Gunwalloe

A wrecking past.

Church Cove at Gunwalloe is just one of the beaches in Cornwall to have recently featured in the new BBC drama series Poldark. The perfect location to film wrecking scenes, the beach on the Lizard Peninsula offered impressive cliffs, an expanse of sand and rocks, shingle and stone on the shoreline. It serves as the kind of location 18th century wreckers would have chosen to lure ships to their doom by lighting fires on the clifftops.

Once the vessels broke up on the rocks, the wreckers would (literally) wade in and take the cargo as their spoils. The parish of Gunwalloe was mentioned in the Domesday Book and Church Cove takes its name from the tiny church of St Wynwallow on the headland.

Legend has it that Dollar Cove, a mile north of Church Cove, is so named because a Spanish vessel sank nearby and coins were washed ashore.

• Cafe
• Family friendly
• Lifeguard
• Parking
• Toilets