Cornwall

My opinions on Cornwall are well known and I shall air them no further, except to say I was drinking with a fantastic Cornishman last night, so I can forgive the place a bit.

http://www.cornwalltouristboard.co.uk/sitemakectb.asp?customtemplate=pages/ctb.txt

*steps gently away with hands over ears*

Is grockles a Cornish term? or did it spring up in Devon?

My Cornish niece got married recently. I appeared to be related to half the village.

then dr vick's brother's children threw a surprise finn family moomintroll party JUST FOR ME, with lamps in the trees and pancakes and jam and cups made out of leaves and the king's ruby in a suitcase (= a rear bikelight) and a blood red full moon rising out of the sea as the stunning unplanned climax!!!

And yes, Dawlish is worthy of big cakes. I live at the top of that there cliff.

apparently some mad people dive off the esplanade railing into the rock pools

plymouth council has put up signs saying "nuffink to do w.us guv it's your lookout"

Actually Tim, you're right, it sucks. Let 'em have it.

(was walter potter related to beatrix potter? i hope so!!)

Bet that ooky place fits rather nicely on Bodmin Moor (a place which always gives me the creeps).

From the train even Teignmouth looks nice.

the museum is right next door to Jamaica Inn, which — in all the news stories abt potter — is described as the one which inspired D.Du Maurier, but may actually just have taken the name quite recently (so said the v.v.cynical local I wz visiting with). Anyway it is all souped up for OAP coach parties with a school-dinners type foodbar and would — I suspect — belong in Pumpkin Publog Hall of Infamy. The guy who served us had the best barman-as-cherry-lipped-poisoner manner and fake smile I have ever encountered: he said "What can I get you this lovely day?" but he fairly clearly meant "I shall kill you in the night and you shall see my face in your last agony"...

the outside wall is cornish tiling but the roof has been covered in this weird rubberised goop which looks like they're making a mould to recast it in plaster of paris

I've just looked at that Potter site again and it's the most horrible thing ever ever (though the photos of various siamese twin creatures are a bit compelling (haha SIAMESE CAT!) )

RAT WITH TUSKS!

Jamaica Inn = Authentic Tourist Trap = alright by me.

cornish hamlets have nice names: HATT and GANG were two

it means ant! I suppose tourists do swarm.

(oh btw tico tico, ptee and starry, dutch for woodlice = because of the smell)

Riding through Hackney on a no. 56 bus this evening I heard a man of about 60 telling his friend about his holiday. The holiday cost him 'ninety paand' and if you go to a nightclub in Newquay and miss the last bus it's 'ten paand' for a 3-mile cab ride. Something else cost him 'thirty six paand' but I couldn't catch what it was.

Anyway, revive, I'm going to Cornwall again THIS FRIDAY so let's talk about it and you can all recommend me fun things to do in and around St.Ives.

(Yes I know there was a bit of discussion on the places on the British coast holiday thread, but this is specific KERNOW thread so suggest specific Cornish fun pls.)

Anyone recommend a cottage to rent in Cornwall? For 2 people.

.

Have used Classic Cottages a few times for Cornwall and the West Country. They're a little pricier than some other holiday letting companies, but the standard has always been dead good.

I need to read this thread properly but looking for Cornwall recommendations: places to go, restaurants, pubs etc. Will be based in Hayle, just outside of St Ives.

Hayle kinda sucks tbh (altho the nearby beach by The Towans is good), maybe try to spend as much as time as you can in St Ives re the above stuff

Thanks Bluski. Any particular St Ives recommendations? A good pub crawl for instance?

The Sloop and The Castle (the Sloop has the views, only place on the waterfront where drinking is allowed, but The Castle has the beer selection) and if you can walk the 6 mile trail (only 4 miles if you can find the secret overground shortcut) to Zennor, you've well deserved a pint at the Tinner's Arms.

I have to heartily recommend Spinacio's, even if you're not vegetarian, it's just plain amazing food. (Had a table of meat-eaters sat next to me exclaiming over amazing it was.) I found Porthmeor cafe to be the best, though Porthminster gets all the good review. (I'm sure Sick Mouthy will second that suggestion, too.)

St Ives - Zennor: a recommended walk?

It's not my absolute all time favourite Cornish country walk (that would be Mousehole to Lamorna which is just incomparably beautiful, esp if you time it to arrive at Lamorna just at sunset over the creamy-yellow harbour walls, and walk back over the ridge in the gloaming, I get shivers just thinking about it) but it's definitely top five.

