The Old "PQ"

About halfway between Porthcurno beach and the Logan Rock there is a curious white stone pyramid close to the coastal path. 'A beacon for ships' is the obvious conclusion, but whilst this is true, the story behind its construction is more involved than first appearances suggest. Stand by the pyramid and look out to sea and you will notice rusty iron railings set into the rock at intervals, and appearances which suggest a pathway descending steeply towards the shore from the left foreground. The path ends abruptly above a sheer rock face, and here two vertical channels have been cut into the cliff and faced with masonry. Bathers on the beach have stared up at those precipitous slots and wondered; and to the observant visitor the site bears the obvious marks of some long forgotten enterprise. Sinister ideas spring to mind; wartime installations in the face of the cliffs perhaps, or a pipeline to supply fuel to gathering navies in the wake of invasion. Those old enough, begin to recollect project 'Pluto'.

The men who hacked their way down the cliff, suspended by ropes from easier slopes above, did their breakneck labour in 1880 and the intent was neither sinister nor war-like. Their carefully fitted masonry has lasted the century well, and originally covered and protected a cable. The cable was brought to a little wooden hut at the top of the cliff, its distant end was in France, and it formed part of the transatlantic telegraph route Cornwall-Brest-Nova Scotia. It was owned by "La Compagnie Francais du Telegraph de Paris à New York", a company whose cumbersome title was soon contracted to "PQ Company" after the initials of one of its directors, a Monsieur Pouyer-Quertier.

The original Brest cable was linked by landline to a telegraph office in Penzance. At this point the records seem to conflict with the evidence before one's eyes. According to old cable charts and literature, a second Brest cable was laid directly into Porthcurno beach in 1918, yet there are plainly two separate channels in the cliff below the white pyramid. Certainly by 1930 diversions had taken place; both Brest cables landed at Porthcurno and the Eastern Telegraph Company had become responsible for the equipment which linked them with London.

The old black hut on the cliffs had outlived its usefulness as a cable house and took on a new lease of life as a summer holiday chalet. It survived in this role until the l950's when the National Trust acquired the stretch of coast and had it demolished. As it had become very dilapidated and something of an eyesore this action no doubt pleased the hikers and photographers, but it raised a cry of protest from local fishermen who had been using it as a convenient leading mark for navigation. The white stone pyramid was therefore built on the exact site to serve this purpose, and hopefully to please all parties.

There can be few submarine cables which have had such an abrupt and precipitous landing, the reason for not using the beach at Porthcurno in the first instance was no doubt simply the fact that the Eastern Telegraph Company, at that time a rival concern, already had prior claim to its use. The landing operations must have been quite difficult and one wonders if any photographs of the operation have survived. To reach the site, the cliff path is followed from Porthcurno towards the Logan Rock. Shortly after passing a World War II 'pill-box' the track forks, and the right hand branch leads to the pyramid.

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