Porthcothan Fogou Cave / Rock Shelter View all content for Porthcothan Fogou

Known locally as the fogou, this narrow cave is situated about a mile inland from Porthcothan beach The low entrance to the cave is halfway up the valley side on the right. It's very well hidden in bracken and gorse in the summer. I'm not totally sure that public access is permitted as it is on farmland. (Find a friendly local who may know the way) The site has been used in the past for smuggling and also as a hide-out during the Civil war. There are notches near the mouth, into which smugglers lodged a beam of timber; they then heaped earth against the beam and covered the pile with furze to hide the entrance. The tunnel supposedly led to a farm half a mile away Although some may say it is cave, on the 1888 map of Cornwall it is marked "fogou" see the 1888 map online at http://www.old-maps.co.uk/ In the Co-ordinate box type:- 186461,71394 and click - search

Posted by phil 2nd January 2002ce

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