Poldhu is a small area with a beach on the west coast of the Lizard Peninsular open to Mounts Bay and the prevailing winds, making it ideal for surfing. This coastline here has several small beaches like this, with Church Cove to the north and Mullion Cove just south. The coastal path that connects them is a nice walk.
Poldhu means ‘black pool’ in Cornish but yesterday when I was there it was a glorious October day and far from black. The beach was busy and although there was little wind the surf was ‘up’ and popular.
It is visible from some distance because of the unexpectedly large building on Poldhu Point, once a hotel and now a care home. If any of my family are reading this, its location on the cliff top almost touching the often-wild sea makes it my care home of choice if I ever need one.
Just behind the care home is The Marconi Centre, because Poldhu Point became the site of one of the main technological advances of the early twentieth century when, on 12 December 1901, a wireless signal was sent by Thomas Barron in Poldhu to St. John’s, Newfoundland, and received by Guglielmo Marconi.
The centre is staffed by very enthusiastic volunteers who can tell you anything you might want to know about radio. They have a radio mast array on the clifftop beside the Marconi Monument which they use to talk to people around the world by radio when the centre is open. There is an interesting photograph of the 200 ft aerials erected on the same spot by Marconi that dwarfed the three-story building beside it. Apparently, in Newfoundland they used kites to suspend the aerials that eventually received the morse code letter S. The first radio signal transmitted successfully across the Atlantic.
Interestingly, the Goonhilly Earth Station which has been the pioneering home of satellite communications since 1962 and is now very active in satellite, lunar and deep space communications, is just a few miles away.
