Ralph's Cupboard

Legends of fierce giants abound in Cornwall, but surely one of the fiercest and most wicked was the giant known as Wrath of Portreath. Wrath lived in a huge cavern, known as his “cupboard” where he would lie in wait for passing ships, wade out into the sea and attack them, killing the sailors with a single blow from his huge fingers. Then, he would carefully select the better specimens for supper and, tying the ships up to his belt he would tow his booty back to his cave. Even those who warily sailed by at what they thought was a safe distance were in danger. Wrath would fling huge rocks onto them from high up on the cliff and these are still visible today when the tide is low, forming a deadly reef that stretches from Godrevy Head.

St.Ives sailors avoided the “cupboard” at all costs, swearing that nothing that went into it ever came out again.

Some years ago it lost its roof and became an open gorge with the sea flowing into it at high tide, but Ralph’s Cupboard, as it is now known, is still one of the more spectacular-if no longer terrifying-sights along the cliffs at Portreath.