A small cove on the Lizard with pale sand, dark serpentine stacks and water that turns a startling turquoise in sunshine
Kynance Cove sits on the west side of the Lizard, a little over 2 km north-west of Lizard Point. Its rock is serpentine, a smooth greenish-red stone that began as rock deep under an ancient ocean floor, and the stacks and islets in the cove are a finer, banded kind of it. The biggest are Asparagus Island, Gull Rock, the Bishop and Steeple Rock. The cove became a Victorian favourite, visited by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and by Tennyson, and at about half tide you can hear a snorting from the Devil’s Bellows, a blowhole on Asparagus Island.
The tide decides your visit. Much of the beach disappears at high water and Asparagus Island is cut off on almost every high tide, so look up the tide times before you go out among the rocks and leave yourself time to get back. The National Trust owns the cove as part of its Predannack and Kynance coast and runs a car park on the clifftop, with a steep path down to the sand and a café at the bottom. The South West Coast Path runs along the cliffs above.
