Map - Porthleven

Porthleven is a town, civil parish and fishing port near Helston, Cornwall, England. The most southerly port in Great Britain, it was a harbour of refuge when this part of the Cornish coastline was infamous for wrecks in the days of sail. The South West Coast Path from Somerset to Dorset passes through the town. The population at the 2011 census was 3,059.

Methleigh was the site of a fair and annual market from the year 1066. After the Norman Conquest, the Bishop of Exeter held the manor of Methleigh, but the Earl of Cornwall possessed the right to hold the fair. At the time of the Domesday Survey there were 15 acre of arable land, 40 acre of pasture and 60 acre of underbrush. The population consisted of 15 villeins, 4 smallholders and 3 serfs.

Until 1844 Porthleven was within the parish of Sithney. The parish Church of St Bartholomew was built in 1842. The name Porthleven is probably connected with St Elwen or Elwyn, whose chapel existed here before 1270. It was rebuilt about 1510, but destroyed in 1549. There were also chapels at Higher Penrose and Lanner Veor (the latter founded in 1377) and a holy well at Venton-Vedna. The Vicar of Porthleven in the 1850s was the Rev. Thomas Lockyer Williams, a Tractarian who introduced practices into the parish which provoked dislike in the Rev. Canon John Rogers of Penrose, Rector of Mawnan and a canon of Exeter.

For local-government purposes, Porthleven was included within the nearby town of Helston, until many years of growth gained it a town council of its own. Its population at the United Kingdom Census 2001 was 3,190.

Porthleven's most recognisable building is the Bickford-Smith Institute next to the pier and harbour entrance. It was built on the site of the old Fisherman's Arms and was opened on 16 December 1884. The clock tower on the west corner is 70 feet high. The building originally had a reading room, a committee room, a curator's living room and two bedrooms. The Institute was grade II listed on 18 March 1991 and currently houses the town council and a snooker club. It featured (along with various other scenes from the town) as the incident room in an episode of the TV detective series Wycliffe. A picture of the building against a large breaking wave sometimes appears in the background of BBC UK weather forecasts, particularly when windy conditions and rough seas are expected. The Institute has a plaque to Guy Gibson VC, leader of the Dambuster Raid, on the wall facing the harbour. Gibson was born in India, but saw Porthleven – his mother's home town, where his parents were married – as a home town as well. He visited there while on leave during the war, sometimes attending the Porthleven Methodist Church. His name is marked on the community's war memorial (he was killed in 1944) and a street (Gibson Way) is named after him.