years and rector of Ludgvan for 50. Frederic John Horsefield, 1893.
In honour of the Borlase family the local football team Pendeen Rovers AFC ground is called Borlase Park as a thank you to the Borlase family for selling the land that they have played on for many years for the sum of £1000.