Crackington Haven is a small village in the parish of
St GennysSt. Gennys is a small village and civil parish in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village church is also the parish church and is dedicated to Saint Genesius. Also in the parish is the village of Crackington Haven.-Parish Church:...
, at the head of a cove on the
AtlanticThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek...
coast in
CornwallCornwall is a county of England in the United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, UK. Situated between
BudeBude is a small seaside resort town in North Cornwall, England, at the mouth of the River Neet. Bude is twinned with Ergué-Gabéric in Brittany, France...
and
BoscastleBoscastle is a village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Forrabury and Minster. It is situated 14 miles south of Bude and 5 miles north-east of Tintagel....
, Crackington Haven is popular with campers, walkers and geology students. The village has a small shop, two tea rooms and a pub called the Coombe Barton Inn in a building which was originally the house of the manager of a local slate quarry.
Crackington Haven has a stony foreshore but a sandy beach is revealed at low water.
Crackington Haven is a small village in the parish of
St GennysSt. Gennys is a small village and civil parish in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village church is also the parish church and is dedicated to Saint Genesius. Also in the parish is the village of Crackington Haven.-Parish Church:...
, at the head of a cove on the
AtlanticThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek...
coast in
CornwallCornwall is a county of England in the United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, UK. Situated between
BudeBude is a small seaside resort town in North Cornwall, England, at the mouth of the River Neet. Bude is twinned with Ergué-Gabéric in Brittany, France...
and
BoscastleBoscastle is a village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Forrabury and Minster. It is situated 14 miles south of Bude and 5 miles north-east of Tintagel....
, Crackington Haven is popular with campers, walkers and geology students. The village has a small shop, two tea rooms and a pub called the Coombe Barton Inn in a building which was originally the house of the manager of a local slate quarry.
Coastal scenery
Crackington Haven has a stony foreshore but a sandy beach is revealed at low water. There are toilet facilities near the beach and lifeguard cover in the summer.
Immediately north of the beach is Pencarrow Point and a few hundred yards south is Cambeak headland. One mile south of Crackington Haven, High Cliff rises to with a sheer drop to the rocky foreshore. It is Cornwall's highest cliff and is also classified as southern Britain's highest sheer-drop cliff (Great Hangman in Devon has a cliff face of but is a hog-backed hill with a cliff-face, rather than being a normal sheer cliff).
The surrounding cliffs are well-known for their visible folded sedimentary rock formations. The village gives its name to the Crackington formation, a sequence of
CarboniferousThe Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Ma , to the beginning of the Permian period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Ma ....
sandstoneSandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow,...
s and grey
shaleShale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable...
s .
History
Until the nineteenth century, Crackington Haven was a small port similar to many others on the north coast of Cornwall. Limestone and coal were imported and slate and other local produce were exported. After the railways reached the district in 1893 the village could be reached more easily (from the
North Cornwall RailwayThe North Cornwall Railway was a railway line running from Halwill in Devon to Padstow in Cornwall via Launceston, Camelford and Wadebridge, a distance of 49 miles 67 chains. Opened in the last decade of the nineteenth century, it was part of a drive by the London and South Western Railway to...
station at
OtterhamOtterham is a village and a civil parish in north Cornwall, United Kingdom: it is in the Registration District of Camelford.The parish is bounded to the north by St Gennys, to the east by Warbstow, to the south by Davidstow and to the west by St Juliot...
) so holidaymaking became more common.
Crackington Haven was badly affected in 2004 by the flood that damaged several other villages, including
BoscastleThe Boscastle flood of 2004 occurred on Monday, 16 August 2004 in the two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The villages suffered extensive damage after flash floods caused by an exceptional amount of rain that fell over the course of eight hours that...
. The road bridge across the stream, several homes and pub were damaged by floodwater. (See also
Boscastle flood of 2004The Boscastle flood of 2004 occurred on Monday, 16 August 2004 in the two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The villages suffered extensive damage after flash floods caused by an exceptional amount of rain that fell over the course of eight hours that...
)