The coast path St Ives to Zennor is quite hard going in some places, esp near the end where you have to clamber over some quite huge boulders, and it's very up and down (most of that 6 miles is vertical) but it is so so so v v v pretty and completely worth it, Burthallen and Tregerthen just such amazing almost tropical turquoise coves, D.H. Lawrence was not kidding when he talked about peacock coloured Atlantic.

There is also a bus back from Zennor if the walk kills you dead, like it did the first time I did it (the open topped 300, which is also worth taking all the way around the coast to St Just and Lands End and round to Penzance and back to St Ives, all wiggly-windy roads and sea views to lose your breath, though bring a jumper it gets cold up on the high carns.)

If you're interested (which you're probably not but I'm just gonna put this out there anyway) I forgot my camera the last time I was in St. Ives so I ended up sketching landmarks instead, there's lots of suggestions of interesting things to see and do in this set of sketchies, Zennor and Tregerthen and St Ives are all in there:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/masonicboomk8/sets/72157625669311648/

These are gorgeous! I for one am glad you forgot your camera.

The St Ives to Zennor walk is definitely recommended. St Ives is a great place to stay, especially if you like art (Hepworth museum and Tate are both well worth visiting).

I agree, that whole set is eye-candy, Kate!

Can't wait for some Cornwall walking myself.

I feel like I am derailing the thread by adding my wuv for those KTG pictures, but they are too good to go unpraised.

When Rener and I were in St. Ives we liked the one pub that is in the Camra guide. It had an endearing "serious drinkers only" ambience in the front (and young people jumping around to music in the back). I will try and find its name and post it here.

you should make sure also to have plenty of cream teas, so that you do not waste away after your long walks.

Would buy all those pictures as a set of postcards and send them to all my friends and relatives, who would phone up and say "when were you in Cornwall?" and I would go "uh, I wasn't, but, is it not pretty?"

If Kate's not sitting right now in a shop in Cornwall selling those, then she's not being a millionaire by next week.

yarp.

Beautiful sketches, feel like I want to see those landmarks and buildings IRL now.

Thank you everyone for saying such nice things about my sketchies, that's a bit overwhelming. :)

I actually have quite mixed feelings about St. Ives and in particular its "arts scene" which probably make me feel a bit precious. It is a very pretty town, pretty to the point of being twee and sometimes a bit cloying. But especially the kind of cottage (fnar) industry surrounding the whole "move to St Ives and paint the sea" ~lifestyle~ - I dunno, there's some very good art that has come out of St Ives in the past. But there's also a LOT of phenomenally *bad* art (badly executed art, overly mawkish "K-mart Art", match-the-sofa art) floating around the town *everywhere* which makes me kind of hate the place.

There are these sort of... glassed-in booths in buildings just off the seafront, and all around Downlong, which are combination studio/shop spaces and there's something just so desperate about them. Like these artists in cages, like performing animals, painting the same picture over and over and over, and you can see that it's probably not because they are obsessed with that image but because that's what sells.

Not that there's anything wrong with creating art to sell, but because they look so *unhappy*, or maybe I'm projecting because that situation would make me so unhappy, but it's this commodification of this dream which starts with "escape the ratrace" and ends with a glass cage in an art supermarket where you perform for the tourists. (And yes, I recognise the self loathing implicit in my ph34r.)

So I'm glad that you all like them, but the idea of sitting in a shop in Cornwall selling them as postcards fills me with utter abject terror.

So what I like best about St Ives is actually the ability to run like hell and be out of it in about 15 minutes, and up in the hills and miles away from "Artists", even as I'm sketching. I didn't really understand the amount of anger and loathing in Sven Berlin's Dark Monarch until I spent some time there, and then completely understood his wish to blow the place up.

Feel bad now because I do not want to put DJH off hir holiday, and I'm sure they will have a lovely time because it is very very beautiful. But this is why, when people say "you should set up shop and sell yr..." (as lots of people, not just on ILX, have said) I run screaming with my hands over my ears because I see those glass artist cages.

(I wasn't being serious, you know, it was more my way of saying "they are that good")

Yes, I have seen those oldish blokes with beard/strawhat/pipe, doing nowt but making sure nobody nicks the art...

We have been pondering visiting CWall for a weekend... Hmm, there's a bank holiday coming up.

No, I know, and thank you. But there are, f'rinstance, ppl in mine own family that say that kind of thing FOR REALS like I am squandering some giant opportunity and pointing at the glass artcages as we walk by saying "YOU SHOULD TOTALLY DO THAT" with the implication that I am stupid or selfish or petty for refusing their brilliant idea.

