Spotlight on Lizard - Cornwall

The Lizard is the most southerly point on the British mainland. The name comes from the Cornish "lis" meaning "place" and "ard" meaning "high". Almost at the end of the Lizard Peninsula is Lizard village, a central square, a few houses, a couple of shops, and a pub. The only thing in England south of the village is the lighthouse, Lizard Point and Housel Bay; Church Cove is east of the village and there are cliff walks to the west. Lizard Point has a few souvenir shops and snackeries.

The Spanish Armada was first spotted from here in 1588.

Sir John Killigrew, a notorious wrecker from the Arwennack family of Falmouth, erected the first lighthouse on the Lizard in 1620. Ship owners refused to support the venture, believing that Killigrew had ulterior motives in erecting the lighthouse, and that venture disappeared. On the 10th November 1721, thirty years before the lighthouse was built, 15 of the crew of the Royal Anne Galley lost their lives when it was lost in a storm, by being broken up against the cliffs. They are buried in a mass grave on the grass slope just west of the Old Lifeboat Slipway. Eventually in 1752 a regular lighthouse was established, and it was taken over in 1790 by Trinity House. The powerful beam of today's light can be seen for 64 miles.

Here are our selection of cottages in Lizard