Holiday Homes for Sale in Cornwall with Sea Views Gwendreath, Kennack Sands – The Lizard Peninsula

The Gwendreath Valley

From Seaview, a footpath leads down through the Gwendreath Valley to the beach. The valley was once grazed so intensively that trees couldn’t grow, but as grazing declined the woodland returned – today it’s a shady, sheltered walk of ferns, wild flowers and birdsong, crossed by traditional low Cornish stone stiles.

The elms that once grew here were lost to Dutch elm disease in the 1970s, but young elms are now flourishing again alongside the other trees. In spring and early summer the path is lined with wild flowers, including spring squill and kidney vetch, which attract butterflies and other insects, and autumn squill flowers later in the year. Look out for the stiles too – some are horizontal “coffen” stiles, others stepped cattle stiles, marking old Cornish routes between woods and fields.

The regrowth of the elms has brought wildlife back to the valley too. The young trees attract plenty of insects, which in turn bring woodpeckers – listen out for their drumming as you walk. On the sunnier, more open ground at the edge of the reserve you may spot lizards and slow worms basking, while butterflies drift between the wild flowers on warm summer days.

A gentle 1.4-mile circular walk links Kennack Sands with the inland village of Kuggar through the valley and the Lizard National Nature Reserve – an easy stroll that’s ideal for families and dog walkers. From the beach the route follows the coast path towards Coverack, then turns inland and climbs gently through the woodland above a stream before returning across the fields and a footbridge to Kennack.

From Seaview it’s about a 10-minute walk down through the valley to the sands – and, as our owners will tell you, a little longer coming back up the hill! Dogs are welcome on the path, and the East Beach at the bottom is dog friendly all year round.

The valley is lovely at any time of year: cool and green in the height of summer, bright with flowers in spring, and sheltered from the wind on a blustery autumn day – the perfect way to start a day on the beach, or end one with a gentle stroll home as the sun goes down.

Rocks You Won’t Find Anywhere Else

Kennack is one of the best places in Britain to see the Lizard’s famous geology. The cliffs and pebbles are made of serpentine – a rock veined in red, green, black, yellow and white – along with banded Kennack gneiss, where pale pink granite and dark grey basalt are layered together.

These rocks formed on the ocean floor around 375 million years ago and were pushed up onto the land when continents collided, giving the Lizard its unique landscape and rare heathland plants, including the creamy-pink Cornish heath.

Look closely at the cliffs and you’ll also see dark dykes of basalt and gabbro, where molten rock was forced up through ancient cracks. Recent cliff falls have exposed these layers more clearly than ever, and the mix of granite, basalt and serpentine pebbles on the beach is found nowhere else in the UK – making a walk along the shore at low tide a fascinating treasure hunt for children and grown-ups alike.

At the Caerverracks headland, which divides the two beaches, faulting has left the rock threaded with spidery veins of many different coloured minerals. Elsewhere you can find xenoliths – pieces of one type of rock caught up inside another – and the Kennack gneiss itself was created when older schists melted and fused together as the continents collided.

The shifting sands sometimes reveal an even older secret: at very low tides, traces of a fossilised forest have been exposed on the beach. As Kennack is part of a National Nature Reserve, please enjoy the pebbles and rocks where you find them and leave them on the beach for the next visitors to discover.