Shaun Ryder made a comment one time about "the things that you love, start to own you"

when I was in St. Ives there was some local musicians playing (or maybe a lifeboat choir, it does not matter) on in front of the harbour. People were standing and listening. Two young ladies who had been drinking alcohol came by and stopped because one of them wanted to listen to the music. Her friend wanted to keep talking drunkenly. Another woman who was listening to the music asked her to be quiet, whereupon she threw a wobbler about how tourist scum had no place saying anything to locals (before her friend hustled her away). A few minutes later the friend (the one who liked the music) came back and hugged the woman who had asked the angry drunken woman to be quiet; she was rather overcome by the experience.

Karin/Kate/Karen - I don't know for real if there is any money in pictures, but your pictures are very attractive and you should keep making them if only so that the amount of beautiful things in the world continues to increase.

Thank you, DV. That's the loveliest thing anyone's said to me in a long time, and pretty much the best reason to go on doing anything.

The whole tourists vs locals thing is quite complex. I mean, it'd be easy to frame it in the issue of "it's not tourists vs locals, it's people who try to be considerate vs inconsiderate, over entitled twats" but it goes deeper than that. There are resentments for genuine reasons as well as just being drunk and stroppy.

I'm aware, for example, that there is a huge housing crisis in Cornwall, that the property market has been massively overinflated due to second homes and holiday rental cottages, and people whose families have lived there for hundreds of years have been priced out of being able to find somewhere to live at all (be it to own or rent.) And I'm aware that in hiring said holiday cottages, I'm helping to perpetuate this injustice. But I'm also aware that the area's single biggest industry is tourism, so I'm in a bind as to whether it's ethical or not, if I do my utter best to support local shops and industry while I'm there.

I have read that Cornwall has quite terrifying levels of poverty and stuff like that, but I still find myself thinking that it must be better being poor there than in some really grim urban hellhole. But yeah, it is a pisser if you can't find somewhere to live because of people buying second homes and stuff.

Thanks for this.

Right, now to start on a thematic holiday CD-R ...

So, basically, this time tomorrow I'll be sat on the Cornish coast listening to Movietone's "Porthcurno" with a decent beer.

Kate, there are many, many agents who distribute and represent illustrators and graphic artists - thus eliminating the need to be a trained seal in a St. Ives box.

Thanks for all the hints.

Managed to drink in The Castle (good beer - 3 blokes in the pub all nursing solitary pints) and The Sloop (packed). Very much enjoyed The Tinners Arms (but was driving, goddamn) and The Gunnards Head (for food but would happily go back for a proper pint). Mousehole to Lamorna was a classic, didn't manage St Ives to Zennor (didn't sound like a walk to do in the rain). Really enjoyed The Lizard, a Sennen Cove-Land's End walk and Porthcurno. Ditto Cape Cornwall. A lovely breakfast in Porthmeor cafe, too. Not sure about St Ives itself - felt like everyone who'd ever bought a tube of aquamarine paint was there.

Hayle itself not great but here http://www.tomsholidays.co.uk/html/directions.html served its purpose well (good view, nice enough beach).

Might write something more elequent some other time.

Hey! I've bought tubes of aquamarine paint in my life!

Actually I think it was ultramarine, but point taken. This is one of my fundamental problems with St Ives - it is basically just Shoreditch for 50 year olds. Sigh.

I've never managed to get to the Gunnards Head (it's just that bit too far for walking) but I always hear good things about it.

Gunnards Head is probably worth catching a bus for - think it manages the tourist (ie. me)/local divide well. Delicious food. Good vegetarian options. They need someone to send them some decent compilations (Mum, Movietone, Yorkston would work) to replace the Norah Jones. But, yeah, a trek on foot.

St Ives is a funny one - I did see the "worst painting that I've seen for sale in excess of £500" in a gallery. I assumed it was supposed to be "naive art" but was by someone professing to have a fine art degree.

Countryfile ignoring incredible landscapes to focus on some moss and a few local nutters

Ok. Bookmarked this thread for all eternity. But this is finally *happening*, in two months. Shame Kate/Ms. Tregasking isn't around anymore.

Staying in a cottage with seaside views, near Pendeen. I got the St.Ives-Zennor and Mousehole walks down, if anyone else has prime recommendations, come forward!

My wife has ancestory from Cornwall. She spent time in Mousehole in 1981 and enjoyed it. She watched a play in some outdoor cliffside theater overlooking the ocean whose name and location I cannot tell you. This, too, she enjoyed. I don't think the acting was the main attraction, though. Try looking up some local menhirs. It makes a good excuse to wander the countryside.

