Kernow                     Porthleven          Breizh         

Porthleven's name is most likely derived from the Cornish language words of Porth (harbour) and levna (level) probably because it was once just a rocky inlet leading to flat marshland

    

Construction of the harbour began in 1811 to supply the local tin mines, and also as a safe haven for the fishing fleet.  Prisoners from the Napoleonic wars were drafted into the work force and the harbour was opened in 1825  

  

In 1855 a deeper inner basin was created and massive timber baulks were used to seal it off in poor weather to protect the ships within. These baulks are still in use today and can be seen in the picture above, (centre left), across 'the gap' between the inner basin and outer harbour leaving the inner basin still and calm while the sea beyond rages.

There are still several working fishing boats in Porthleven whose main catch is shellfish, but the days when it was possible to walk across the harbour stepping from fishing boat to fishing boat have definitely gone,

             

Porthleven is a very picturesque place with lots of lovely walks along the cliff paths.  It is also extremely well-served with hostelries which at the last count numbered 3 traditional pubs each of which serves excellent food, (the one above left is 17th century with resident ghost), 1 modern harbour side bar which also serves food, 6 restaurants one of which, Critchards, is an award winning sea food restaurant, (http://www.critchards.com), and 2 fish and chip shops.  We also boast a most excellent fresh fish shop the local proprietor of which has been voted the best fish monger in Great Britain, (http://www.quaysidefish.co.uk).  Yet for all this Porthleven is totally unspoiled and remains a typical small, close-knit Cornish community.

Like the other 5 Celtic nations, Cornwall has its own language and an independent academic study of the Cornish language commissioned by the government in 2001 confirmed that some 3,000 people in Cornwall spoke Cornish at various levels at that time, with about 200 families speaking it as a first language in the home and about 650 people per year attending classes to learn Cornish.  So there is a real upsurge in interest in this 'Cinderella' of the Celtic languages.  Cornish is very similar to Breton and Porthleven has close ties to its twin town of Guisseney in Brittany, hence both the Cornish and Brittany flags at the head of this page. To finish this page it is therefore fitting to mention this poem in the Cornish language said to have been found on the headstone of a 19th century grave, a time in which Cornish was still the first language of the majority of Cornish people.  It is about the symbolic bird of Cornwall, the red billed Chough, whose numbers around the Cornish coast were dwindling rapidly when this grave was occupied.  It reads:

    An Balores, du hy lyu
     (the Chough, black her colour)
    ruth ha'y gelvyn cam ha'y garrow
     (Red her beak and her legs)
    war als Kernow wath a-vew
     (lives yet on the cliffs of Cornwall)
    kyn i leverel hy bos marrow
     (for all they say she be dead)

The last confirmed sighting of a Chough in Cornwall was in 1941 and that was assumed to be a stray blown here from the North by gale force winds.  But in 2002, to everyone's delight, a small colony of Choughs was found to be nesting again on the cliffs of the Lizard Point next door to Porthleven, (see the map above), and the colony is now under the careful stewardship of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.  So the optimism of the departed soul who is said have had these words carved on their head stone 200 or so years ago was clearly not misplaced.

For more pictures of Porthleven, and visitors' comments on Porthleven as a holiday destination, please go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/photos/porthleven/1.shtml