Spectacle Head – A Great Spot for a Long View

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The name of the massive headland looming over Cupids harbour — Spectacle Head — dates back to the early 1600's. The earliest reference comes from the journal of Henry Crout, a colonist living in "Cupers Cove," as the colony was known. On January 25, 1613, Crout wrote: "All the harbour from Salmon Cove unto the Spectacles was frozen."¹ 

The name seems to derive from the towering height of the headland. The summit offers spectacular views of Cupids harbour, Bay de Grave, Conception Bay — and the hill is a spectacle itself.

View of Cupids harbour from the foot of Spectacle Head, date unknown.

Photo from the Sir Robert Bond Collection (12.08.016),
Courtesy of Memorial University Archives and Special Collections.

In the local dialect, Spectacle Head is sometimes referred to as Sparticle Head. The only other place this pronunciation appears is in the dialect of Kent, England. "Sparticles" are spectacles, in the sense of eye glasses.² This suggests that at some point, people from Kent likely settled in the area and brought their dialect with them, and this language holdover remains today.

A view of Spectacle Head from the other side of Cupids harbour.
Photo courtesy of Chris Woodworth-Lynas.

In geological terms, Spectacle Head is a "roche moutonée," a glacially eroded bedrock hill.³ As the glaciers moved over the land, they smoothed the cliffs at the hill's summit. The steep slope where Spectacle Head meets the ocean was created by the rock being broken up and dragged out to sea by the moving ice. As with Burnt Head, it is possible to see sedimentary layering of the Drook Formation in Spectacle Head from across the Harbour.

In this geological drawing of Spectacle Head, the light blue arrows indicate the movement of Pleistocene glaciers out to sea. The dotted orange lines on the hill indicate sedimentary layering of the Drook Formation.

Drawing by Chris Woodworth-Lynas.

¹ Seary, E.R., Place Names of the Avalon Peninsula of the Island of Newfoundland. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971.
² A Dictionary of the Kentish Dialect. Kent Archaeological Society, 2008.
³ Geological information and photos provided by Chris Woodworth-Lynas.

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Acknowledgements