Thanks! I have that theatre, on the cliffside, down on my to see list ~ can't remember the name now either.

Ordered the Lonely Planet for Kernow and Devon, should be good.

Next step independence

Cornish indie, fuxxors

Not entirely Cornwall but we've got a "tour" of YHAs booked that goes something like Beer, Boswinger, Lizard, Land's End, Perranporth, Dartmoor.

Recommendations of things to do welcome ...

Avoid the ~Lands End Experience~ thing IMO, and walk down the coast to Nanjizal to see Kan A'n Mor/Song Of The Sea arch. (Or up the coast to Sennen, but that goes without saying.)

The Minack is the name of the theatre on the cliff edge round the corner from Lamorna, but that piece of info probably comes too late for LBI. (Hope you had a splann time!)

there's some really nice hiking along the south coast near praa sands(?) [lol im american] if the weather is nice-ish. my wife and I also knew some people who had a house in mousehole outside of penzance which was pretty chill and interesting

Hi Branwell, no, we went to Minack's, ta! Which was great. The tiny beach next to it (with the steep climb up the rocks to the theatre) was a treat too. Mostly did loads of coastal walking, stretches of 7-10 miles a day. Incredible scenery. Mousehole, Penzance, Zennor is fab too.

Portheras Cove was a true find, too, and rather quiet as it takes quite a climb to get there. If you want something educational or museum like, Geevor's Tin Mine was impressive, but agreeing with Branwell: avoid Land's End like the plague. Good god, they turned that landmark spot into some sort of US western shopping mall ugh. Terrible.

http://i.imgur.com/SIUkCCg.jpg

I took this photo while there, which is basically a blueprint of my time there. Warm weather all day every day, and these views, these views... sighs

DJH I know a bit about the area around Beer (I grew up in Sidmouth). Recs kinda depend on what you like to do; Beer itself is very cute, but the first two things which spring to mind in that little stretch are (a) an excellent pub called The Fountain Head in Branscombe and (b) the good, tiny and crammed secondhand bookshop just by the Cobb in Lyme Regis. On a nice day Hix's Oyster House in Lyme is worth the few quid extra it'll cost you to eat there.

Kernow is currently being suggested as an Anglo-Celtic compromise solution for my wedding next year. Any recommendations for venues, locations, etc?

I would really like to be helpful in suggesting lovely places in West Penwith but I'm rather useless as I haven't the foggiest as to what is required for a wedding!

I went to a good wedding at Polhawn Fort once, which has the feature (may be an advantage or a disadvantage) of not being very far into Cornwall.

Thank you both. I have an open mind about venues (country houses, hotels, forts...) so will do some digging.

the other day I was sat next to someone on a bus loudly telling people about his imminent wedding in Cornwall, but he seemed like a bit of a knob so he's probably chosen somewhere bad

next time I make it to the UK I am going to go to here.

will probably use the modern antiquarian as my guidebook

Sharivari, I asked around a bit:

For sheer grandeur, there's this place (it's Newquay, but eh) though it might be quite pricey?
http://www.headlandhotel.co.uk/explore/headland-history/

There was another one on the Lizard I was trying to remember (but only seen it while walking, not actually stayed there) might have been this one:
http://www.mullion-cove.co.uk/

But if you want a place with good transport connections, you'd probably be better off looking somewhere like Falmouth that is actually on a reliable train service. (Cornish friends say Falmouth is the place for big weddings.) Depends, really, if you want somewhere beautiful and amazing but really out of the way, or somewhere that family coming from out of town can easily get to.

That's amazing. Thank you so much!

the eden proj does weddings in their jungle biome iirc. might be a bit rum but at least you'd definitely avoid the miserable pissy rain

lots of the other famous gardens in the area probably do weddings too, though personally i don't think you should necessarily rule out plain old cavorting naked on the moors

Cavorting's an option. I'll suggest it to the in-laws - would probably work out quite cost effective.

Please do not encourage any fucken hippies to do any bleddy handfasting ceremonies at Men An Tol. Please. They're a nuisance, they frighten the livestock.

