stay guide cornwall
Activities
Beach Guide
Entertainment
Food and Drink
Places of Interest
Shopping
Holiday ServicesWhite Pyramid
About half way along the main coastal footpath from Porthcurno to Logan Rock, another path loops off to the cliffs above Pedn Vounder beach. Beside the path is 3 metre tall pyramid built from granite blocks and painted white. The pyramid stands at the point where a hut which housed the termination of a submarine telegraph cable connected to the French port of Brest once stood. The hut was replaced by this conspicuous pyramid because fishermen had used the hut as a land reference. Some of the stone ducting which was built up on the cliffside to protect the cable is still visible from the footpath nearby. This was part of the first cable connection from the UK to the American continent passing from Porthcurno to Brest and then via the trans-Atlantic cable first to Saint-Pierre and Miquelon near the coast of Canada, and then a further 500 km (313 miles) to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 1919, another Compagnie Francaise cable was laid to Porthcurno but this was terminated in the Cable Hut at the top of the beach a few hundred yards to the west where it remained in operation until 1962.