| NEWQUAY
July 18, Wednesday
After breakfast Nikki, Bob, and I packed our lunches at the kitchen table as usual, then the three of us set out for the manor house of Lanhydrock. Bob and I had never heard of Lanhydrock, and didn't know what to expect for sure. Whoof! We strolled from the car park on a gravel lane through some trees and made a turn. Down the path a ways, a little castle with turrets of gray stone rose before us. And that was just the gatehouse!
Beyond the gatehouse, a rambling stately Victorian country house sprawled among formal gardens and dignified parklands. It was right out of Jane Austen, or maybe P.G. Wodehouse. The brochure that we were handed with our tickets said to allow two hours to visit the house. Well, at least! That would be if you trotted through the place. There are fifty rooms open to the public at Lanhydrock. Fifty rooms! There are state rooms, drawing rooms, hunt rooms, servants' rooms, saloons, boudoirs, and on and on. It's like Upstairs, Downstairs. We saw it all.
We did our best by the fifty rooms and enjoyed it. Though we've toured castles, palaces, and manors unnumbered, each one is unique. Lanhydrock is elegance personified. The decorating, architecture and history of great houses fascinate us. We picture the lifestyle and build the personalities of former residents from what they chose to collect, how they decorated their rooms, paintings and photos on the walls, and the time period in which they lived. Rich people are just people, they say. I don't know. I've never been one. But I like their houses.
We had our ham sandwiches and hot tea sitting on some steps in the gardens. In front of us sculpted yews marched down a faultless green lawn. It was a beautiful setting, even if the seating was a tad low and hard. After lunch we toured the flower gardens. Formal flower beds held court along with cottagey borders bursting with color. Nikki and I tried to identify as many flowers as we could. They have flowering plants in Britain that are strange to me, but many familiar friends live here, too.
From the gardens we followed a path into the wooded part of the estate. There are 900 acres at Lanhydrock. We didn't walk them all, but we did at least fifteen of them. Our way passed the manorial church and a thatched gardener's cottage. The manor is built on a hillside, so at many points we looked down on the towers of the country house and beyond to hedgerowed hills.
Do you know the one thing I brought home from Lanhydrock? Well, many memories of fun at an English manor, of course. But I saw there, in a display, milk pitchers and jugs topped with crocheted covers held down by the weight of beads tied along the edges. That is very Victorian, and very practical. I can do that when I set out a meal in our courtyard to keep the resident bugs from drowning in the tea and juice. I studied those doilies very carefully. I think I can make them myself. Stay tuned.
July 19, Thursday
There are two sayings I have heard about Cornwall. County Devon, just above Cornwall, has the wildly beautiful moors of Dartmoor. Cornwall has a wildly beautiful coastline of cliffs and beaches. The saying goes, “ Devon has the picture; Cornwall has the frame.” A friend, Alan Miller, who lives in Devon told us this years ago.
The second saying is, “Mount St. Michael is the jewel in Cornwall's crown.” The crown, then, would be the coastline of Cornwall. A crown it truly is. We have visited Padstow, Land's End, Penzance, St.Ives, and Tintagel, on Cornwall's coast on earlier trips. We have walked the coastal trail at Crantock and Penzance. We thought we knew Cornwall's coast. Wrong. The crown of Cornwall had jewels at every bend and turn, jewels like we never dreamed. Here are two of them for starters.
Boscastle! Check your Cornwall guidebooks or the National Trust website for the quaint seaside town of Boscastle. It is one of Cornwall's brighter jewels.
Boscastle is tucked among steep hills at the edge of the sea. A stream, Valency River, rushes down through the center of the village and carries water off the hills into a small harbor protected by cliffs and man-made rock quays. Old arched stone bridges span the stream to tie the village together.
In 2004, the year the devastating hurricanes raked Florida, Mother Nature took a swipe at Boscastle and fairly washed it into the sea. The news reports we got in the U.S. were dire. Historic Boscastle was gone. It would never be the olde village beloved by tourists and guidebooks. It rained on August 16, '04, a lot, in one afternoon. You know what happened., A flash flood poured down the hills to the sea taking 10 houses, a bridge, and various boats with it.