Thanks for the suggestions.

cornwall circa 1913

http://i1.wp.com/www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Cornwall-village.jpg?resize=620%2C502

http://www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Cornwall-29.jpg

http://www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Cornwall-191.jpg

http://www.retronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Cornwall-161.jpg

http://www.retronaut.com/2010/02/colour-photographs-of-cornwall-2/?utm_content=buffer5d5df&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Think there was a recent ep of 'don't tell the bride' where they got married at the Eden project.

oh my, those photos are fantastic!

this record sounds interesting:
http://thequietus.com/articles/16179-robert-curgenven-sirne-review

feel like i wanna start a landscape/memory/music thread on ilm but i don't really know how to frame it exactly

That record sounds amazing. And NickB, go for it with your thread!

nickb what sort of thing did you have in mind/were inspired by?

well, um, music that evokes particular landscapes (whether that's urban or rural, and specific, real places or perhaps imaginary ones too) and explores the human stories that have left their mark there, or again perhaps those traces have been erased entirely and can only exist in the present by us projecting them back on the landscape if only in our imagination? and i suppose that's what a lot of folk music does, but also there's quite a bit of contemporary stuff from i dunno, from field recordings like chris watson's in st. cuthbert's time through people associated with psychogeography like jem finer and andrew kötting, to the clattering shire books indie of way through or some of the folk on the outer church compilation who are maybe at more of the occult/hauntological end of things. maybe more high profile stuff like burial or these new puritans are somehow connected too, and i wish i could think of non-british stuff off the top of my head but uh... i dunno, thoughts all half-baked & messy

that's a great batch of material & there should definitely be a thread to collect this stuff together & muse although I can't think of a title

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/14/cornwall-and-south-devon-originally-belonged-to-europe

“This is a completely new way of thinking about how Britain was formed,” said Dijkstra. “It has always been presumed that the border of Avalonia and Armorica was beneath what would seem to be the natural boundary of the English Channel. But our findings suggest that although there is no physical line on the surface, there is a clear geological boundary that separates Cornwall and south Devon from the rest of the UK.”

The findings, go some way to explain why Cornwall and Devon have an abundance of tin and tungsten, metals found in Brittany and other areas of mainland Europe. “These minerals come from deep in the crust,” Dijkstra said.

i've never been to cornwall, but that's changing in a couple of weeks. my aged parents are coming for a visit and we're all going out there. 6 of us! we're going to what i'm told is called the north coast. from london. and... we have no car.

any advice? how to get out there and get back? what to see? (we'll be near tintagel)

I went for the first time this year too! We were based in Penzance and Fowey, on the South coast, but we made it to St Ives which was lovely and on the north coast, and to Lanhydrock which is on the edge of Bodmin Moor. Both highly recommended. Oh and the Eden Project is a must!

The train journey from London is great but expensive (about £100+ return). Takes four hours; sit at a window on the left for the views. But it won't get you very near Tintagel: Bodmin probably is the nearest station.

North coast is mainly beaches and scenery, so weather is a factor, but Tintagel, Padstow, St Ives are all worth a visit. Eden Project if it's raining.

I have *seen* buses in N. Cornwall...

The sleeper train from Paddington is worth considering if feasible as you effectively get a night's accommodation plus the journey, and it's really good fun with its own bar and breakfast (of the bacon roll variety) served in the morning.

the beach and cave underneath tintagel are sublime. slate cliff face and green coppery water. my cousin works at the eden project but i've never been. apparently they have lots of ppl on zero hours contracts.

Bodmin Dungeon is well worth a visit and I love Newquay - even though it is probably considered tacky by ILX, 3 or 4 of my fave beaches in England there.

Never been there either, seems like a nightmare to get to.

it's very slow going when you get past Plymouth on the train, but some lovely scenery if want to pack a few tinnies

Plymouth itself is worth a visit, though it is of course in Devon, I enjoyed the hoe very much

oh hi

we are going to Cornwall next week! my wife has always wanted to go there and I haven't been since I was 13... which was 30 years ago

I'm driving, which is a bit daunting, but we're stopping in Poole the first day which is just over halfway there, so at least I only have to do 3-4 hours a day.

then we're going to stay in Boscastle (visiting Tintagel), Newquay, Hayle (St Ives), Penzance, Falmouth, St Austell and Polperro for a day or 2 in each place. will try to visit some other places (Bodmin, Truro, Looe, Land's End, St Michael's Mount etc) but a lot of that depends on how wiped out my wife is from chemo. She has been prescribed more steroids this week which might help a bit with that, but I think the first week at least she's not going to be up to doing much. the 2nd week she doesn't have chemo so should feel a bit better hopefully

Newquay is in geologic history a part of France, hence the tin and beautiful Cornish granite and it often doesn't feel like England at all to me (even when it is pissing it down) in some mysterious way - but they voted for brexit in big numbers.

Newquay Cornwall I meant obv

I think I want to train it most of the way then rent a car. Where should I do that? Exeter? Truro? Bodmin?

Hire a car in Exeter or Plymouth.

