After leaving Paris, the next leg of our trip was very much undecided. Truth be told, we actually changed our minds about three times before finally settling on a three week stay in a holiday cottage in St Mawgan, Cornwall.
We had toyed with the idea of spending the time touring around Wales, Ireland and Scotland, but having been on the road for the last four months, the packing/unpacking and constant travel had caught up with us so we opted to put down roots for three weeks and live like locals in one of our favourite places in England.....Cornwall. And to do day trips here and there, as and when we wanted.
St Mawgan was a happy accident in that I simply googled holiday cottages in Cornwall and this particular one popped up and almost jumped out of the screen at me....and most importantly the price was right. (Spoken like a true Yorkshireman!)
We spent our first three nights in Lobbs Cottage - a modern 3 bedroom cottage over two levels with all the mod cons. It was real luxury.
The rest of the time we were next door in a one bedroom cottage called Little Ramwood. Both cottages were owned by the same people, Cam and Julie Donnelly who advertise the cottages through a company called Holiday Letting. We'd originally tried to book Little Ramwood for the entire 3 weeks, but for the first 3 nights it was already booked out. Little Ramwood was not as luxurious as Lobbs Cottage, but had everything we needed....a full kitchen including a washing machine, separate dining room and a bedroom with double bed and a sofa and TV.....and central heating which kept the place toasty even on frosty mornings.
The village of St Mawgan, or to give it its full name St Mawgan in Pydar, has a population of around one thousand people. There are two pubs, a church and a Methodist chapel, a primary school, sports fields and a village shop which is also the post office and tearooms. I was also happy to see that the village has a public toilet block. Why is this such a big deal you ask? After months of travelling around large European cities where we found that either there were no public toilets at all (other than in cafes and bars - where you have to make a purchase before using the amenities) or if there was a public toilet you had to pay 50 cents or a euro or sometimes two euro to use them......to find here, in a village of 1000 people there is a well maintained, free to use public toilet with mens, ladies and disabled options, I was most impressed. Even more impressive was an old red phone-box with a phone that actually worked!
There is a quite famous (well in these parts its famous) Japanese garden with bonsai trees etc. in the village. Unfortunately, with the tourist season well and truly over for the year, it was closed so we couldn't take a look. There are still signs up everywhere though advertising it.
The village its self sits in a valley known as The Vale of Lanherne, with a small river, the River Menalhyl flowing through the valley bottom. It's a very quaint village with old stone buildings making up the bulk of the village centre, which is dominated by the 13th-century parish church, dedicated to St Mauganus and St Nicholas. The church was originally a cruciform building of the 13th century but was enlarged by a south aisle and the upper part of the tower in the 15th. Some of the pews have carved ends dating from the 15th Century. And for all you campanologists, the 15th century bell tower has a total of 8 bells and sounds quite wonderful on a Sunday morning.
We attended services at the church on remembrance Sunday and it was sad to see that the church was almost empty. The congregation who did turn up were all retired people, which does not bode well for the future of the church. Like many country churches, this one doesn't have a permanent vicar, but shares one with other parishes who "does the rounds" of the churches in turn.
I would get pretty short odds that when we return to Cornwall in a few years time we'll find that the church has been converted into a holiday home by some rich interloper from London.
Up the hill behind the church is a monastery, originally of Celtic monks and after the Norman Conquest of Cluniac monks.
The Celtic monastery was established in St Mawgan in the 6th century. It was dissolved in the 11th century. The monastery became the Manor of Lanherne by 1086 as recorded in the Domesday Book. Then becoming a manor house for the Arundell family (who were the major land owners of the district) and by 1360 it was their main residence. In 1794 the estate was given up for use as a convent by Carmelite nuns and is still in use. Some of the out buildings on the estate have fallen into disrepair and there is a village preservation group (volunteers) who are about to tackle the big job of restoring these buildings.
We truly loved our three weeks in the village. As previously mentioned, it's such a quaint place.....quite beautiful.....and the locals are so friendly.
We can certainly recommend the food, drinks and service in the Falcon Inn. A nice cozy haven on a cold Autumn night, with old wooden beams and a roaring log fire. In summer you'd be able to make use of the beer garden, but right now a place by the fire is our best option.
The earliest record relating to what is known as The Falcon Inn dates from 1758 although the village has had a number of breweries and cider houses from the 14th century. The building which is now the Falcon Inn was originally kept as The New Inn at Mawgan Churchtown from 1779 to 1788, and it is likely that this was the inn which subsequently became The Gardeners' Arms and later The Falcon Inn. In 1813 we find the first reference to The Gardeners' Arms with John Charles as proprietor.
