Lizard Point

You have reached the most southerly point of mainland Britain. This is Lizard Point, the very toe of the country, a rugged headland of strange mottled rock washed by powerful tides. Look out to sea and you are watching one of the busiest and most dangerous shipping lanes in the world, the great approach to the English Channel, where the traffic of nations funnels past these cliffs. And near you, white against the sky, stands the lighthouse that has warned them off this deadly shore for more than two and a half centuries.

The Lizard peninsula is a place apart, unlike anywhere else in Britain, jutting further south than any other part of the mainland into seas that never quite let go of the ships. Its lighthouse was first lit in 1751 to guard vessels from a headland that had been the graveyard of countless ships; it was rebuilt in 1903, and now, automated, it keeps its watch with a visitor centre beside it, its beam still sweeping the same treacherous approaches it has guarded for generations. Just below the point, at Polpeor Cove, stood the old lifeboat station, from which crews once launched into these fierce seas. The rock itself is the peninsula's great wonder: serpentine, a stone mottled red and green, which is in fact a slice of the ancient ocean floor and of the Earth's own mantle, pushed up to the surface here and found almost nowhere else in the country. For centuries it has been quarried, carved and polished into ornaments in the village, a craft that drew crowds of Victorian visitors.

Take your time here and look for several things. First, the lighthouse on its rugged headland, low and white, with the wide southern sea beyond; note how the land simply stops and the ocean begins. Second, look closely at the rock beneath your feet, the serpentine, streaked and swirled with red and green and polished smooth by the sea, quite unlike ordinary Cornish granite. Third, look down to Polpeor Cove and the remains of the old lifeboat slipway, a reminder of how hard-won safety was on this coast. Fourth, watch the cliffs and heath for wildlife: choughs breed here, and the Lizard is one of Britain's botanical treasures, its heaths home to rare plants like the Cornish heath, loveliest in summer. And fifth, look out over the water, where seals and dolphins are often seen and, in summer, basking sharks pass slowly by. The tides here are strong and the cliffs exposed, so keep well back from the edges and keep an eye on the sea.

For all its beauty, remember why the lighthouse stands here. For centuries this headland was a place of shipwreck. Sailing vessels beating up or down the Channel in fog or storm could be driven onto the Lizard's rocks before they ever saw them, and the toll of lost ships was terrible. In 1751 a light was finally raised to warn them, and from Polpeor Cove below, generations of lifeboat crews put out in open boats to bring sailors home from the surf. The polished green ornaments still sold in the village and the calm view today can make it easy to forget; but this gentle-looking point was long one of the most feared landfalls in all of Britain.

From Lizard Point the South West Coast Path turns north and west, and just along the coast lies one of its treasures: Kynance Cove, with its serpentine stacks and turquoise water, counted among the finest beaches in the land. Do not miss it. But first, stand a moment longer here at the toe of Britain, with the whole country stretching away behind you and nothing but sea ahead. Walk safe.