Next thing I knew, Boscastle had bandaged itself up and returned. The recovery, at least of the tourist district, was called miraculous by the news. In our eyes, when we walked out of the car park with Nikki, Boscastle was as picturesque as promised. With a setting of sea, cliffs, arched bridges and old houses, how could it miss?
Nikki led us to Boscastle Pottery. She had some pottery at her house that fascinated me. Incredibly delicate tree-like shapes floated on a sky-like mat glaze background. They came from Boscastle Pottery. Inside the pottery's shop, shelves were filled with this same lacy tree pottery. There was some other pottery, too, all made by one man and his son, nice pots, but not as stunning as the tree forms.
This man, Roger Little, has flung clay around for fifty years in Boscastle, fifty years in a tiny village between Cornwall cliffs. His wife glazes, dripping on each pot the “special secret Victorian formula” that spreads lacy trees in the kiln's heat. The pottery is called Mochaware.
Roger Little is not only a potter, but also a man of business. He knows how to make pots and he knows how to attract business. One end of the sales area opens into the pottery itself. At the front of the workshop a frowsy, bearded, stocky man in shorts and sandals held court whilst sponging clay crumbs and minute imperfections off greenware winecup bases. 'Twas the potter, himself, poised to greet his adoring public.
One hundred bases were lined up on the shelf in front of him, he told Nikki and me. One hundred bases, absolutely identical. He confided that his son did most of the throwing now. I thought surely these hundred pieces must come from a mold, or at the very least, be thrown with a template. I asked him about the template. He assured me, insisted, even, that there was no template. Each one of the hundred bases was thrown on the wheel individually and exactly alike.
Behind Roger the son threw a small crock as we talked. I watched him center the clay, but only glanced at him as we talked with his father. I did see him cut the piece off the wheel and set it on a shelf with another crock. I couldn't see if they were truly identical, but they did look the same. Crocks, all right. That can be done. But I still think they must use a template for the winecups.
Nothing would do but that Bob had to have two of those winecups for our nightly tipple of red wine. He and I maundered over the cups on display until we finally decided on two of them. The clerk wrapped them in newsprint and put them away for us to pick up later. It's a major purchase, in the sense that these two cups must now be carried the rest of the summer in our luggage without breaking. Good luck.
Though it was misty when we pulled into Boscastle, and rained when we wanted to leave the pottery, the sun soon shone and we were off to explore Boscastle. We dipped into a couple of tourist shops, and spent an hour or so at the town visitor center. The center is in a new building by the stream. The old one went in the flood. The new building blends so well with the traditional architecture of the town that you don't realize it is new until you read a plaque on the side wall. I did a rubbing of a druid there, and bought a bookmark.
Lunchtime came just as we reached a pretty little teashop, The Harbor Light, right beside the stream. A sagging roofline, Gothic windows, and stonewall enclosed front courtyard qualified it as One List Quaint if I ever saw quaint. We opened the wrought-iron gate, found a table in the courtyard, ordered tea, then dug our ham sandwiches and crisps out of our packs for lunch. It was lovely to sit in the sun and gaze over the pansies on the rock wall at the village and the stream.
The harbor at Boscastle is long and narrow. It makes an “s” turn at the end between two sentinel hog's back cliffs. A path that passes The Harbor Light follows the coastline to one of these rocks. We followed it. As it got away from the village and the hillside got steeper, the path became an uneven trail. Bob found a park bench and opted out to sit and admire the view. Nikki and I continued to the end of the trail and beyond onto the open rock crest. I got a couple of great photos looking back at the village. We dallied around for a while out there, couldn't figure out anything more to do, so hopped the rocks back onto the trail. We picked up Bob along the way back to the village and picked up our winecups on our way back to the car.
Our next stop was the small fishing village of Port Isaac. I don't know why I wrote “small” village. They are all small. They wouldn't have their charm if they weren't small-and old. Port Isaac dates back to the 1400s. There were two novel things about Port Isaac; their car park and one of their streets. Other than that is was simply a lovely fishing village of very narrow lanes and pastel stucco traditional Cornish homes bedecked with flowers. I took six photos just of the lanes.
