Top Ten (Times Two) Best of Cornwall

At the end we had to look at each other and say "So, what was the best part?"  Here are our answers.  

For now......

1 1)      Twelve-year-old Seb’s (short for Sebastian) Fifth-Largest-in-Cornwall Old Lawnmower Museum.  Kept in his father’s shop, in its own special room. They are carefully arranged on shelves along all four of the walls.  He is prepared to explain the heritage of each mower, how it was restored or what it needs.  He accepts donations and proudly poses with his (trust us) pretty darn impressive collection of reel mowers going back to the 1800’s, including one that’s been to India and back.  It was used to mow cricket pitches.

2 2)      The picture-postcard-perfect Port Isaac that is better than what we’ve seen on TV and the internet.  We’re tried and tried and can’t take a bad picture there.  Or the same one twice. We sigh wistfully just thinking about such a charming town so rich in history.

3 3)      The grooves cut into the corners of the stone buildings by the old lifeboat when it was wheeled down through the village into the sea for rescues.

4 4)      The high proportion of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels that make up the impressively high number of spoiled, pampered, and otherwise family-ized dogs all over Cornwall. We see in the paper that some little white terrier has won Britain’s version of “America’s Got Talent.” Apparently that’s okay with everyone because now the question of whom (what?) to breed him to looms in the papers.  Maybe next season a Cavvie will win.

5 5)      The ease with which one can be served an unending variety of all-new-to-us Cornwall beer and cider.  For two weeks.  And we really didn’t make a dent in it or drank a beer out of pity for the brewer.

Cornwall Sports Bar Events: Grand Prix and Wimbledon

6 6)      The number of people who apologized to us for the rain.  In a land that sees a lot of it, that’s called empathy. With tourists, no less. The rain kept us indoors only one day. And much of the moisture in the sky isn’t really rain, more like a gentle mist – tourists should be told it’s good for the skin.

7 7)      Those tiiiiiiny little teeeeny frogs at Kennall Vale.  Think fingernail size.  Lots of them.

8 8)      The old chap in the Padstow Museum who talked to us about the history of the Cornish diaspora and where they now live in the US and the rest of the world. He was a charmer.

 

Everyone Came Out to Hear the Fishermens' Friends

9 9)      The Friends of the Fisherman performing another of their free benefit concerts on the Platt in Port Isaac, raising over £1000 (and $10, we promise it wasn’t us who tossed a ten spot in the buckets) for hospice care in Port Isaac.  And causing every restaurant to sell out of fish for the evening.  That’s like selling all the coal in Newcastle.  Or Eastern Kentucky. We came back to Port Isaac on Friday just to see and hear them in person (Ted has two CDs), and to see the village again. We splurged and spent the night at the Old School Hotel and Restaurant, featured in Doc Martin as Louisa’s school. The room was upstairs with a view of the harbor and ocean.

The Old Schoolhouse as Restaurant

1 10)   Feeding an all-day wood fire in our stone cottage’s fireplace at Kennall Vale and reading about English herbs, and Cornwall history and watching it rain, rain, rain while the water gushed down the mill race outside the window.  Heaven. And we had plenty of wine and Cornwall fudge and cheese to snack on.

1 11)   Buildings made of stone or granite block, with slate roofs and floors; wooden beams above the windows and doorways and hand-wrought iron latches. And bathroom and pantry doors two inches thick, with ising glass peep holes, from the Bodmin Jail in our Kennall Vale cottage.

1 12)   Walking the coastal paths with the sea crashing against the steep rocky cliffs on one side and a soaring grassy hillside covered with wildflowers on the other. And sitting on the benches on Roscarrock Hill to look out over Port Isaac harbor; the same place that we were entranced by in Doc Martin.

1 13)   Clotted cream.  It’s better than it sounds and is great as a base for famous Cornwall fudge and ice cream.

1 14)   The to-die-for lamb shank slow-cooked in rosemary/mint sauce at the Seven Stars Inn in the tiny town of Stithians.  Served with a fork because that’s all you need. We ran out of food objects to sop up that marvy sauce with.  The owner’s dog got the last licks in.  Lucky dog.

1 15)   Foot paths and bridle paths everywhere, signposted and mapped.  Instead of complaining about everyone in Kentucky being fat, we could get busy with some policies that help create public access to all the lovely space in Central Kentucky.  Oops, sorry.  Slipped into lecturing there. 

