Porthcurno
Porthcurno is a small settlement in the 9.7 km² parish of St Levan on the south west coast of England in the former district of Penwith of the county of Cornwall .
Most of the settlement emerged in the late 19th century, after the advent of electrical overseas communications. After the first permanent telegraphic cable between Ireland and America went into operation in 1866, a place was sought in England to land additional submarine cables . The gently sloping valley near Porthcurno with a small sandy beach on the otherwise steep rocky coast seemed ideal. The bay is also undisturbed by currents and ships. In 1870 the first two cables were laid to Carcavelos in Portugal and to Brisk 40 miles from Land's End , a former slave ship that served as a signal station for passing ships for two months until the cable broke. The operation of the telegraph station was started in 1872 by the newly established Eastern Telegraph Company Ltd. (ETC), which in 1928 merged with Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Ltd. to Imperial and International Communications Ltd. merged, which was renamed Cable & Wireless in 1934. Nearby in Poldhu , Marconi also implemented the first wireless telegraph connection across the Atlantic.
Between the two world wars of the 20th century, a total of 14 submarine cables were operated in Porthcurno, connecting England to India, and the place was then the largest submarine cable station in the world. During the Second World War, from 1941 onwards, an extensive underground bunker system was built in the cliffs of Porthcurno, which was supposed to protect the technical facilities from German air raids. In Cable Office many apprentices were trained in CW and related occupations over the years. In 1950 Cable & Wireless founded a college for telecommunications that operated until 1993. The last telegraph cables were taken out of service in 1970, exactly 100 years after the first cable landed.
Today the beach is used by several submarine cable operators as a landing point for fiber optic cables. Shortly after the closure of the college which was in the tunnels Porthcurno Telegraph Museum established. Just outside is the open-air Minack Theater, which has been in use since 1932 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ slave chasing to seasickness, in the service of telegraph. In: porthcurno.org.uk. Archived from the original on November 23, 2008 ; accessed on December 2, 2019 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 2 ′ 54 ″ N , 5 ° 39 ′ 27 ″ W.