The Gannel

From Discover Newquay

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The Gannel Estuary is a very special conservation area with salt marshes, mud flats and sand teeming with wildlife. The River Gannel is tidal, not suitable for swimming and avoid high tide if you want to walk around the estuary. Below is an extract taken from Ken Langmaid's unpublished book written in the 60's.

Photo of the Gannel River by Keith Riley

"The peninsula on which Newquay stands is cut off from the land to the south by Gannel - a tidal estuary into which flows a smallish river. The tidal portion is navigable for 1.5 miles by rowing boats (when the tide is up), but to a large extent the channel is silted up with sand. In former days there was some commerce and shipbuilding carried on but now only a few pleasure craft are seen on its waters. There are two foot ferries, one from Trethellan and the other from Fernpit (on Pentire). Also two footbridges - at Trethellan and Ranley Point (near the boating lake) which are useable at low tide.

The first road bridge is at Trevemper where a mouldering example of a packhorse bridge may be seen above the main road bridge.

The Gannel is unlike any other Cornish estuary. It is on a much smaller scale than the Camel.Towards the mouth it becomes narrow and gorge-like with some enviably situated villas and hotels on the steep Pentire slopes. The other side of the valley has some nice grassy slopes, a few delightful groves of trees and tangles of undergrowth (brakes). Opposite Trethellan Farm with its camping site is the wooded Penpol Creek branching off southwards. It hides a farm, a tiny stream, a ruined limekiln, a quarry (where I used to catch newts) and the treasure ship Ada. This is a collection of curios from many parts of the world, on show to the public. (No longer here)

Photo of cowslips on Gannel by June Fullwood

The keel of the old schooner Ada may be seen nearby, rotting in the mud. She was the last big ship to be brought into the Gannel. This took place some 60 years ago with the aid of a Spring tide and a torrent of nautical language. The presence of an ocean-going vessel in the estuary was an embarassment to the progressives who wanted to put a dam across the river mouth with the threefold purpose of providing Newquay with a large lake, a direct road to Crantock and the adjacent coastline, and electricity from tidal power. No doubt there was much to gain but it is questionable whether the gains would have counter-balanced the losses. If the Gannel had become a perpetual lake I should have missed the stretches of perfectly clean sand which are often the only sheltered sands in the district, the warm water pools, the saltings with their bird life and peculiar vegetation, the exciting rush of water as the sea fills the estuary with its cleansing flow. The Gannel is so evocative of things past that any change in its character would be an aesthetic loss."

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