Fonthill Bishop

 116)   Finding the tiny town of Fonthill Bishop, near where Ted’s father was encamped on the Warwick Plain during WWII.  And discovering we could have an amazing lunch there at 3 in the afternoon, and have (again) two more new and wonderful ales.  We had to leave two more unsampled.  We were driving, after all. And seeing it seemingly unchanged in all that time, with little stone buildings that must be 300 years old was like stepping into Lord of the Rings.

Diner at Fonthill Bishop

1 17)   Having the rest of the return trip go unexpectedly well, including finding the rental car return in the roundabout maze that is Heathrow, on the first try, (with the help of the Droid GPS), then discovering our hotel is hooked to our departing concourse so we can just walk over in the morning, then getting an upgrade at the hotel so we can lounge in their lounge, drink their liquor and eat their food all evening, then have a Full English breakfast served in the Heathrow Delta Club the next morning, and finally having the helpful gate agents in Boston toss us on an earlier flight to Cincy, in First, at the last minute, to save us a 5 hour layover.  And bundle us along and promise to deliver our luggage to the house. Sweet.

Squeeze Belly Alley in Port Isaac.

1 18)   Remembering there’s a lot of world out there.  The hotel room at Heathrow had power outlets for English, US, and European systems.

19) Catching the moment.  I was asked by an Indian man to take a photograph of him and (presumably) his son, in the Delta club.  Shortly thereafter they got up to leave as the flight to Mumbai was announced.  When we are lucky we should embrace it.

Getting Along in Cornwall

Dogs are good conversation starters.  Even if the person you meet doesn’t happen to have their dogs with them at the moment, they have some somewhere.  If they have a cat, see the discussion on Celtic influence below. 

And Many of Them are Cavvies

Kernow is Cornish for Cornwall.  Saves lots of confusion.

Cornwall is sort of the ‘Florida’ for the English.  Not that it’s necessarily warm or dry—just generally warmer and drier than the rest of the country.  Generally. And it does have a fair amount of sandy beaches, at low tide. 

Speaking of tides—not like Florida.  Really high and low swings of 10-15 feet.  Don’t go to sleep on that sandy beach for very long.

Fishing is now mainly for the restaurant business, pleasure fishing, and so forth.  No more giant nets of pilchards.  Ditto mining.  No more around here. Only in museums.

Cornwall has a distinctly Celtic flavor, which shows up in thinly-disguised May Day fertility festivals like the ‘Obby ‘Oss in Padstow and the Furry Dance in Helston (helpfully spaced a week apart so you don’t have to miss either one).  Worth considering the timing of those if you’re planning a trip over.  Also evidenced by an impressive ‘Museum of Witchcraft’ in Boscastle .  Mixed in with the gardening books in the cottage are a fair number of herbalist tomes, (not to paint the herbalists with the pagan brush or the pagans with the witchcraft brush or whatever). Just a pretty broad appreciation for the role and knowledge about the natural world and whatever supernatural world one is most drawn to.  In this world of dogs, cats may be familiars.  Not sure about that.

And Doc Martin is Big

The food is good to great.  There are fresh fish of multiple kinds, fresh shellfish, beef and lamb.  We assume the chickens are fresh although we haven’t seen many chickens.  Salads are all fresh greens, root veg all local.  Even in the discount grocery one can buy a block of leaf lettuce still growing in potting soil.  Just sit it in the window and cut off what you need.  How civilized!  Iceberg lettuce is unheard of.  The use of herbs for cooking is quite sophisticated, and extensive use of chilies, probably brought in by sailors originally.  You can eat a pasty just to say you did it—otherwise they are underwhelming but inexpensive.  This is big dairy country, so Cornish ice cream is famous, but also something called clotted cream, which is halfway between butter and whipped cream, generally used as a dessert topping.  I had my first baked Alaska in many years out here in the ‘wilds’ of Cornwall.  And, yes, it was great. 

About root vegetables.  We’ve had carrots, parsnip, turnip, and ‘swede’ which is explained to us as halfway between carrot and turnip.  We’re not sure about all of this.  Perhaps there’s a sort of interbred continuum of carrot-parsnip-swede-turnip-potato that happens out here. But still, all good.

