A Quiet Spot
Once known as King’s Cove, the little inlet is now named for its most famous resident. John Carter was given the moniker the ‘King of Prussia’ for his resemblance to Frederick the Great, who ruled those lands and whom he much admired.
But Carter himself was not royalty – he and his brothers Harry and Charles were notorious Cornish smugglers in the 1700s.
Instead of a life working down the tin mines they took to making a tidy profit by smuggling spirits and other contraband in to England, using the remote cove as their operation centre. John Carter was known as the brains behind the racket, living above the cove and even building a secret tunnel into the house on the rocks to help vanish away his precious bounty when it came in by boat.
The brothers were so prolific that in the 1780s, half of all the brandy drunk in Britain was said to be smuggled through Prussia Cove. By the time the King mysteriously disappeared in 1807 they were legendary, known locally as ‘honest’, even gentlemanly pirates, despite the occasional skirmish with a revenue boat in the waters between Cornwall and France. They once even broke into the Customs house in Penzance to steal back the contraband goods they’d had confiscated.
Today it has a small harbour and slipway and is still used by local fishermen.
A Quiet Spot
Once known as King’s Cove, the little inlet is now named for its most famous resident. John Carter was given the moniker the ‘King of Prussia’ for his resemblance to Frederick the Great, who ruled those lands and whom he much admired.
But Carter himself was not royalty – he and his brothers Harry and Charles were notorious Cornish smugglers in the 1700s.
Instead of a life working down the tin mines they took to making a tidy profit by smuggling spirits and other contraband in to England, using the remote cove as their operation centre. John Carter was known as the brains behind the racket, living above the cove and even building a secret tunnel into the house on the rocks to help vanish away his precious bounty when it came in by boat.
The brothers were so prolific that in the 1780s, half of all the brandy drunk in Britain was said to be smuggled through Prussia Cove. By the time the King mysteriously disappeared in 1807 they were legendary, known locally as ‘honest’, even gentlemanly pirates, despite the occasional skirmish with a revenue boat in the waters between Cornwall and France. They once even broke into the Customs house in Penzance to steal back the contraband goods they’d had confiscated.
Today it has a small harbour and slipway and is still used by local fishermen.