tronage of the lord of the manor of Raphael who possessed the right to the
harbour. Polperro's newer quay is also of unknown date; it is sited almost on
an east-west alignment a little further out. It already existed in 1774 when it
suffered much damage in a storm, following which Mr Long, the lord of the
manors of Raphael and Lansallos, paid for its repair. Parts of the harbour were
rebuilt after destruction by a violent storm on 19 and 20 January 1817, when
thirty large boats, two seines and many smaller boats were destroyed and parts
of the village including the Green and the Peak were inundated by the sea and a
number of houses were swept away. The damage was estimated at £2,000 but no
lives were lost. This storm with hurricane-force winds caused damage to
property from Plymouth to Land's End; the fishing boats at Polperro ″shared in
the common calamity and exposed the unhappy sufferers to distress from which
the industry of years can scarcely be expected to relieve them″. In November
1824 the worst ever storm occurred: three houses were destroyed, the whole of
one pier and half the other were swept away and nearly 50 boats in the harbour
were dashed to pieces. Only six boats remained only one of which was a seiner.
The new pier was designed to give better protection in the future. The East
Indiaman
Albemarle was blown
ashore with her valuable cargo of diamonds, coffee, pepper, silk and indigo on
9 December 1708 near Polperro (the precise location of the wreck has never been
established).
Jonathan Couch was the village doctor for many years, and wrote the history
of the village as well as various works of natural history (particularly on
ichthyology). The History of Polperro,
1871, was published after his death by his son, Thomas Quiller Couch, with many
further abridgements since. Couch contributed two series of articles to the