I went to Plymouth for the first time in ages a few months back* and I didn't mind it at all, I've grown to like the kind of paper-thin sub-Scando/Festival architecture of the post-war City Centre, though the place does appear to be very largely on its arse at present. The Hoe is OK, the Barbican is pretty good. The new shopping centre at the top of town is a vision of awfulness replacing the old brutalist shopping centre of which I have fond memories.

If I couldn't drive I think I'd probably get the train down to Bodmin then try to work out local buses, not least (as Neil says) for the train ride between Exeter and Plymouth, which is world-class. I think I probably wouldn't stop off in Plymouth, not least because getting from the station to the Hoe (in particular) is a bit of a slog.

*not counting trips there for the football, during which I don't really have the chance to look around, the point is to get into and out of the place as quickly as possible

The chain ferry at (I think) Torpoint is a funny way to get your motor over the Tamar, though it's slower than the bridge, and the bridge gives you a good view of Brunel's amazing rail bridge IIRC.

Random thing I really enjoyed on the same trip that took in Plymouth: we skirted into the eastern bit of Cornwall Xmas to take a look at Trethevy Quoit: https://www.cornwalls.co.uk/history/sites/trethevy_quoit.htm - it's in a field right next to some houses but is surprisingly atmospheric and with very convenient parking if you don't mind driving up a tiny country road to get there. The parking was helpful as we had my mum with us who isn't really in the market for long walks these days.

A few minutes' drive away there's an avenue and circle of small stones: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/hurlers-stone-circles/ this one is effectively open country, is picturesque in that slightly bleak Cornish way (mind we went on New Year's eve for added bleakness)but there's a car park right there

Advantage of hiring a car in Exeter: probably end up being quicker for where you're going if speed is important, you could take the A38 over the north of Dartmoor rather than going the long way round on the bigger road to the south. I've never hired a car there but I think there's a hire place right by Exeter St David's station. Exeter easier to get out of by car than Plymouth.

Advantage of hiring a car in Plymouth: less driving miles in total, excellent train journey as noted along the Exe estuary and down along by Dawlish.

I can recommend a car hire firm if you want Tracer, we got very good service from them when picking up a car at St Austell station.

Thanks for the offer Neil. We're going to go through Exeter though. A kink in my plan has already reared up - all the car hire places next to the train station appear to close up around noon on Saturdays - and we get there at 1:30?! I'll call around tomorrow - surely I can work something out?

So far: Boscastle is beautiful. Hayle Travelodge less so, although I did get to see 6 policemen arresting someone at midnight, not sure what for. We probably should've just stayed in Penzance for an extra day, but we wanted to go to the wildlife park there, which was fun tbh. Miserable pissy rain has been an issue but mostly on the way here, it was pretty frightening driving down the M27 past Portsmouth and Southampton in the most torrential downpour I'd ever driven in and also the first time I'd ever driven on a motorway. This hotel in Penzance has worked out great though, the restaurant is fantastic and it's on a hill so got a view of the bay, St Michael's Mount etc.

On a less positive note my laptop screen is fucked, I've never really taken this laptop anywhere before and it turns out it doesn't like to be moved. Which is a bit of a bummer because I bought Untitled Goose Game just before we left

What did you get up to in Boscastle? My parents are going to be with the kids on their own without a car for a few days so I'd be grateful for any advice.

By the way I sorted the rental car. Turns out websites aren't that useful for getting things done in Cornwall.

There's not much there, just went walking round the hills round the harbour, great views. We went to the witchcraft museum which is cute but small. We had planned to go to Tintagel castle which is a short drive but my wife wasn't up to it so we skipped it

they voted for brexit in big numbers.

I'd always say head for West Penwith. If your wife is OK with a bit of tramping through fields, take a look at the Modern Antiquarian forums: there are so many astonishing ancient prehistoric sites just lying about the place and you'll be practically the only people there.

In terms of beaches, Sennen Cove and Gwynver (just next door; you can walk across generally, depending on high tide) are amazing and the walk to Land's End from Sennen is gorgeous (just don't go too close: Land's End is the most disappointing theme park in the world).

The Old Success in Sennen Cove has rooms. If it's warm you can have a pint on the roof garden. You're practically in the sea.

Go to Chysauster! Amazingly preserved 1st-century village: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/chysauster-ancient-village/
You can stand on the headland there and look across to the sea where the trading ships would arrive at Mousehole and Newlyn. The view hasn't changed in 2000 years.

I'll shush now. God, Cornwall.

