Porthloo (sometimes spelled and often pronounced Porthlow; "cove of the deep water inlet") is a coastal settlement on the island of St Mary's in the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It is situated about half a mile northeast of

Hugh Town Hugh Town ( or ) is the largest settlement on the Isles of Scilly and its administrative centre. The town is situated on the island of St Mary's, Isles of Scilly, St Mary's, the largest and most populous island in the archipelago, and is located ...

and is a popular tourist spot with a number of guest houses, a restaurant, several gift shops and art galleries. The only

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

club on the Isles of Scilly is situated just to the north of Porthloo. The course consists of nine holes, each with two tees. The club was founded in 1904 and the course and clubhouse are open to visitors.

Beach

Porthloo Beach faces west - there are two tidal islets called Taylor's Island and Newford Island which are to the north and south of the beach respectively. At the top of the beach is a small remnant sand dune system with the grassy area behind used for boat standing and repairs. Due to the disturbance hairy buttercup ('' Ranunculus sardous''), along with other arable weeds appear here in one of its few sites on Scilly, and the only known site for wall–rue ('' Asplenium ruta-muraria'') in the Isles of Scilly is just to the south. Porthloo is within an

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

, is a

Geological Conservation Review The Geological Conservation Review (GCR) is produced by the UK's Joint Nature Conservation Committee. It is designed to identify those sites of national and international importance needed to show all the key scientific elements of the geological ...

site and was designated a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

(SSSI) in 1996. All of the land designated as Porthloo SSSI is owned by the Duchy of Cornwall. The site is notified for a succession of

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

sediments listed below with youngest at the top of the list: * Aeolian

loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...

deposits dated to 18,000 years BP (before present) *

Head A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple ani ...

deposits with

breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

recognised as the type locality and known as the Porthloo Breccia. Dated to the Late Devensian 30,000 BP the pollen from organic layers indicate a

tundra In physical geography, a tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: #Arctic, Arctic, Alpine tundra, Alpine, and #Antarctic ...

climate *Storm beach laid down during the Ipswichian

interglacial An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene i ...

which started 130,000 years ago and ended about 114,000 years ago.

Boat yard

The Duchy of Cornwall runs a "boat park" at Porthloo, providing ground storage of boats, including ones too large for storing on-land elsewhere on St Mary's. There is a wide slipway leading across the beach, partially sheltered by Newford Island, which is used (in addition to the boat park) by landing barges, loading items which the St Mary's Harbour quay (at Hugh Town) cannot handle, such as large vehicles and machinery. There are boat maintenance sheds adjacent to the slipway.

In television

The

postbox A post box (British English; also written postbox; also known as pillar box), also known as a collection box, mailbox, letter box or drop box (American English), is a physical box into which members of the public can deposit outgoing mail intend ...

at Porthloo Terrace was the starting point in a '' Top Gear'' challenge to race the Royal Mail's delivery of a letter to

Orkney Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland, ...

.''Top Gear'': series 13, episode 4

References

External links

{{SSSIs Cornwall geological Villages in the Isles of Scilly Sites of Special Scientific Interest notified in 1996 Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the Isles of Scilly Populated places on St Mary's, Isles of Scilly