Sennen
Encyclopedia
Sennen is a coastal civil parish and a village 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...

. Sennen village is situated approximately eight miles (13 km) west-southwest 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...

.

Sennen parish is bounded by the sea to the west and bordered by the parishes 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...

 to the north, St Buryan
St Buryan
St Buryan is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, United Kingdom.The village of St Buryan is situated approximately five miles west of Penzance along the B3283 towards Land's End...

 to the east, St Levan
St Levan
St Levan is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, United Kingdom. The village is situated approximately eight miles south west of Penzance....

 to the south and by the sea to the west. The Longships
Longships
Longships is the name given to a group of rocky islets situated approximately 1 miles west of Land's End, Cornwall, United Kingdom....

 group of rocky islet
Islet
An islet is a very small island.- Types :As suggested by its origin as islette, an Old French diminutive of "isle", use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability....

s situated off Lands End are also within the parish. The main settlements are Churchtown, Trevescan
Trevescan
Trevescan is a hamlet in west Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated between the village of Sennen and the settlement at Land's End 8 miles west of Penzance....

, Carn Towan, Sennen Cove
Sennen Cove
Sennen Cove is a small coastal settlement in the parish of Sennen, in Cornwall, United Kingdom. According to the Penwith District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000.-Geography:...

 and Land's End
Land's End
Land's End is a headland and small settlement in west Cornwall, England, within the United Kingdom. It is located on the Penwith peninsula approximately eight miles west-southwest of Penzance....

.

For the purposes of local government Sennen elects a parish council every four years. The main local authority is Cornwall Council.

Geography

Sennen parish is situated at the western tip of 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...

 and is exposed to prevailing westerly winds from the Atlantic. Geologically, it is located on the Land's End Granite, one of the five major granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 batholiths that make up the spine of Cornwall (see Geology of Cornwall
Geology of Cornwall
The Geology of Cornwall is dominated by its granite backbone, part of the Cornubian batholith, formed during the Variscan orogeny. Around this is an extensive metamorphic aureole formed in the mainly Devonian slates that make up most of the rest of the county...

). Consequently, the parish has a bare moorland-like character with very few trees and no woodland.

The parish consists of 2284 acres (9 km²) of land, 6 acres (24,281.2 m²) of water and 64 acres (258,999 m²) of foreshore. The population was 829 at the 2001 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

.

The church town
Churchtown, Cornwall
In Cornwall, the churchtown is the settlement in a parish where the church stands, for example,*Churchtown Mullion,*Churchtown Redruth,*Churchtown St Hilary,*Churchtown St Merryn,*Churchtown St Minver,*Gorran Churchtown,*Gulval Churchtown,...

, Sennen, is the most westerly village in mainland England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and is 315 miles (506.9 km) west-southwest of London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. Below the village is the harbour settlement of Sennen Cove
Sennen Cove
Sennen Cove is a small coastal settlement in the parish of Sennen, in Cornwall, United Kingdom. According to the Penwith District Council, the population of this settlement was estimated at 180 persons in 2000.-Geography:...

.

Church

Sennen parish church
St. Sennen's Church, Sennen
St. Sennen's Church, Sennen is a parish church in the Church of England located in Sennen, Cornwall.-History:The church of St. Sennen is medieval: it is known as the parish church of Lands End.The patron of the church is the Duke of Cornwall....

 is dedicated to St Sinninus but has also been dedicated to St John the Baptist. There has been a church here since at least the 15th century. The present church has a chancel and nave, a south aisle and a north transept. A wall-painting depicting two round embattled towers was uncovered during restoration
Victorian restoration
Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...

 in 1867. There is also a headless alabaster figure representing the Virgin Mary in the transept. The church has a three-stage battlemented tower housing a ring of three bells. See also St. Sennen's Church, Sennen
St. Sennen's Church, Sennen
St. Sennen's Church, Sennen is a parish church in the Church of England located in Sennen, Cornwall.-History:The church of St. Sennen is medieval: it is known as the parish church of Lands End.The patron of the church is the Duke of Cornwall....

.

Old Customs

On the old Christmas Day in the 1830s (and before) the farmers of St Sennen assembled for the festivities. One of the dishes was a pie made from 24 blackbirds. At midnight the young men went out to see the ‘cattle kneel’ and on their return they threw rushes onto the fire. The number of crackles, or the particular form assumed told the fortunes of those who threw them into the fire.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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