Nikki knows these towns. The directions for Port Isaac in tourist publications point you to a car park at the top of the hill. From there you get a view of the village as you walk down to it. That's probably very nice. But Nikki knew that there is a car park in Port Isaac right at the harbor. In fact, it's right IN the harbor, and only usable between tides. We parked there and practically stepped from our car into the heart of the village.
The second novel sight was the “smallest lane in Cornwall.” It is an alley between two houses, so narrow that Bob could hardly stand crosswise in it. But two doors open into this “lane,” and a window looks onto it. These qualify it as a street. It's really quite picturesque when you look into it. That was good for another four shots.
I found a real treasure at a gift shop in Port Isaac, crocheted Victorian jug covers! I bought two sizes to use as patterns when I start on mine. It'll be a lot easier than trying to do them from memory.
We got out of Port Isaac before the car park flooded. I took a last photo from Nikki's car as we climbed out of the village. I wanted to show how narrow these lanes are that are used going two ways for not only cars, but also the fishermen's trucks and trailers. It may make drivers crazy, but they are charming.
July 20, Friday
Many years ago in Newquay we bought a set of cork place mats with watercolors of Cornish harbors on them. We had been to four of the six harbors. One of the harbors we had not seen was Mevagissey. That was the first stop Friday for Nikki, Bob, and myself.
Mevagissey harbor is busy on land and sea. Houses and shops line the quayside. A half-dozen steps out of the front door, and you're swimming. When the quay turns and goes out into the harbor as a breakwater, the houses keep on marching in a line up the hillside. We strolled from the car park along the picturesque quay, and made a stop at the public restrooms. Then we climbed to a platform above the restrooms, selected a park bench, and watched the harbor. But it was not idle viewing this time. We were watching for the Mevagissey to Fowey (pronounced “Foy”) Ferry to arrive. It was gray out, and Nikki was worried that the ferry might not run if it rained.
It wasn't as if you couldn't get to Fowey if it rained. You could drive there. Fowey is just around the bay from Mevagissey. But Fowey is a big tourist attraction, and very crowded in the summer. It is perched on a peninsula just off the sprawling city of St. Austell. You must deal with St. Austell's traffic to get there, then find a place to park in Fowey. It's just easier to drive to quieter Mevagissey and take the boat.
We watched some harbor seals play at the edge where a boat slip entered the water. We chatted with some other folk who came up on the platform to wait for the ferry. Then finally it came, a red and white launch. People appeared from all over and strolled down to the docking spot. We somehow were one of the first on, and snatched seats next to the cabin which were warmer and more comfortable than the exposed wooden benches on the deck. Nikki unleashed the tea flask, and we settled in for a nice tea break.
The captain had jollied with the folks as they got on board, then he came over, sat down, and chatted with us. I don't quite remember how it happened, but his arm got around Nikki's shoulders somehow. I got a photo of it, and we all got some laughs. He was a fun fellow complete with requisite beard and captain's hat.
We made the trip to Fowey. Nikki pointed out scenic points along the way. When we got to Fowey, there was a Life Saving Boat Fête. We climbed up onto the quay into a party. Crowds surged up and down the long esplanade to watch demonstrations and competitions of Life Saving Boat teams. We walked along the esplanade and explored the village lanes.
I've been talking about all the quaint fishing harbors. Fowey, by contrast, is a pleasure boat destination. Sailboats of all colors and sizes crowd the waters. Amongst them a few small launches bob. At Fowey's waterfront twisting narrow streets crowd old wharves and quays. The streets are filled with holiday-makers. Many houses lining the harbor and climbing the hills are seasonal holiday homes.
Daphne du Maurier (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn) lived a good share of her life in Fowey area. There was a plethora of books by and about du Maurier in the Fowey shops. I have been collecting her books in second hand stores. I like old books more than new ones, as a rule. However, we went into some bookstores and I took a look at what was available in du Maurier books not offered in old bookstores.
Because the books I found were so expensive in American dollars with the 2.06 exchange rate, I took down the pertinent information about them with the plan to buy them when I got back home. As a bit of trivia, did you know that the famous 60s movie by Alfred Hitchcock, The Birds, was from a short story by du Maurier? Neither did I until I visited Fowey.
