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Cornwall Local Information
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History of Cornwall
Featured Property
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Local Information
Cornwall Misc Links
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There is a wealth of folk lore about pixies and giants that roamed
Cornwall in the past. The legendary King Arthur is said to have had
his Camelot at Tintagel, and many early Christian saints founded settlements
around the Cornish coast. Then there were the wreckers and smugglers
in the last few hundred years (though I think that the wreckers were
more likely to have been beachcombers than wreckers). There is the
Cornwall of literature - Jamaica Inn and the other Daphne du Maurier
stories, the Poldark tales, to Betjeman' s poetry and TV detective
series like Wycliffe. Mining on a commercial scale has come and gone,
but the remains of Victorian mines are to be found everywhere.
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The coastal scenery is what hits you first. Rugged cliffs and smashing waves. The Cornish Coastal Path that runs all the way round the coast from Bude in the north to Plymouth in the south. If you follow the coastal path you will pass through all of Cornwall's past, Tintagel and Arthur, modern seaside resorts, the romantic ruins of mines round St Agnes and St Just, St Ives and its artists, Land's End, the Minack Theatre, St Michael's Mount near Penzance, fishing villages like Polperro and Mevagissy, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and Plymouth sound over which Drake looked out for the Spanish Armada.
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Inland, Bodmin Moor and the Tamar valley, the china clay pits near St Austell, or one of the many tourist attractions that have sprung up are there to find. The millennium project for the giant greenhouse (you could get five cathedrals inside it) has had a lottery grant, it remains to be seen whether it will get off the ground. You can explore Cornwall's real past in the castles and country houses, the National trust properties. Or visit its literary past in following the trail of one of the Cornish authors. Their are mines nearly everywhere, even in Newquay if you know what to look for.
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Consider joining the National trust if you are here for a week or more, not only do they have lots of properties, they also have lots of car parks that you would otherwise have to pay for. The tourist Information centres do have information and books and maps. But be warned, they are not a national organisation, they are in fact "franchised" and do have to make money. They do have, as do most book shops and national trust shops, quite a good series of little booklets on particular local topics
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| The weather can vary between the north coast and the south coast. So if it is too blustery here for you, consider going to the Helford River, Heligan or Polperro. |
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