Next step independence

― A frenzied geologist (Tom D.), Thursday, 24 April 2014 15:58 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cornish indie, fuxxors

― PhetamineGrrrn (wins), Thursday, 24 April 2014 16:04 (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

That’s good stuff

See what you mean about lands end. Would've gone to Chysauster but walking is a problem. We went to Marazion and I got the wheelchair out and wheeled my wife along the sea path and we watched the tide come in over the causeway to St Michael's Mount, the sun's out today so it was nice. Found a nice little pub in Penzance to have a pint before dinner

I totally skimmed the thread so apologies for the inappropriate 'tramping across fields' response. You're doing a great thing - glad the weather is good for you.

No worries at all, your suggestions looked great and I'm not the only ilxor in Cornwall this week so might be useful to others

There are both Devon and Cornwall threads but not a combined one, so I've revived this one BUT I'm really interested in both. My wife and I are doing a Devon/Dartmoor/Cornwall holiday in late July/early August. We've already done a fair amount of research, but I'm open to suggestions! We're planning to do some moor hikes, of course, but would take recommendations on specific ones. Interested in (in no particular order) pre-Christian sites, Arthurian mystique, Du Maurier sites, natural wonders, pastys, pubs, historical oddities, etc. We'll be staying a few days in St. Ives, with a night at Jamaica Inn, one outside Sidmouth, one night in Exeter, a few nights unplanned so far.

We've timed the trip to culminate with seeing Steeleye Span play in Sidmouth, ahead of the Sidmouth Folk Fest.

if you pass thru plymouth let me know!

There's a good chance we will! We were talking about staying a night there, but I'm not sure the current itinerary (my wife is more the planner).

I loved my visits to Bodmin Jail, it is a common-as-muck tourist attraction but the building is historically interesting and has a creepy aura that no amount of lottery funding spent on it could make it more or less creepier.

I really love the coast between Zennor and Penzance - particularly St Just and Sennen Cove round to Logan Rock. There are loads of archaeological sites in West Penwith; many you can access just by driving around that area and looking for brown signs.

Julian Cope's site is great for sniffing this stuff out: https://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/412/cornwall.html

Carn Euny is great and you have to go to Chysauster if you can: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/chysauster-ancient-village/

I started to learn a tiny bit of the zombie language Cornish but didn't want to mention lest Tom D mock me.

Not at all, that's a proper language.

There's a fair chance I'll be in Sidmouth during the festival, unfortunately I spend a lot of time there at present. Sidmouth during the Folk Festival is a very different prospect to normal Sidmouth, really the job is just to wander around, it's fun. In the old days every pub had some scratch folk stuff going on, these days not so much, sometimes you can find good stuff in The Swan. My other fave pub in Sidmouth is The Volunteer, but afaict their festival offer now is motley cover bands. There's a really good (quite bumpy) coastal walk from Sidmouth to Branscombe, recommended to finish for lunch in the excellent Fountain Head in Branscombe. Any part of the South West coastal path that's convenient is usually worth it.

St Ives is beautiful, I think it's a bit hollowed out by holiday homes these. days, AIUI the community mostly sold up and moved to Carbis and the edges of town. The Barbara Hepworth garden's unmissable, the Bernard Leach studio is missable but interesting.

I really like Penzance but haven't been there in years. I really like Falmouth and was there a few years ago.

There's a decent little run of standing stones just north of Liskeard: Trevethy quoit (which is an excellent quilt which sits oddly in what seems to e an unloved playing field out the back of a little row of unremarkable houses, but is atmospheric for all that), then the Hurlers Stone Circles and Craddock Moor stone circle (didn't make it to the Cheesewring, heard people like it).

Mark S is the best thing about Plymouth. Ivor Dewdney's (pron: dood-knee) pasties are the second best, it's not true that he killed his brother and turned him into a pasty. There's a good dusty old bookshop down by the Barbican.

There's supposed to be a very good gastropub in Tavistock. The Cider House in Newton Abbot is something of a natural wonder, proper old-fashioned cider pub, there are basically no places like that left anywhere.

Stone things I've enjoyed on Dartmoor: Nine Maidens stone circle, Mardon Down stone circle, Grimspound abandoned village. I should know more about neolithic shit on the moor than I do.

Exeter: the best and friendliest pub in Exeter by a mile is The Hour Glass, the food there is good too. The cathedral wouldn't be in my top 5 but would be in my top 10. There's a surprising number of decent East Asian places in Exeter, my favourite being Rogamo on Sidwell Street, which has no atmosphere, no licence, erratic service and some of the best hand-pulled Xi'an noodles I've ever had.

I've tried not to crap on about churches and / or modern architecture but I can crap on about either if you want.

