The four beaches in the Parish are:

Trevaunance Cove or St Agnes,

Porthtowan,

Chapel Porth,

Trevellas

© Richard Selby


Of course a coastline doesn't observe parish boundaries and there are further beaches either side of St Agnes: Portreath to the SW and Perranporth to the NE.

By the same token Trevellas beach does not have the facilities to be found at the other three: food, toilets, lifeguards, swimming, and surfing. It has limited parking and the road to the beach is not car-friendly. But a beach there is and it is a pleasant spot to take the dog for a walk while enjoying the panoramic view of the Cove. Trevellas and St Agnes beaches are unusual in having no restriction on dogs between Easter and October.

The three beaches that allow swimming are patrolled by pofessional lifeguards during the summer months.

Porthtowan and St Agnes have popular Surf Life Saving Clubs and St Agnes has a RNLI lifebout station.

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St Agnes RNLI lifeboat station

The 18th century saw an increased use of seafaring vessels to transport goods, with an accompanying interest in protective measures such as insurance and life-saving boats.

The first known specific design (by Greathead) for a life-saving boat dates from 1789 and was used to build some thirty boats. In 1824 the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck was founded. In the 1850s this Institution was reorganised and given the name it carries today.

During the same period a new design (by Beeching, modified by Peake) became the accepted standard and remained so into the next century – this was the self-righter, typically 34 foot long and weighing upwards of two tons.

The first switch from oars to steam power came in 1890, followed by five more such lifeboats before the turn of the century. During the first decade of the twentieth century the internal combustion engine migrated from the motor car to the lifeboat. By the end of the next decade all ten lifeboat stations in Cornwall were using motor lifeboats.

The second half of the twentieth century saw the introduction of fast lifeboats and inshore lifeboats (ILBs), with St Agnes the first lifeboat station to use nothing but an ILB. One of four funded by an appeal from the Blue Peter television program, the St Agnes ILB, named Blue Peter IV, became operational in 1968.