The Manacles ( kw, Meyn Eglos, meaning ''church stones'') () are a set of treacherous rocks off

The Lizard The Lizard ( kw, An Lysardh) is a peninsula in southern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The most southerly point of the British mainland is near Lizard Point at SW 701115; Lizard village, also known as The Lizard, is the most souther ...

peninsula A peninsula (; ) is a landform that extends from a mainland and is surrounded by water on most, but not all of its borders. A peninsula is also sometimes defined as a piece of land bordered by water on three of its sides. Peninsulas exist on al ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlan ...

. The rocks are rich in marine wildlife and they are a popular spot for diving due to the many

shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...

s. Traditionally pronounced ''mean-a'klz'' (1808), the name derives from the Cornish ''meyn eglos'' (church stones), the top of

St Keverne St Keverne ( kw, Pluw Aghevran (parish), Lannaghevran (village)) is a civil parish and village on The Lizard in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. In addition to the parish, an electoral ward exists called ''St Keverne and Meneage''. This str ...

church spire being visible from the area.

Geography

The rocks are in Falmouth Bay and extends about 1

nautical mile A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today t ...

east and south-east of Manacle Point, on the east coast of the Lizard Peninsula. The nearest village is Porthoustock. The reef consists of many submerged rocks and several groups of rocks that break the surface, although some only do so at low water. The Middle Manacles in the north consist of Maen Chynoweth or Morah ( kw, Morhogh, meaning ''dolphin''), Chyronos, Maen Gerrick and the Gwinges, the eastern group has Vase Rock and Pen Vin, the large group in the centre include the Minstrel Rock, Carn-dhu, Maen Voes (the Voices) and the Quants and Maen Land is in the south-west.

Marine Conservation Zone

The Manacles Marine Conservation Zone was designated on 21 November 2013 and covers an area of approximately 3.5km2. The MCZ extends from Porthoustock Point south to Polcries and extends 2 km from the coastline. The seabed varies within the site and includes rocky reefs, vertical rock faces, subtidal sand and intertidal coarse sediment. The sediments in shallow water support Maerl beds. Maerl is a collective term for several species of red seaweed which have a hard, chalky skeleton. It can be an important habitat for juvenile animals,

anemones ''Anemone'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. Plants of the genus are commonly called windflowers. They are native to the temperate and subtropical regions of all continents except Australia, New Zealand an ...

sea cucumbers Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea (). They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide. The number of holothuri ...

and

sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) ...

Shipwrecks

There have been over a thousand lives lost from more than one hundred ships that have been wrecked on The Manacles. The reef lying on the eastern approach to the port of Falmouth is one reason for the large number of wrecks, although some ships such as were many miles off course when they ploughed into the rocks. Many of the well-known wrecks are in the central group where depths are less than for an area of . These wrecks include: * , an 18-gun , sank on 22 January 1809, with only one of the 126 on board surviving. * The ''John'' carrying 263 emigrants to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, sank on the Maen Land in May 1855, only 86 survived. * , a Greek steamer carrying grain from Novorossijsk to Falmouth sank on 8 February 1890 with the loss of 14 of the 22 crew. * ''Mohegan'' sank on 14 October 1898 with 106 fatalities. Imortalised by the Dundonian poet

William McGonagall William Topaz McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet of Irish descent. He gained notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote about 2 ...

in his poem "The Wreck of the Steamer Mohegan." In 1885

Trinity House "Three In One" , formation = , founding_location = Deptford, London, England , status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity , purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons , he ...

was

petition A petition is a request to do something, most commonly addressed to a government official or public entity. Petitions to a deity are a form of prayer called supplication. In the colloquial sense, a petition is a document addressed to some offic ...

ed for a

lightship Lightship may refer to: * Lightvessel, a moored ship that has light beacons mounted as navigational aids * '' The Lightship'', a 1985 American drama film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski *''The Lightship (novel)'', by Siegfried Lenz on which the film ...

to be moored near the rocks. Over the previous ten years, sixteen vessels, with 693 crew and passengers had been wrecked and the value of the ships and their cargoes was estimated to be about £100,000.

References

External links

A Diver's Guide to The Shipwrecks of The Lizard
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manacles, The Landforms of Cornwall Lizard Peninsula Marine reserves of the United Kingdom Rock formations of England Ship graveyards Underwater diving sites in England