Sone of my favourite ever rambling in England was between Par and Looe via Fowey and Polperro (an odd little place), should be ideal that time of year.

Not at all, that's a proper language.

Thanks for the thoughts! Keep 'em coming, we won't get to everything but love to know what's out there. (We do have the Julian Cope book and have marked a few places from that for sure.)

Also, my wife requests more info on "modern architecture" as mentioned upthread.

don't start with grimspound abandoned village

Trying to remember the Cornish language bookstore people like

Not quite what I said, but Rubicund in Falmouth.

That'll be those brisk sea breezes.

Okay, here's the one thing you'll want to know about the Cornish language if you want to know anything. The word for music is "ilow." Which is a ghost-word, based on a misunderstanding and a typo, but it has been accepted since there was no other good candidate.

I love ilow

Also this storefront: https://cornish-language.org/kowsva-shop-at-heartlands/

Maybe you can bring me back a souvenir;)

Although I might just order online

Could get you one of those Cornish alphabet books.

We'll be down there in the summer, but taking kids to beaches mainly.
Jam before cream, btw, and I say that having grown up in Devon...

What are the good beaches?

Mark S is the best thing about Plymouth.

― Tim, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 18:41 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no longer true, they just found a v large unexploded ww2 bomb in a garden in keyham up beyond stoke village: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-68156374

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339093341_Haunting_Vocabulary_and_Celtic_Lexicography_Towards_a_Taxonomy_of_Ghost_Words

With small people we have tended to minimise driving (and see friends nearby) so have only been to Rock, Harlyn, Mawgan Porth sort of areas, which were perfectly lovely but I imagine it's more lush the deeper into Cornwall you go - would love to explore more, and also revisit the Isles Of Scilly one day. My one memory of Land's End is my brother throwing up from car-sickness when we were kids...

I'd recommend any of the four great beaches at Newquay, but I'm a crude pleb who can't stand Julian Cope and don't gaf about cosmic leylines or whatever bollox he has wrote about. Get to the fucking chip shop at Towan after walking across all of them, tides permitting, and get attacked by seagulls while you eat - that's the real england!

lol taken under advisement

Trying to remember the Cornish language bookstore people like

There's a great bookshop in Falmouth called Beermoth (iirc) that has a bar and sells wonderful Cornish beer.

For coastal walks I can recommend Fowey > Polpero, finishing off at the Three Pilchards Inn for fish and chips and cider. It's a pretty tough up-and-down walk but with beautiful views.

If you really want to push the boat out, go to Burgh Island Hotel for a night or two, it's full-on 20s Art Deco opulence. Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" was set on a fictionalised version of the island. You get there on a Sea Tractor and there's a pub owned by the hotel on the island.

My only advice is not to bother with Land's End, one of the most disappointing tourist spots in the world.

do not trust satnavs if driving near Polperro, speaking from experience

Tim - if I'm driving down the m5 and want to make it just past Exeter before stopping for dinner with kids early on a Friday evening, is there anywhere you'd recommend that's not too far of a detour? pretty much any pub with food and room to stretch legs...

Sennen and Gwynver beaches are gorgeous - particularly out of season. There are loads along the north coast that are beautiful though - Harlyn, Holywell, Constantine, Porthcothan.

I'm not mad on the ley lines bollocks either but there's something about West Penwith. You can stand on headlands or alongside menhirs and look at 3000 years of history where little has changed. Not many places left like that in England.

Kinder - would I be right in thinking you’re planning to go north around Dartmoor rather than south? If so the Old Thatch at Cheriton Bishop was alright the last time I went, which was probably 20 years ago now.

These days I rarely make it west of the river Exe, mostly for special occasions like seeing Mark S and his UXBs. I’ll ask around a bit, see if friends or colleagues know any gems.

Recommendations from a local friend with kids: If you’re taking the southern route (ie A38 towards Plymouth) the Ley Arms at Kenn. If the northern (ie A30 skirting Okehampton) the Huntsman Inn at Ide.

I haven’t been to either but can advise that Ide is pronounced to rhyme with deed rather than died (the latter is how I pronounced it for many years).

thank you! yeah it'll be northern!

I’m told by other friends that the bit of the M5 near Exeter (esp the roundabout at Sowton) can get absurdly congested round about close of play on Friday nights FYI.

I couldn’t say whether their definition of absurd congestion and my London-centric ones are the same.

Urgh, thanks....

How was your trip, Tipsy?
We're going back down later this month but it looks like rain and cold. We've lucked out with the weather the past few years so still keeping my fingers crossed...