Beer and cider are local, plentiful, and very good. The preferred beer style is a light ale, with the red ales being our favorites. We’ve personally tried at least ten different ales from several different brewers, St. Austell’s being the most prevalent out here. Cider is available in the local groceries by the bottle, case, or two-liter plastic bottle.   Coke, on the other hand, is served in what appears to be 10 or maybe even 8-ounce bottles in restaurants. 

Ice is still a novelty.  The cube makers in the fridge are tiny.  Bars are likely to not have any at all.  Beers served cool, not cold.  But honestly, when the prevailing temperature of a stone cottage is about 60 degrees, one hardly needs to refrigerate the ales.  One must ask for a glass of tap water at a restaurant and then a pitcher of water with lemon slice and glasses are served.

Plan on rain and be grateful when it doesn’t.  That said, it has rained and shone every day except two here, and one of them we went out in anyway.  Today we are in, as it has poured steadily all day.  Here’s to fireplaces, wine and cheese and crackers.  Most days it is light showers, even floating kinds of fog.  We did, briefly, break out the shorts one sunny afternoon.  Then it rained.  Then the sun came out.

The “Public Footpath” sign means “You can walk here if you’re brave enough, but we’re not doing any maintenance in a cow pasture. Good luck and watch where you walk.” 

On walking, generally.  All walking is uphill in Cornwall.  It will get you fit after a couple of weeks.  Or really sore leg muscles that you haven’t used in a while.  Cider and beer help with that in the evening. 

There is wine.  Grape wines we didn’t get to.  They were next on our list after the hundred ales and ciders.  Also fruit wines, interesting ones like gooseberry, black currant, and more interesting ones like dandelion, nettle.  Probably medicinal in ways we don’t even understand.  Possibly how the Cornish can stand to walk up and down all those hills.

Things that don’t make much sense to us: There is an abundance of wool produced here, yet we found no native production of woolen clothing. No jackets, socks, coats.  A few blankets and sweaters.  That’s about it.  A local clothier tells us the Cornish don’t wear much wool or formal clothes, for that matter. 

Also we are told that, because fish is so common, the locals disdain it in favor of beef, lamb, etc.  We cannot confirm that, but it is potentially understandable.  It might explain why pasties retain their appeal, since they are largely made with some mystery form of beef.  And the preference for pasties seems to help repel the introduction of McDonald’s into the countryside, although we did spot a KFC in Falmouth.  Very disconcerting to have the Colonel leering down at you in an English coastal port.  I suppose the sailors brought him over….  In their defense, though, the Cornish do have Kentucky correctly identified with horses and not the Colonel, unlike the locals in rural France. Several people we’ve spoken to assumed we are from Canada, by our accents. Hmmm

Did we mention granite?  Did we mention slate?  With all the rain (see above) wood is an unreliable building material—best used for fireplaces and paper mills (also driven originally by water).  Nearly every roof is of slate, along with sills, awnings, siding, footpaths…anything that requires thin, durable stone is made of slate.  The oldest, crispest headstones in the cemeteries are of slate.  In a nod to the appeal of granite, some of the stones are ornamental granite (it can be carved) inset with a slate epitaph.  Roads, curbs, moorings, posts, walls, bridges, houses, factories, harbors—all granite. China clay: ground up granite with the impurities washed out.  The footpath tops of some of the granite breakwaters consist of sheets of slate embedded on edge. Some of the floor in our cottage is 2 foot by 4 foot sheets of slate.

Driving is like, well, Ireland.  Wrong side of the road, narrow roads with vertical plant covered rock walls, locals tailgaiting, you get the idea.  Not fun but necessary, unless one is good with the railroads and bus system. There is an extensive system of buses to all the local communities, but not sure about the schedule.  A respectable tour of Cornwall could be done by rail, with a few cab or bus or ferry side trips. 

Trucks Travel Church Street.  Crazy.

On the subject of Pasties.  Cornwall claims there is a ‘Cornwall Pasty’ or perhaps that they were invented in Cornwall.  We’ve bought them in stands at Victoria Station in London, so they are not exclusive to Cornwall.  Since we’re not yet cultural food detectives we can’t be sure about the whole pasty thing.  It is fair to say that they were clearly the forerunner to fast food, given that they could be cooked ahead of time, served hot or cold, and could contain a wide variety of foodstuffs.  The standard version is beef, onion, potato, and ‘swede’, but the possibilities are endless.  The pastry itself can be a standard kind of biscuit dough, or fancier flakey pastry dough, which ironically works better frozen.  Either way the half-moon of the pasty defines the workingman’s culture of food: starch, meat, veg in a handy package.  They were miners’ food and farmers’ food.

