Penzance - Main Sights

Main Sights

Large sections of the Penzance Parish are classified as conservation areas under the Penwith local plan and are subject to special planning laws. The current conservation area forms most of the core of the town of Penzance and the historic harbour areas of Newlyn and Mousehole. A number of Georgian and Regency buildings are present in the town. However, the majority of developments in the town centre itself are of mixed date, including several 20th century buildings - one of which, the former Pearl Assurance building (now the Tremenheere Wetherspoon's pub), was subject to comment by Sir John Betjeman who wrote, in 1963:

Penzance has done much to destroy its attractive character. The older houses in the narrow centre round the market hall have been pulled down and third-rate commercial 'contemporary', of which the Pearl Assurance building is a nasty example, are turning it into Slough.

There are three large residential council estates in Penzance: Penalverne, Treneere (both built in the 1930s) and the Princess Royal Estate at Alverton (built in the early 1950s). Much of the housing with this area is owned and operated by Penwith Housing Association. The sub-tropical Morrab Gardens, has a large collection of tender trees and shrubs, many of which cannot be grown outdoors anywhere else in the UK. Penzance Regency and Georgian terraces and houses are common in some parts of the town.

Penzance's former main street Chapel Street has a number of interesting features, including the Egyptian House, the Union Hotel (including a Georgian theatre which is no longer in use) and the Branwell House, where the mother and aunt of the famous Brontë sisters once lived.

Also of interest is the seafront with its promenade and the open-air seawater Jubilee Bathing Pool (one of the oldest surviving Art Deco swimming baths in the country), built during Penzance's heyday as a fashionable seaside resort. The pool was designed by Captain F. Latham, the Penzance Borough Engineer, and opened in 1935, the year of King George V's Silver Jubilee. Penzance promenade itself has been destroyed in parts several times by storms. The most recent example was on 7 March 1962 (Ash Wednesday), when large parts of the western end of the promenade, the nearby Beford Bolitho Gardens (now a play park) and the village of Wherrytown suffered severe damage. On the outskirts of town is Trereife House, a grade II listed manor house which now offers accommodation and hosts events.