This Edwardian photo shows the beach at Penzance in Cornwall.

I found it in a box of photos from a Cornish auction. I must admit that I wasn’t too impressed when I first scanned it because no one was looking at camera. But then I looked a little closer at what I thought was a pile of tarpaulins or fishing equipment.

These dark shapes are a pair of elephants!! Not what you’d expect to see on a beach in one of the outlying edges of Britain.

A bit more research told me that the circus used to visit Penzance every summer, and a popular daily activity was to parade the elephants through the streets to bathe in the sea.

It seems that the circus only visited twice, so this really does show a rare snapshot in time.

You can see more at: http://www.westbriton.co.uk/went-circus/story-11518611-detail/story.html