Favorite slang word is ‘dreckly’ as in ‘we serve good food dreckly’. Greeting is usually ‘All right there?’ and conversations and transactions end with ‘Cheers!’.  

We're traveling back to Port Isaac today, so farewell to Kennall Vale and the woods and plants and the granite and old mill wheels.  We'll post again 'dreckly'. 

When it Rains, it Sings

Walking Toward Roches Wood

The English are very good about recognizing the potential of their old human landscapes as cultural tourism sites.  The entire area around here is a kind of ‘regional’ World Heritage site for mining, as we’ve mentioned.  Buried (an appropriate word) within this region are particular sites that represent the remnants of that.  Nearby here, in Ponsanooth, is one such site, a mill for the production of gunpowder to blast granite and the adjoining quarry pit.  In fact, it’s just down the River Kennall from where we’re staying, but it has to be approached from the highway at the bottom end.  We’re read our hosts’ maps, read the glowing description by the National Trust office, even downloaded the map of the site.  We’re ready. 

All the Walks Seem to Start This Way: Innocently

After a couple of hours of alternating rain/sun/rain it appears to have decided not to rain for a while, so we head out for the 3 mile drive down to Ponsanooth.  We pull in to the little parking lot at the base of the bridge, near the Post Office.  The Site instructions say the old milling site is behind the Post Office.  And, of course, it has to be down near the Kennall River, since we’re talking water wheels.  We drive along the (always) narrow street, which only faces houses and schools, and then begin to climb up, up, up.  We stop, turn around, drive back down.  Remembering the difficulty we had getting to a MAJOR castle, we figure we must have missed the tiny little sign for the entrance.  All the way back down to the parking lot.  Out with the maps, the GPS.  Nothing, no designation on the GPS of the site.  No sign in the parking lot indicating we’re near anything but the Post Office and the only ‘shop’ in town.  Hmm.  We spot a woman having a smoke.  Time to ask for directions. “Yes, I think there is the Nature Reserve up there.  I don’t live here, came to pick up a friend.  Maybe ask in the shop.”  Can we park here?  “It’s okay with me,” she says.  “There’s no parking fee here.  I park here all the time.”  The cottage we’re in front of appears to be unoccupied, so we decide to chance it.  We duck into the shop.  The proprietress, middle-aged in a purple sweater and glasses, says “Oh yes, you mean the Nature Reserve.”  We’re a little worried because we think it’s supposed to be about the mills and such, but then recall that it is officially referred to as a nature reserve.  Odd.  “You just go up this hill,”  (yes) “You’ll pass a thatched cottage,” (yes, did that)  “Keep to the right” (yes) “and you’ll see a cottage at the entrance.” 

Got it.  We decide to proceed on foot.  The sun is shining.  It’s a lovely day, really. And we know where we’re going.  Clearly we missed it from the car windows.

Yep, there's the cottage!

We hike, back up the hill (everything is uphill in England, we’ve decided).  Stop to admire the thatched cottage, first one we’ve seen in this land of slate from nearby Delabole.  Admire a mysterious old stone entryway that has since been mortared over.  Behind it are newish houses along neat lanes. 

Up, up, past the point where we first abandoned all hope with the car.  We can see the Kennall down below us on the hillside.  Soon we’ll reach the gate.  Then the road goes down.  We pass some cows.  They look strangely familiar to me. Then I recall that I took a photo of these cows from the road we walked along two days ago headed toward Ponsanooth from our cottage.  Out with the GPS and we discover we’ve walked most of the way cross country back toward Kennall Vale.  This cannot be right.  We walk back alternately grumbling and apologizing to each other for not being able to jointly locate a STUPID ENTRANCE to a national reserve.  Down down, stopping to consider here and there.  

Cow Positioning System: Better than GPS

Out from the woods emerges a man with a dog.  (To add ‘with a dog’ is almost redundant in England.)  We ask him about the mythical Millworks/Nature Reserve. “Oh, it’s right here.”  He points to the path he has just come off of, which appears to go into someone’s front yard.  “You just follow that path,” he points, and we notice the path goes around a little stone wall, separating it, at least conceptually, from the front yard of two cottages.  “There’s a sign and everything explaining the old works.”  He peers around the corner of the stone entrance at the side facing the road.  “There’s supposed to be a sign right here,” he says, “but looks like it’s gone. Can’t imagine what happened to it.” After we establish that the path’s not too muddy (we’re wearing sandals and Gretchen’s not keen to have two pairs of hopelessly muddy footwear) we decide to ‘carry on’.