In 1835 George Bishop and his wife (Mary Gilbert) became landlords, to be succeeded four years later by Samuel Gilbert, Mary's brother. It was during this time that Samuel became famous for his beer making. He was also a formidable wrestler and the Inn became well known for the staging of matches. Sometime around 1880 he changed the name of the inn to The Falcon Inn, both name and sign drawn from the coat of arms of the owners of the Estate.
The Village shop/post office/tearooms (nice food and reasonable prices) are run by Neil and Bonita, ably assisted by Danielle - all very friendly and helpful folk who are happy to spare you some of their time to talk about the village or recommend walks or other activities in the area. If there's anything that the shop doesn't stock, you only have to ask and Neil will get it....usually by the next day.....so he told me. I was so tempted to ask for an alligator sandwich......and make it snappy!
One walk starts from beside the Japanese gardens and follows the river and valley bottom through woodlands and across fields to the coastal settlement of Mawgan Porth. It's such a nice walk we did it a couple of times. It takes about 40 minutes each way and is over fairly easy terrain with a few hills and styles to climb over, so unfortunately it's no good for wheelchairs.
Mawgan Porth is situated on the coast, where the River Menalhyl meets the sea. There is a nice stretch of sandy beach enclosed on 2 sides by cliffs and on the 3rd side by the settlement....the 4th side is of course the sea.
When the tide comes in, it does so fairly quickly so watch out. I stopped to take a few photos of waves against the rocks and quickly realised that I couldn't spend too much longer on my photos as the sea first lapped at my ankles and then quickly overtook me.
There were only about half a dozen hardy souls on the beach.....well it was November after all. The interesting thing was that 50% of the people had metal detectors - that must surely make Mawgan Porth the metal detector capital of Cornwall - maybe even of the entire United Kingdom its self!
There are several places to eat in Mawgan Porth. The place that we chose was a cafe/restaurant called Catch. In summer time I bet they do a roaring trade with holiday makers and Surfies seated outside enjoying the coastal views. We are here in November though so the choice of dining indoors was the sensible one. The cafe is very nicely furnished and the Christmas decorations are starting to go up even though Christmas is still a month away. The staff here are very welcoming and the food is great. Good menu with plenty of choice and good sized portions. We definitely recommend Catch to anyone who plans a trip to Mawgan Porth.
We made a few day trips out and about by car during our 3 weeks in Cornwall. The weather was fine mostly with a few showery days but I think we were only confined to the house for 2 days in all due to heavy rain and winds. For this time of year, not bad at all.
One cold and overcast day we went to the coastal village of Tintangel to visit the castle ruins.
The castle has a long association with legends related to King Arthur. This began in the twelfth century when Geoffrey of Monmouth described Tintagel as the place of Arthur's conception in his fictionalized account of British history, the Historia Regum Britanniae.
Tintagel Castle has been a tourist destination since the mid-19th century. Owned by Charles, Prince of Wales as part of the landholdings of the Duchy of Cornwall, the site is currently managed by English Heritage.
The village its self is definitely one for the tourist season (spring, summer and autumn) as it has lots of tourist themed shops, cafes and pubs. In winter it was very quiet and many places were closed for the season.
The castle ruins however were open so we paid our entry fee and began a quite steep walk, first down to sea level, from the village high on the hill and then up a steep path and lots and lots of stone steps, over a wooden bridge from the mainland onto an island, on top of which are the ruins of what legend tells us was King Arthur's Castle. It's a heck of a climb and there are little signs encouraging you to keep going along the steps on the way up. The ruins themselves are a little disappointing in their size and condition, but the location is quite spectacular and very rugged, high on sheer clifftops overlooking the waves crashing on rocks below and flowing in and out of what we are told is Merlin's Cave. There are ruins of other building up here too all over the plateau. Information signs are plentiful and you can easily spend a couple of hours up here reading them all and discovering what all the ruins are about.
There is a rather nice sculpture up here on the clifftop. It is I assume King Arthur himself . I deduce this by the fact that he is holding the mighty sword Excalibur and has a crown on his head. Highly impressed I posed for a pic with the man we've all come to see. Finally beaten back by the cold wind though, we only lasted about an hour up on the clifftops and retired to one of the village pubs for lunch and to warm up again.
Another day we had a day out to the little fishing village of Mousehole (pronounced Mawzil). This part of the Cornish coast, known as Mount's Bay is quite rugged and the winter waves often crash against and over the harbour walls. Although it was a cool day, we were well wrapped up and bought a couple of Cornish pasties and sat on a bench overlooking the harbour watching the sea-spray coming over the walls.
