Fowey to Charlestown - with MUD

So, first leg of the proper walk, this time with Crispin who'd had an unholy early start to drive down from London. We were joined by friends who'd fed me breakfast first before rendezvous-ing near Dawn French's house above Readymoney beach. With two doctors and three accountants in the party we were ready for anything. I'm glad we took a photo of  'before' given what transpired. This is as clean as we looked all day. The usual Komoot summary is here.

We were soon up onto the cliff tops and able to look back towards Fowey and Polruan where Bob and Tammy have an amazing house looking both out to sea and back over the Fowey estuary. Thanks both for your pre-trip hospitality.
Dave and Alison also braved the conditions with customary aplomb. If only they'd known how much mud awaited us all....

Fowey (Cornish for Beech Trees) has certainly been around since Domesday which records manors at nearby Penventinue and Trenant and the priory at Tywardreath granted a charter to the town in 1300. It lies at the end of the Saints Way, a 28 mile path from Padstow opened in 1986 after two villagers in Luxulyan discovered an abandoned section nearby.

Like many coastal towns in the South West it’s had a somewhat rumbustious past. A group of privateers known as the 'Fowey Gallants' were given licence to seize French vessels during the bit-more-than Hundred Years War (1337 – 1453), the town was attacked by French forces in 1457and a Dutch attack was beaten off in 1667, with the help of a small castle on St Catherine’s Point, the western side of the harbour entrance. It was a Royalist town in the civil war and Charles I was nearly killed by a musket shot while viewing Fowey from Hall Walk above Polruan.

Local mining became an important factor in the development of the town and in 1873 the Cornwall Minerals Railway opened lines from Newquay and Par. Fowey railway station closed in 1965 but china clays are still carried on the Lostwithiel to Fowey branch line. Fowey was the main port for loading ammunition for the US 29th Division that landed on Omaha Beach on D Day during the Second World War.

Daphne du Maurier lived here, as did Gordon Waller for a few years (the ancients like me will remember Peter & Gordon’s  “A World Without Love”, #1 in 1964) and various celebs have second homes here. That’s probably true of anywhere in Cornwall….. Fans of Bergerac and Midsomer Murders may like to know that John Nettles was born in nearby St Austell.

The King of Prussia pub in Fowey is named after the infamous 18th century smuggler, John Carter

Along the headland to Polridmouth where the stream coming down from Daphne du Maurier's Manderlay has been dammed to form a pretty lagoon. I now need to read Rebecca (which has never been out of print since it was first published in 1938). Getting over the bridge allowed Dave to show some moves that would have been crowd pleasers on Strictly..

From here to the Gribbin, a daymark erected to help shipping in 1832. the land around it was bought for the National Trust in 1967 funded by, among others, the local St Austell brewery and the tower itself in 1998 after local appeals. Closed today but in season you can climb it. Amazingly, we all still look happy despite the mud

The weather had been very wet for many days before so, although it relented for our walk, we weren't surprised to encounter muddy conditions. Just how muddy and for how long was a bit of a surprise though. I think this gives some idea of the difficulty. 

Unfortunately we got no photos of Tammy's close encounter with the ground. Like an All Black accustomed to the stuff, she took it in great spirit, if not exactly in her, er stride so to speak.

By now we'd reached Polkerris, a lovely village with little more than a road down to the beach, a cafe and a pub. It's been part of the Rashleigh family's Menabilly estate since the late 16th century. We left our friends enjoying a restorative latte or two, and doubtless envying us our climb up the hill and onto yet more muddy encounters. They returned via farmyards, with mud rather less pure than ours, I fancy. You can see Tammy's battle scars.

From here to Par which is, inevitably, close to a golf course. Par means creek in Cornish. The harbour was developed in the mid 1900s for the copper mines and later for China Clay from the Luxulyan valley. It is now on the main line from Paddington but in the 1830s Joseph Treffrey developed tramways and a canal to get the mine workings to the harbour. (He planned to extend the tramway to Newquay to avoid the difficult sea passage round Land’s End). Special locomotives “Alfred” (1953) & “Judy” (1937) were built to operate on the restricted sites here.

Today the clay operations are much reduced and there are plans to redevelop the docks. Probably the best known redevelopment of old china clay workings nearby is the Eden Project, a fantastic assemblage of biomes replicating Earth’s different climates and flora, but also with an educational mission.

China clay, by the way, was discovered here by William Cookworthy who couldn’t afford the coach fare and so walked from the Devon town of Kingsbridge to London for the start of his chemist’s apprenticeship. That’s just over 200 miles. Before his discoveries the clay had to be imported from Virginia.

We had intended to stop at Par but decided to carry on to Charlestown and I'm glad we did as it's a quite stunning Georgian harbour . The old sailing vessel in the foreground I think we'd seen out earlier in the day. Very Onedin Line. Notice the square-rigger behind, too.

Charlestown was built pretty much from scratch by Charles Rashleigh's estate in the 1790s. It took the better part of 10 years to establish and involved bring water via a leat from the Luxulyan valley some 4 miles away. It was built to get copper to the ships from the nearby mines and latterly for the export of china clay and competed with Par and Pentewan (that's for tomorrow's walk). The last vessel to leave with china clay did so in 2000 as by then the vessels used had outgrown Charlestown's capacity to handle them.

In 1994 the harbour was bought by Square Sail as a base for their sailing ships, which explains what we saw. Both harbour and ships have been extensively used for filming such as the Poldark series and The Curse of the Black Spot, a Doctor Who episode.

By now we'd had enough for the day so called a cab and repaired to the Travelodge. It was good to get the mud off and have a hot bath. 

Tomorrow we plan to walk to Gorran Haven, roughly another 10 miles but as we'll be starting earlier it should be easier - ha! - mud permitting. We'll see.

Thanks again to Alison, Tammy, Bob and Dave for their company and good humour amongst the muck. I hope it hasn't put you off for future walks.

Peter (and Crispin, by now asleep)