Wild Cornwall

Scenes from a wild and wet out-of-season Cornwall last month ...

Minack, the open air theatre carved into the rocks and perched spectacularly on the cliff tops overlooking Porthcurno Bay is just a short drive from Lands End.

Despite or maybe because of the thick mist this place and bit of coastline was astonishing, though I may have become a tad obsessed with Cornwall's history of smuggling and pirates from watching BBC One's Poldark.

There was a detour to the quaintly named Mousehole (quaintly pronounced Mowzel) to track down Dolly Pentreath's tombstone.

This fish wife of Mousehole was the last monolingual native speaker of Cornish, and when she died in 1777 the language essentially died with her, "the peculiar language of this county from the earliest records till it expired in the eighteenth century in this parish of Saint Paul". (Actually her status as last speaker is disputed, and the language is undergoing attempts at revival, but I'm not inclined to quibble - I'm all in favour of tombstones to dying languages).

Also on the south Cornish coast, Trelissick gardens near Truro are set on a peninsula with fabulous sea and estuary views on each side.

Cornwall's closeness to the Gulf Stream makes it Britain's only sub-tropical region with its own micro-climate, and Trelissick is only one of a number of botanical gardens including the wonderfully named Lost Gardens of Heligan.

Rhododendrons are the big thing at Trelissick, many of them grown to massive heights.

From Trelissick the King Harry ferry was definitely the most unusual and scenic way to travel across the estuary that divides Truro from St Mawes ...

to reach St Just in Roseland where there is possibly the prettiest cemetery I've ever seen, around a 13C church on the edge of the estuary

Cornwall south coast April 2015

Down by the sea

Planning a weekend in Cornwall in springtime is a gamble with the weather. 
The start of day one was bright enough to appreciate the rugged prettiness of the north coast and its fishing villages.

Port Isaac was all rocky cliffs, colourful fishing boats and wheeling gulls. But it seems that not much fishing is done any more, outside of the tourist season. This quaint little harbour on the beach looks more like a static film set - which it is in fact, for the TV series Doc Martin. (I confess I'm a fan and always charmed by the scenes of this place in the series).

Out of season in early spring the streets were empty here, as in most of the other Cornwall towns I saw. Thoroughly gentrified and second-homed, the crowds descend in summer, clogging the narrow lanes winding down to coastal villages and depart abruptly in the autumn. Making this a perfect time of year to visit ...

Just a little further along the coast, nestled on an estuary, is Padstow, famous for chef Rick Stein's collection of restaurants, hotels and foodie shops.

Padstow was another dying Cornish fishing village before Stein arrived and pretty much single-handedly convinced the British that the fish in their own waters was worth eating, and in so doing revived the fishing industry here. 

This is an actual working harbour now, and the seafood at Stein's restaurant is truly fabulous, as I discovered.

St Ives is a lot further down the north coast, towards the end of the pointy finger of western Cornwall. And by this time it was turning pretty wet and grey and I had to use my imagination to picture the 'brilliant' light that has attracted artists to St Ives since Turner and Whistler.

By the standards of where I come from the beach front is no great shakes, but it's easy to see how lovely it could be here on a summer's day

and the Tate St Ives is right here, its striking architecture making full use of the view over Porthmeor beach. 

From the Tate it was a short wander through wet streets and empty holiday cottages to the Barbara Hepworth museum

for a wet walk around her sculpture garden and the studio where she worked, looking exactly as if she'd just finished working for the day.

Port Isaac, Padstow & St Ives, Cornwall, April 2015