It's a pretty little village. Cornwall is so quaint. Everywhere down this part of England is very picturesque and quaint.
Mousehole lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). Almost a third of Cornwall has AONB designation, with the same status and protection as a National Park.
Mousehole, like Penzance, Newlyn, and Paul, was destroyed in the 1595 raid on Mount's Bay by Spaniard Carlos de Amésquita, the only surviving building being the 'Keigwin Arms', a local pub. Outside the Keigwin Arms (now a private residence) is a plaque with the wording "Squire Jenkyn Keigwin was killed here 23 July 1595 defending this house against the Spaniards".
Although a lifeboat had been available in Mount's Bay for many years, a new lifeboat station at Penlee Point, on the outskirts of the village, was opened in 1913. On 19 December 1981 the entire lifeboat crew of eight was lost during an attempted rescue in hurricane-force winds. The lifeboat was moved to Newlyn in 1983 but continues to be known as the 'Penlee Lifeboat'. It must be remembered that lifeboat crews are for the main part, local volunteers who put their lives on the line to rescue strangers. A very noble thing to do.
Since we were down here at the bottom corner of England we also did a side trip to Land's End and also stopped off at the village of Sennen which boasts England's first and last pub. It also has a lovely little stone church, St Sennen's. Sennen parish church is dedicated to St Sinninus but has also been dedicated to St John the Baptist. There is a sign on the tower of the church stating that it was founded in 520ad.
A visit by members of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society on their annual excursion in August 1893 translated a Latin inscription on a stone at the base of the font as ″In the year of the Lord 1441, this Church was dedicated on (the festival of) the beheading of St John the Baptist". The present church has a chancel and nave, a south aisle and a north transept. A wall-painting depicting two round embattled towers was uncovered during restoration in 1867. There is also a headless alabaster figure representing the Virgin Mary in the transept. The church has a tower housing a ring of three bells.
As has happened a few times on our travels, we were in the church yard having a look around and taking photos, when a gentleman and his wife, who had been preparing the church for the Sunday service invited us in to see the inside of the church and the newly restored pipe organ. For some reason, way back in time, the people in charge of the church had decided to paint the church organ brown. It has now been fully restored to its original colours and looks absolutely marvelous. (see photo above).
Danielle from the village tearooms told us that we should take a look at St Agnes and afterwards to try a walk along the coastal path to Wheal Coates to see the ruins of the old tin mines.
St Agnes was a nice enough place and we had coffee and cake in a cafe that used to be the old post office sorting office.....it's called, quite originally....The Sorting Office. A small but cozy and warm haven from the cool breezy weather. The lady who runs the cafe was welcoming and the service was good. I must put something on Trip Advisor about it.
St Agnes, like most Cornish villages is pretty. There's still a few "proper" shops, by which I mean a Barbers, Butchers and Grocery Store. It's always nicer to see these shops than the usual tourist trash shops.
Just out side of the town/Village is a small stoney beach with lifeboat station. It may actually be quite nice here on a warm summers day.....not today however, so after taking a few quick photos we jump back into the warmth of the car and make our way to Wheal Coates and the Old Tin Mines.
Brrrr. It's not any warmer here. We're on an exposed clifftop overlooking a choppy sea. Here are the remains of some old Cornish Tin Mines, now just ruins, but were the heart of industry in these parts. On a cold and overcast day they look quite sad. Great coastal views though.
We brave a walk around the coastal path passed the ruins of the mines looking for St Agnes chapel and a well or fountain.....we never did find either though. Later back at the car park and looking at the big map on the noticeboard we see where we went wrong, but decide against going for another walk. Time to move on again.
One of the largest coastal towns in the area is Newquay. Eager to explore we set off in the hire car. It's quite a nice drive to get there, but the town its self is rather disappointing. It's single claim to fame, from what we can see on arrival in this rather dismal hole of a place is that the Beatles used it as one of the locations for their movie the Magical Mystery Tour.The biggest mystery is why on earth they bothered coming to Newquay at all.
We hoped for a better day by visiting St Ives, a well known and well loved holiday spot for the English and overseas visitors alike.
Apart from the fact that the St Ives council seem to want visitors to park miles away up the hill from the town its self, involving quite a steep hike down to the harbour.....which of course means climbing ropes and crampons to get back up again, I quite liked St Ives.
AND what really rubbed salt into the wound, so to speak, was that once down at the harbour level there were a number of places to park!
There are quite a lot of shops aimed at the tourist trade with the usual tacky gifts, but also enough "real shops" to counter this. There are of course many bakers all claiming to have the best Cornish Pasties ever. We bought some on the harbour front and munched our way through this local delicacy. Very nice.....and filling! And followed it by a large Chocolate Brownie that we didn't really need......but it was too tempting to resist.
