Qualla: Nanjizal

Nanjizal: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rod Allday, CC BY-SA 2.0. There is no road to Nanjizal. To reach it you walk, an hour south along the coast path from Land's End or the same again north from Porthgwarra, past gorse and stonecrop and the white quartz boulders that the Cornish call sea milk. You arrive at a small valley that opens to the Atlantic between two granite headlands, and then you see what the path has been hiding: a slot in the southern cliff, taller than it is wide, with the green sea visible through it like a doorway. The Cornish called the place cove of the howling valley. The English, who had to call it something else, settled on Mill Bay.

Read more: Nanjizal on Qualla

Image: Rod Allday | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nanjizal: The Cove of the Howling Valley

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kernow Skies, CC BY-SA 3.0. The slot is called Zawn Pyg, and it is the reason most people come. Cut by millennia of swell exploiting a weakness in the granite, it now forms an almost perfect rock arch about twenty feet tall. At low tide a sandy floor connects it to the main beach. At high tide the sea pours...

Read more: Nanjizal on Qualla

Image: Kernow Skies | CC BY-SA 3.0

Nanjizal: The City of Cardiff

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Atkin, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the cove at low tide, half-buried in sand and half-corroded by a century of Atlantic chemistry, sits the skeleton of a collier called the City of Cardiff. On 21 March 1912 she rounded the Lizard in a freshening southerly gale and tried to claw her way around Land's End. By daw...

Read more: Nanjizal on Qualla

Image: Tony Atkin | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nanjizal: Where the Rare Birds Land

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frances Watts, CC BY-SA 2.0. Nanjizal lies inside the Porthgwarra to Pordenack Point Site of Special Scientific Interest, designated in 1977 for its granite cliffs and maritime heath. To ornithologists it matters for a different reason. The valley is the last sheltered ground in Britain before the open Atlan...

Read more: Nanjizal on Qualla

Image: Frances Watts | CC BY-SA 2.0

Nanjizal: The TARDIS Landed Here

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JimChampion, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 19 June 1966 a film crew descended into the cove with cameras and a police box. They were shooting a four-part Doctor Who serial called The Smugglers, the last adventure for the First Doctor before William Hartnell handed the role to Patrick Troughton. The TARDIS materialised ...

Read more: Nanjizal on Qualla

Image: JimChampion | CC BY-SA 3.0