Mullion Cove is a former fishing harbour on the Lizard. Today, the harbour is still home to a small fishing community, with a few boats landing mainly crabs, lobster and crawfish.
There are actually two places here Mullion, the largest village on the Lizard with shops, inns, cafes and restaurants and the harbour itself.
Of note in Mullion Cove is church of St Mellanus with its magnificent 16th century bench ends (depicting surprisingly bawdy scenes) The church tower is partly built of serpentine, the local stone.
The solid granite piers of Mullion Cove harbour, 200 feet below the edge of the Lizard plateau, was built in the 1880's, and is now owned by the Mullion Cove, National Trust. The harbour was paid for by Lord Robartes of Lanhydrock to compensate fishermen for several really bad pilchard seasons.The National Trust acquired Mullion Harbour in 1945 as a gift from Mr A Meyer. In addition to the harbour itself, the Trust also looks after the winch house at the top of the slipway, which predates the harbour walls, the small picturesque net store on the southern breakwater and the wooden fish cellar on the northern breakwater. There was a lifeboat station here between 1867 -1909.
In 1901, to the north at Poldhu Point, Marconi transmitted the first radio Morse code signals across the Atlantic to St Johns in Newfoundland. Sent shortly after midday as the letter S in Morse code received on Signal Hill, St Johns, Newfoundland showed that radio waves followed the curvature of the Earth. Marconi had chosen Poldhu because of its unobstructed path for his radio beam across the Atlantic, and because of its remote location, it was unlikely that his competitors would see it.
The Marconi Centre is up a poorly signposted road on the side
of Poldhu Cove Beach. It opened in
December 2001 The building part funded by the National Trust and the Marconi
Company and contains displays and information on Marconi as well as being the
home (and run by) of Poldhu Amateur Radio Club. The remains of Marconi
Transmitting Station can be seen as a concrete floor a few meters South of the
new Centre.
There are mining remains inland of Mullion, at Wheal Unity copper mine, which produced copper from the early 18th century to 1919 when it closed. A copper boulder from the mine can be seen in the Natural History Museum, London. As with the rest of Cornwall, there is no longer any mining in the area.
Mullion Cove Genealogical information from Genuki