In Roches Wood

The Ancient Way, Modernized

And he’s right.  After we walk into what feels like someone’s private space, we see past the service van that’s blocking our view of the entrance.  We feel vindicated and slightly victimized.  There is, in fact, no visible clue as to the location, or even existence, of this park in town.  We could have looked longingly at Roche’s Wood all week and never realized it was in fact a park. It is, really, the park for Ponsanooth locals (and their dogs).  Outsiders need not apply.   

But nevermind.  We have stepped out of the sun and into an old wood, dotted with crumbling stone ruins, mysteriously shaped trees, dripping mossy rocks and large swatches of ferns.  After the map at the entrance, there are no further helpful signposts, explanatory boards, or anything.  We are left to speculate and marvel. The path is coated with crushed granite that crunches under our feet, and sparkles slightly in the dappled light.  

Potter Tree One

Potter Tree Two

A century, two centuries ago, everyone got up and left this place.  Left the granite quarry to fill up with water, left the wooden bridges to fall off their stone ramparts and be washed away, left the stone millrace, still faithfully carrying it’s carefully measured gush of water, in its remarkably watertight passage, on its own separate path back down to the Kennall River at the bottom of the hill.   

Bridge Rampart?

Kennall Coming from Above. from Stithians

Kennall Headed for Ponsanooth

The Millrace Share of the Kennall

The Kennall itself bounds and splashes and rushes beneath us as we marvel from the new wooden tourist bridge, glancing off granite boulders now black and green with moss and water plants.  Across the bridge we stand at the old mill site, the Kennall splashing far below us, the mill race just above our heads, dumping its ration of water into thin air, the old wheel crumpled beneath it.  The iron gears in the gear house are nearly obscured by heavy layers of moss, like green bearded old men permanently reminiscing about milling days.  Ahead we see another sluice gate spilling its water into open air, signaling the location of another mill ruin.  Behind us we see the mill race slowly ascending up the hillside, gurgling down past us. 

The Old Men of the Gear House

The Quarry

If we look carefully, we can make out the stone ramparts of old bridges that crossed the Kennall, probably to bring grain or gunpowder to and from the mill we’re standing in.  The main road is on the other side of the river, but the mill race had to be built into the steep face of the hill on this side.  The remains of the bridge are nearly obscured by trees and vines and shrubs, so that one has to use one’s imagination to figure out what these ruins of stone structures were. 

Ferns on the Quarry

They were probably all made from granite that comes from the quarry, now a deep green pool flanked by ferns and sheltered by tall trees.  The remains of the morning showers still drip onto the surface, into the plant reflections that stretch across the water.  This water is deep and very quiet. 

Was a Crossing.

Down the slopes are tall grey trees, lumps of boulders, crunchy leaf litter, spatters of sun here and there and ferns everywhere.  At the end of the trail is a large wall, again with the entrance recently blocked in.  This may have been the boundary to the mill site many years ago, the road through which goods came and went.  Little structures nearby might have been where wagons were weighed, stones were measured, fares were collected. It is easy to imagine all this happening, while in the background the mill wheel slowly churns, drawing all the activity to it, the source of power. 

The Way is Shut

When we leave, we drive down the road a few miles and stop at the Fox and Hounds for lunch, hopefully.  Is the kitchen open, we ask, at this unreasonable hour of 3 pm? I’ll check, she says, and comes back with ‘yep, he’s still here and willing to fix some lunch’.  We learn we are at a roadside inn built in 1742, probably serving many of the people who hauled grain and other goods to Kennall Vale.  We have another St. Austell Ale, Dartmoor, which is better than the average St Austell ale, which is to say it’s very good.  We learn that the St. Austell brewery was begun to serve miners and fishermen in the 1850’s, so recent by these standards.

We're Not Actually Seen Any Foxes or Hounds.  But Many Dogs.

It’s a bit chilly when we return, so it’s time to build a fire in the five-foot-wide cottage fireplace and hunker down with a book.  Gretchen dreams of horses on the Moor.  I read about the herbs of England and how they are used.  Outside it decides to rain again.  Good timing.