Daphne du Maurier isn't the only famous author from Fowey. Kenneth Grahame, who wrote Wind in the Willows also lived near Fowey. Du Maurier, however, is obviously the favorite daughter, and the town promotes her far over Grahame. Perhaps it was because she wrote books laid in Cornwall, while Wind in the Willows are children's fantasy tales. There is, though, a cruise up the Fowey River to the village of Lerryn, where Kenneth Grahame lived. The Fowey River is the setting for Grahame's tales.
We strolled down the lanes of the town, in and out of shops, and then out on the waterfront esplanade. The lifesaving festival was rather closing down, though there were still some demonstrations happening on the water. We went out to the edge of the quay to watch.
Nikki hung at a corner of the quay. We knew what she was doing. She was looking for her friend Sharon's launch. If Sharon had time, she might take us for a boat ride of the harbor and Fowey River mouth. A yellow launch came towards the quay. Nikki pointed it out as Sharon's boat. When it drew alongside the cement pier, Nikki leaned over and hailed Sharon.
We drew back, not wanting to appear pushy, and watched the lifesaving boat race. Nikki leaned over the rail and chatted with Sharon. But don't think I wasn't watching out of the corner of my eye, hoping for a ride. After a couple of minutes Nikki waved us over. We were there in a flash.
Yes, Sharon had time to take us for a harbor tour. Yea! We clambered down the steps and climbed into the yellow launch, where Nikki introduced us. Sharon had an interesting part-time job. She ferried folk from their boats anchored out in the harbor to the quay and back. We stood near Sharon as she pointed things out.
The most memorable sight, for me, was Ferryside, the house Daphne du Maurier lived in for many of her younger years. The house still belongs to the family. Sharon said that Daphne's son now lives in it. It is a biggish house, right on the water. She wrote My Cousin Rachel in that house.
While we were boating, Sharon got a call for her taxi service. We went back to the pier and picked up a couple of folk. Bob and I had a chance to chat with them on the way to their sailboat - uh, to their big sailboat! That was fun.
After that we resumed the tour. The harbor narrows quickly and becomes the Fowey River, which is quite wide at its mouth. Ferryside is actually across the harbor from Fowey at the river's mouth. It's in the village of Bodinnick-near-Fowey. Du Maurier is said to row across to Fowey at five a.m. for recreation and exercise. Now that sounds like fun-but not at five in the morning. If I were to do that, I'd time it to get to a teashop in Fowey for a cream tea at, say, about eleven.
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A couple more enrichment comments from Syd in Bury St. Edmunds:
Scrumpy has the reputation of being pretty high in alcohol - one does not
call 'ordinary' cider scrumpy. To be scrumpy it has to have a good kick in
it, a couple of glasses or so can leave you reeling I'm told.
and
My mother used to make milk-jug covers by crocheting around the edge of a
bit of linen, threading beads or more often small cowrie shells on the thread as she went.
That's another thought on the jug covers. The fabric would be a better cover, perhaps, than the crocheted one.
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July 21, Saturday
When Nikki, Bob, and I paid the price at a ticket window to explore the Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey, we were given a little compass on a cord loop. I tied mine unto my purse, where it remains to this day. I used the compass several times during the rest of our holiday to confirm our way in a town or on a walking path.
We were unsure just what the “Lost Gardens” would be. The first two things we learned were that there were 200 acres, and that a minimum of three hours should be planned for our visit. Well, we could handle the time frame. We had our tea and ham sandwiches, so were good for four hours, maybe five. The 200 acres bit seemed a bit excessive, though. Careful perusal of the map and descriptions in the brochure showed that some of the 200 acres was woods or open moorland with country paths. That cut the cultivated gardens down to a size that can be done in a few hours.
The “Lost” Gardens were really lost. In fact, much of them is still lost. For 400 years the Tremayne family held the estate of Heligan (means The Willows in old Cornish). At the end of the 1800s the estate owned 1,000 acres. Then the First World War came along. All the male staff, twenty-two of them that worked at Heligan, enlisted. The mansion was taken over by the War Office for a hospital. Only six of the staff returned. The rest died in the war. The house was returned to the Tremaynes after the war. But times had changed. They couldn't afford to care for the lands. Brambles and ivy soon covered the pleasure gardens, the vegetable gardens, the gazebos, gardeners' huts, and the greenhouses. Their existence was forgotten. The house was eventually sold; the family moved away. The lands, though, were and are still were held by the Tremayne family.
