Cornish Ports

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Today, we headed to the north coast of Cornwall. It's hard to believe that the tiny port of Boscastle was once Launceston's major port for exporting slate, corn and tanning bark. The inner harbour was constructed in the late 16th century. An outer breakwater was added in the 19th century to cope with the futher demands of handling coal, timber and china clay. The harbour entrance is tiny and apparently at times, ships were towed in by rowing boat! The advent of the railways brought about its decline as a port. Now, like so many ports and fishing villages along the Cornwall coast, it relies mainly on tourism.

Just down the road from Boscastle is St Nectan's Glen, a narrow strip of lush woodland lining the Trevillet River. The major feature of the Glen is an 18m high waterfall that plunges into a deep basin (or kieve), from which it emerges again through a natural keyhole in the rock to fall a further 3m before continuing on its way to another, smaller waterfall. It has been a place of reverence for pagans, Christians and modern spiritualists alike. Possibly named after a 6th century Welsh monk, St Nectan, who supposedly built a tiny hermitage above the waterfall (although there is no evidence to support this idea), or the Cornish water god, Nechtan. The kieve itself was reputedly an important pagan site. Today, the site is clearly still spiritually important to many people of different beliefs. The place is adorned with a variety of devotions, including ribbons, crystals, photographs, inscriptions, rock cairns and prayers. We were really impressed with the way Christianity and New Age spiritualism seem to sit together so comfortably here.

Port Quin is another example of a once busy fishing port that declined in the 19th century. In this case however, the reason is a mystery. Apparently, the village was suddenly deserted but there are no records as to the reason. Suggestions include that all the men were lost at sea in a storm or that after several bad pilchard seasons, they just up and left. Pretty much all that remains are a few National Trust holiday cottages.

Our last "port of call" (ha ha) was Port Isaac - now famous as the location for the TV series Doc Martin. Expecting it to be overrun during they day, we were happy to get there just on dusk. We drove in by a back road, which happily made for a very picturesque (albeit steep) drive into the town centre. Even though we visited lots of fishing villages in Brittany, and this was the third (in one day) for Cornwall, we haven't tired of them. The experience of each village is unique in some way, influenced by many factors - time of day, weather, tide, landscape, tourist-density etc.

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Photos

Looking past the first breakwater
How did they get the boats through that small gap!

Ali standing amongst some of the 'devotions', St Nectan's Glen, Cornwall
Ali had great fun splashing around in the gumboots that are available for loan.

Old stone wall near St Nectan
We think this might be a mediaeval construction method - cool huh!

Port Quin, view from the Southwest Coastal Path
The Southwest Coastal path runs the full length of the Cornish coastline (and beyond) and it seems you can get onto it just about anywhere!

Port Isaac, Cornwall
By the way, if you're interested, Doc Martin's cottage is the little stone one near the centre!

Comments

[wendy duff]

Boscastle
Did you eat any Boscastle pies? The Melbourne versions are pretty good by all accounts! xx Wen

[Yannisee]

No pies!
Glad you mentioned that! We were so hopeful of finding some Boscastle pies in Boscastle, but no...not a pie in sight (we checked!). In Cornwall, however, it seems like the pasties are "pie replacements"! I've had a chicken pasty and a beef and stilton pastie as well as the usual beef and veg so far. What's more, the beef is in big chunks of real beef - not minced mystery meat as is so often the case in Aussie pasties! Needless to say, we love the Cornish pasties!!!! :)