Port Isaac

Port Isaac
Cornish: Porthusek
A view of Port Isaac
Port Isaac  Port Isaac shown within Cornwall
OS grid reference	SW997809
Civil parish	St Endellion
Unitary authority	Cornwall
Ceremonial county	Cornwall
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	PORT ISAAC
Postcode district	PL29
Dialling code	01208
Police	Devon and Cornwall
Fire	Cornwall
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	North Cornwall
List of places: UK • England • Cornwall

Port Isaac (Cornish: Porthusek) is a small and picturesque fishing village on the Atlantic Coast of North Cornwall, United Kingdom. The nearest towns are Wadebridge and Camelford, both ten miles away in opposite directions. Port Gaverne, commonly mistaken to be part of Port Isaac, is a hamlet that has its own individual history. Since the 1980s the village has served as backdrop to various TV productions, and most recently the ITV series Doc Martin. The meaning of the name Porth Izzick (modified in English spelling) is the "corn port," indicating a trade in wheat from the arable inland district.

History

Port Isaac viewed from the West.

The Port Isaac pier was constructed during the reign of Henry VIII. The village's central precinct dates from the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, from a time when its prosperity was tied to local coastal freight and fishing. The port handled cargoes such as coal, wood, stone, ores, limestone, salt, pottery and heavy goods which were conveyed down its narrow streets. Fishermen still work from the Platt, landing their daily catch of fish, crab and lobsters.

The Port Isaac lifeboat station was established in 1869 following the delivery of two lifeboats called Richard and Sarah. The former boathouse is now the building called the Post Office. In the early 1960s the Royal National Lifeboat Institution introduced the Inshore Lifeboat, and in 1967 the Port Isaac Station reopened with a new class D inshore lifeboat. Since that time, the lifeboat has responded to more than 550 calls, in the process saving more than 140 lives. Today, Port Isaac's crew and shore helpers man the station twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, providing full coverage of Cornwall's north coast.

Places of worship

The church of St. Peter was built as a chapel-of-ease in the parish of St Endellion in 1882-84; Port Isaac became a separate parish in 1913 though more recently it has returned to St. Endellion parish. The building materials were granite and stone and the style adopted was Early English.

A former Methodist chapel converted into an art gallery

There have been three Nonconformist places of worship in the village: the oldest was a Quaker meeting house, 1806; from 1832 it was in use by the Baptists but was converted to a dwelling house in 1871. The United Methodist chapel (1946) and the Wesleyan Methodist chapel remain in use.

Local culture

The village is also home to the group Fisherman's Friends, sea shanty singers who perform every Friday evening in summer from around 8 PM on The Platt in the old harbour. The group signed an album deal in March 2010 for £1 million with Universal.

The singers are made up of ten local residents, including the postmaster and author of the Gully books, Jon Cleave, and the crab and lobstermen of the village. The Fisherman's Friends have performed all over the UK including the Royal Albert Hall and have appeared on the popular television quiz show Eggheads. The Master of Ceremonies is usually either Jon Cleave or Jeremy Brown.

Film locations

View of Doc Martin's fictional home, which is actually "Fern Cottage" shown in the centre of the picture

Despite its isolation the village has had several visits from celebrities. The BBC series Poldark (1975–77) used locations in the area; the BBC drama serial The Nightmare Man (1981) was filmed in and around the village, which doubled for a Scottish island and it was a location for the film of Oscar and Lucinda (1997). The local village hall has been decorated by the team of DIY SOS, and to date, five series of ITV's Doc Martin have been filmed there although the village has a fictional name of "Port Wenn." Saving Grace, a successful comedy film, was filmed in and around the village.

In October 2005, the village was again used for the backdrop to the television production of Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers. Filming took place in the village for a week with the production's star, Vanessa Redgrave, filming many of her scenes in the main street. The filming of the third series is currently taking place.^{[citation needed]} Port isaac also was the location for the BBC one off supernatural play "tarry dan,tarry dan, scary old spooky man" broadcast in may 1978

Transport

Until the closure of the Okehampton to Wadebridge railway line in 1966 the village was served by a station at Port Isaac Road. The station, some three miles (five kilometers) from Port Isaac itself, opened on 1 June 1895, and had a passing loop and a single siding with headshunt that served a goods shed and loading dock. All buildings were of local stone; station building and signal box locking room on the up platform, the small waiting shelter on the down platform, and the goods shed. Ticket sales were low, with nearly 4,500 annually in 1928, dropping to under 2,000 in 1936; freight dropped in a similar way over the same period. The station layout never changed until the station siding was taken out of use in December 1965. The station was unstaffed from 6 December 1965 and closed on 3 October 1966. The station buildings and goods shed survive largely unchanged.

There is a large car park on the outskirts of the village.

Well-known people

In recent years, the village has become home, for part of the year, to such well-known people as designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, actress Julie Peasgood, and TV presenter Lorne Spicer.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Port Isaac at the Open Directory Project
• Information on lifeboat station
• Cornwall Record Office Online Catalogue for Port Isaac