There are lots of narrow cobbled lanes to explore (this is Cornwall after all), with quaint B&B places to stay, but I liked the harbour area best of all.
Although the tide was out, leaving a number of boats stranded on the.....well the strand.....or sand, it was quite wonderful.
There were also a lot of colourful, small boats sitting around the edge of the harbour and lobster pots enough to feed a small African nation.
Some fine looking, not to mention very large, hotels and other buildings up on the hill have magnificent views of the town, harbour and bay.
Yes I quite like St Ives....but the gut-busting climb back up to the car park just about finished me off.
When we first visited Cornwall back in July we went to the Eden Project and I had a big moan about the distance from the car park to the entrance and how poorly signposted it was, and another moan about the twisty meandering footpaths that take forever to get anywhere on. To prove that there's no fool like an old fool.......I went back for another visit in November.
This time though I knew where I was going, found the main vehicle entrance to the Eden Project with no bother at all, and because it was an all together miserable, cold, windy and rainy day, there were very few visitors and we got a park in the closest car park to the visitors centre.
As I turned off the engine feeling very pleased with myself at how well things had turned out, the wind turned gale force and it began to hail.
We donned our rain gear and made a sprint to the shelter of the visitors centre. Well to be honest Lizzie made a sprint for it, I hobbled behind in her wake, being shot at from all angles by golf ball size hailstones. Never mind rain gear.....I needed Kevlar body armour.
Battered and bruised I eventually caught up with Lizzie in the visitors centre. A bit of good news was that when we first visited in July, our entry fee was made as a donation.....which for some reason meant we received a year long visitors pass, so this visit was free. Hurrah!
It made the cold and the pain all that much more bearable.
As we emerged from the visitors centre into the Eden Project grounds, the sky cleared a little, the wind dropped and the hail ceased. I glanced at the direction signs pointing the way to the two big domes....which we wanted to re-visit and thought I'm not falling for that one again. Arrows that send you in a huge loop passing every other sight before you arrive at your destination.....not on your Nelly mate. I fell for that last time. Having already sussed things out earlier we walked a short distance in a straight line over the footbridge to an elevator which took us down to a footpath leading us fairly straightforwardly to the Rain Forest and the Mediterranean domes.
Now why don't they tell you that in the visitors centre?
I won't go on about what we saw, as it was pretty much the same as last time (read earlier blog post).
But what had changed was the seasons of course. Gone were the greens of summer, replaced by the yellows, oranges, reds and purples of Autumn.
This was even reflected in the tables and chairs outside the on site cafe. (see photos above).
I will however just mention that in a building next to the domes - a kind of learing centre for kids to learn about nature and the environment, there was a rather bizarre display featuring several dolls.
Take a look at the "coloured gentleman" doll and where he has his hand. I'm not sure what it is that they are trying to teach the kids!
Tim Smit was the brains behind the Eden Project, having just finished the restoration of another one of Cornwall's outstanding attractions - the Lost Gardens of Heligan.
Having enjoyed the Eden Project twice we thought we should see his other claim to fame, so off we went.
The Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey in Cornwall, are one of the most popular botanical gardens in the UK. The gardens are typical of the 19th century Gardenesque style with areas of different character and in different design styles.
The gardens were created by members of the Cornish Tremayne family from the mid-18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and still form part of the family's Heligan estate. The gardens were neglected after the First World War and were completely run down before being restored by Tim Smit and friends in the 1990s. It has gone from being unloved and derelict to being one of the finest gardens in England, with many of the original features fully restored such as the Victorian glasshouses and the walled gardens.
For the slightly more adventurous there are ponds with rope bridges to cross.
There is also a lot of natural wild woodlands on the estate to wander through if gardens are not your cup of tea.
And speaking of cup of tea there is a very nice cafe/tearoom on site. Any produce not grown on site is locally sourced for the cafe, cutting down on those carbon miles.....locally produced food tastes so much better than that which has been picked packed and transported hundreds of miles. Oh yes and while we were dining, the Vicar of Dibley - Dawn French herself came in for a feed with an older gentleman.
Liz and I both looked at one another in a "is it or isn't it her" sort of way and being still undecided left and returned to our cottage in St Mawgan, where Liz Googled Dawn French only to see a picture of her with her husband - the very gentleman we'd just seen her with.
Oh well, celebrity moment missed.
And so we come to the end of our time in Cornwall, at least for now. We will be back again. It's one of the few places in the world where we could be tempted to "up sticks" and move to permanently. For now though only our shadows remain.
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