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Photo: Sheila Russell, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Separating the main town from its long stretch of beach (towans being the Cornish word for sand dunes). Once the location for Hayle's explosives works during the town's industrial peak, this vast area of unspoilt wildlife is a popular site for walks and pic nics - and many of the ruins of the factories remain intact, eerily providing visitors some idea of the town's industrial past.
Towan is found in many placenames in Cornwall. However, The Towans usually refers to the three-mile (5 km) stretch of coastal dunes which extends north-east from the estuary of the River Hayle to Gwithian beach with a midpoint near Upton. The South West Coast Path crosses the towans.
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