Z is for Zennor …

Zed for Zennor, appropriately in our A – Z Challenge, is alphabetically the last parish in Britain.  The village lies in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty on the north coast coastal road and path about 5 miles from St Ives.

Zennor from Trewey Hill, with
the Atlantic Ocean nearby

Zennor has lots of history … way too much to include in this Z for zee-end post … Zennor Quoit is a megalithic burial chamber about a mile east of the village … it dates to between 2,500 – 1,500 BC and is one of the eight remaining quoits on the West Penwith moors.

Zennor Quoit

St Senara’s Church, after whom Zennor is named, is dedicated to the local saint, and is at least 1,400 years old, though it was rebuilt in the 12^th century (1100s).  The current building is partly Norman and partly 13^th and 15^th centuries.

Zennor Church: it is surrounded by a
circular graveyard, the boundaries of which
have existed since the Bronze Age, and
in which parish residents have been
buried for centuries.

The tower contains tombstones, including one with an inscription for a “Hen-pecked husband” with a beautiful engraving for the “four winds which daily toss this bubble”: don’t ask I haven’t seen them!!

The Mermaid Pew, showing
the bench end

The Mermaid of Zennor is a popular Cornish folk tale, the legend of which has inspired many works: it makes interesting reading with then lots of links to poets, folk songs, novels, children’s books (which Suzanne Furness mentioned yesterday under Y for literature), art works, an opera, and a hymn …

Gurnard's Head: an Iron Age cliff castle/
promontory fort (In Cornish Ynyal -
meaning 'desolate one'

St Senara, too has an interesting history – another water borne saint, this time from Brittany – who is highly venerated.  The Mermaid’s chair, an ancient chair with carvings of fish on the seat and a pew end with a depiction of the mermaid admiring herself in a mirror, is believed to be at least 600 years old.

Tiny pic of the pub sign
 - but I liked the
sou'wester tree

Wayside Folk Museum – see my M post – is on the outskirts of the village … and the pub, the Tinner’s Arms – I know does folk nights. 

The Mermaid of Zennor -
by John Reinhard Wegeulin (1900)

It was originally built in 1271 to house the masons building the church; while the name is derived from the Tinners, with records of tin extraction in the area going back to Tudor times (1450s - 1603). 

Apparently D H Lawrence stayed a fortnight in the pub in 1916 … as you can see the pub sign (very tiny!) is a testimony to its origins.

It is a typical old English pub “all low beams and dark wood” with a “warm fire in the winter”, which retains a medieval ambiance.  Its special beers are “Tinner’s” and “Zennor Mermaid” … it has a “sleepy, timeless quality in a way that has not changed in centuries”.

The Tinner's Arms, Zennor (c/o P H Glasson)
There's a menu on the website

Food sounds good though … more 21^st century:

Pigeon breast with mushrooms and tarragon sauce;

Terras Farm Duck breast with braised peas and Cornish new potatoes;

Chocolate fudge cake with clotted cream; OR ‘Moomaid’ ice cream made on the local farm;

OR … you can have an enjoyable ploughman’s with three Cornish cheeses and home-baked bread.

From Project Gutenberg - ebook of Traditions
and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall by
William Bottrell (1800s)

That is Z for Zennor and Zee end ... from Aspects of British Cornish …

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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