In 1990 Tim Smit, a biologist, was poking around in the gardens (with the permission of the Tramaynes). He found a small room under some fallen masonry that inspired more exploration and research. They found a biological and cultural treasure frozen in time. Tim Smit and others contracted to restore the gardens, and the rest is history.
Beautiful green and flowery Pleasure Gardens were hidden along the pathway. There were cottage borders, formal beds, sculptures, and fountains. We sat in stone belvederes and shady summerhouses to drink in the views. I got a photo of Nikki pointing to a koi in the pond of the Italian Garden. She got a photo of us seated at the end of Fiona's Green. Nikki and I are hobby gardeners. We admired and discussed flowers and ground covers. Bob leaned on his walking stick and snoozed during that part.
We ate our sandwiches while sitting on benches under a shed roof in the Melon Garden. A door at the end of the open shelter opened into the Melon gardener's office. Inside, typical workday log and seed orders were displayed along with 100-year-old gardening tools. Heligan is a working garden of today that preserves the glory of its past.
Vegetable gardens spread their bounty in the sun behind walls and among buildings. Bob liked the vegetable gardens better than flowers. I took a picture of the biggest artichokes I have ever seen in my life. Fruit trees were trained up onto brick walls facing south to catch the sun. I never saw anything like it. Peach trees, like vines against the wall, were laden with fruit. The early Tremaynes were plant collectors and botanists that did some amazing things, which Smit has researched and restored.
There were aubergines (eggplants) and cabbages and a Victorian pineapple bed heated with decaying manure and compost. Greenhouses were filled with geraniums of all shades. It was an absolute gardener's paradise. There were so many techniques and ideas, so much to marvel at. If I lived there and Heligan needed a gardener, I would sign up immediately. I could learn a lot of new things.
We finally worked our way around to the front of the gardens and the main tearoom. We took a break for a cup of tea before finishing up with the last attractions. Nikki told us about the Mud Giant's Head on the Woodland Walk, but we didn't get the picture. After tea we strolled down the Woodland Walk. I mean to tell you, I was floored by the Giant's Head. I just had no idea…
The Head is about five feet high, sculptured of the earth from which it springs. It appears to be buried in the earth up to its nose. Ground covers hold the shape of the face, and a wildness of orange-flowered montgrefia is the hair. No, I don't know montgrefia. Nikki told me what it is. Further up the path is the Mud Maiden. She lies on her side, sleeping in the grasses under the trees. Like the Giant, she is part of the earth from which she rises. These are permanent sculptures. They are clay over rock held in place by the greenery on them.
We walked back down the woodland path from the Mud Maid and headed for home. I don't think I have mentioned that many of these sites we visited with Nikki are on winding single lane roads. The hedges along the roads and the overhanging trees create leafy green tunnels to drive through. They are wonderful.
It was a Saturday,and that means quiz night at the Two Clombs Pub. On Thursday last, Pauline's family came to 2, Bridle Way. The house was busy! This night Dave Thorne, Gary Thorne and his partner LeaAnne, Nikki, and I went down to quiz night. We grabbed a table, went to the bar and ordered a beer, then socialized and waited for the fun to begin. The Quiz Night fellow with the questions seemed to dawdle, and spend time chatting around the rooms with folk. The crowd was a little down, and I think he was waiting for it to build up. But finally, near 10 p.m., he started with the questions.
One of the first questions was how to spell “chauffeur.” I thought I had that one cold, but as other spellings were presented, I almost lost my confidence. I did all right contributing on some of them, but on British sports questions I didn't have a clue. At every question we would all lean over the table and debate in excited low voices. Wouldn't be smart to allow others to hear our answers, you know! I went through two pints of draught Guiness stout, things were so tense. There were forty questions. Our team got a little over two thirds of them right. We didn't win the cash or the meat raffle. But we had a great time!
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