please empty your brain below

Well I see sunshine on some of your photos. Glad you got to see so much. I know all these places well but St Michael's mount is my favourite and walking along the shore from Penzance is the best way to get there too. Looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip and hoping you made it to St Ives and Porthcurno too though not sure if there are buses to the latter in winter.
You will have walked along the old trackbed of the Penlee Quarry Tramway on your way from Mousehole to Newlyn. This 2 ft gauge railway took the prized Elvan Stone from Newlyn Quarry to the South Pier for onward shipment. In spite of the quarry and its railway closing in 1989/90, traces of the old track can still be seen along the route and out onto the pier.

For more info and some delightful pictures of this tramway, visit this page and scroll down the alphabet until you reach the letter P.
Thank you DG, I am going to that part of the world in August, largely for the Minack Theatre, but this has given me some excellent ideas of other things to do!
In 1471 an ancestor of mine, as Sheriff of Cornwall, was ordered by King Edward IV to relieve St Michael's Mount, which had been seized by the Earl of Oxford during the on-going War of the Roses.
In a skirmish on the sands he was killed and is buried in the chapel on the Mount, thus fulfilling the prophecy of a 'wise woman' made many years before, that 'he should be slain in the sands'.
Ironically, he had moved his family to inland Newlyn East (nearer Perranporth, not this one) from their coastal home in Efford near Bude in order to avoid the prophecy!

Less notably, Mousehole is famous in our family for a newly licensed cousin who drove her car down to the harbour, after being advised against it, then got stuck and had to call on a local to drive her back out again!!
You made me seriously consider visiting here!
Nice pictures. But a bit of a warning against going /anywhere/ in winter. Still, it's undoubtedly better than sitting at home and moping (though DG doesn't strike me as the moping type).

The sea level datum at Newlyn is obviously of big historical interest. But nowadays, I think heights are measured to millimetre precision by GPS, and presumably the official OS datum is defined by reference to WGS84 and suchlike.
Just to let you know, the link on Jelberts is actually the Rockpool Facebook page.

dg writes: Fixed, thanks.

Sounds like the kind of shop that would be so easy to overlook too - which just goes to show that the best food is often hidden in plain sight.
And don't forget the Penlee Lifeboat disaster that happened on 19th December 1981 when the Penlee Lifeboat based near Mousehole went to the aid of the Union Star. 16 people died, including 8 volunteer lifeboatmen showing the tremendous standards that our lifeboat service still maintains.

dg writes: I passed the (now-closed) Penlee Lifeboat Station, and its memorial garden, a few minutes into my blizzardy walk.
Loving the Cornish adventures.
Roskilly's ice cream is our local favourite!
Rear Admiral Wilfred Graham, best known as the Captain of HMS ARK ROYAL in "Sailor" went on to become a director of RNLI. In todays' obituaries in The Times "When he heard of the Penlee lifeboat tragedy in 1981, he was sitting on a plane at Heathrow Airport with his wife, about to embark on a skiing holiday. The flight left without them. Graham knew all too well how mercilessly violent the seas could be and raced straight to Cornwall."

Bet DG also visited Cable and Wireless museum at Porthcurno. I was fascinated that from the humble beginnings of undersea cables that still today 95% of internet goes by undersea cable, not satellite. Best museum I have visited in UK. Bought 2 fascinating books of recollections of former C&W staff and biography of Marconi as a result of my visit there. Much better than the Minack theatre. Then there is St Just, proper cider and Cape Cornwall. Much better than Land's' End....
The BBC's very moving documentary about the lifeboat disaster is available on youtube.
Sorry to hear about the disappointing cream tea. Somewhat surprisingly the best one I have had recently was in Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park.
<snip>
Does it have a twin town? Shizzel?










TridentScan | Privacy Policy