Cornwall's North Coast - Towering Cliffs and Tiny Coves

The timeless charm of Port Isaac, a tiny fishing village tucked away in a sheltered cove, the majestic cliffs to the north of Bude that stand as guardians against the ever-formidable sea, the huge expanse of fine, yellow sand that is Widemouth Bay, the mystical and romantic connotations of Tintagel and its links to King Arthur, and above all, the rebirth of Boscastle, as it is rebuilt after the devastating floods of late 2004.

Quick Tips:

Accommodation will be easy to find in any of the places detailed; most will have a local pub or two, a guesthouse, or maybe a simple but clean and inexpensive hotel. Be prepared to pay around £25-£30 per night, per person for a decent stopover, although you could just as well find farmhouse B&Bs for as little as £15.

Best Way To Get Around:

As ever, walking is the favoured method of transportation, especially as the North Cornwall Coast Path passes by all these places. Public transport is at best sparse, and few of the places in this area will enjoy regular links to the neighbouring towns and villages.

Cornwall's remoteness at the far southwest of the UK means that a car is a definite requirement to get here, as most of the old railway branch lines now lay defunct. The only main line joins Saltash, Bodmin, St Austell, Truro, Camborne, and Penzance, and once at these main stations, a bus, car, or taxi will be needed to explore further afield.

The nearest railway station to any of these places listed here is Bodmin Parkway.

Bude is the premier resort in this area of Cornwall and is situated just back from the main A39 route that winds its way up from Wadebridge and continues north to Bideford in Devon.

It was a favourite with the Victorians, and there are many lovely examples of their grand townhouses within the resort. This favour was due to the town’s wonderful Summerleaze beach, a wide expanse of soft yellow sand that stretches down to the sea during low tide for several hundred yards. The beach is sheltered by grass-topped headlands and still has that most "British" of holiday requirements, the all-important beach hut, several rows of which adorn the grassy dunes.

The town has recently become a mecca for the surfing fraternity who have given the town a winter lease of life as far as local businesses are concerned. Several surf shacks now compete in the resort.

A small tributary of the River Neet flows through the town and passes in its channel beneath an ancient pack-horse bridge before running down to the beach, thence into the sea.

Like most resorts in Cornwall, Bude benefits from the warming influences of the Gulf Stream, this amply demonstrated by the plethora of subtropical ferns and palms that flourish in the town.

Bude is well-equipped for family holidays, with caravan sites, touring parks, hotels, guest-houses, B&B’s, and hostels, and comes with a good selection of local pubs, restaurants, and bars, all of which will be busy in the season that runs from early April until late September. If trinket shops are your thing, then you too will not be disappointed. Local handicrafts, such as pottery and rugs, can be purchased for souvenirs, and needless to say, there are many beach shops selling everything from sunscreen to inflatable boats.

Bude’s only slight problem is its relative remoteness from anywhere else in the county. The nearest towns of any size are Launceston, some 24 miles to the south or Wadebridge, 32 miles to the southwest. But as you will see from the other entries in this journal that the north coast offers stunning seascapes that will satisfy the most ardent hunger for beautiful scenery.

Bude is the last resort of any size as you head north up the coast, and you only need travel around 6 miles before you enter west Devon. Close by is also the source of the River Tamar, which flows south to Plymouth and forms the boundary between the two counties.

If Bude is a little too busy for you, head north for a couple of miles to find the totally unspoiled and largely unknown Northcott Mouth. Here, you will find a huge expanse of yellow sand that stretches for about 3 miles to Steeple Point.

The beach is surrounded by sand dunes and gorse-covered hillsides, with a small car park that will cost you fifty pence to park all day. It is accessible through the village of Poughill (pronounced Puffill) down a very narrow lane that was extremely muddy when I dropped by.

There are no facilities here at all, so take whatever you are likely to need in the way of food and drink. This, though, is easily compensated by the tranquility of the place. I’ve been there in high summer and have shared a 3-mile beach with maybe a few dozen souls. The only sounds are those of the seagulls as they wheel overhead on the up-currents and the breakers crashing onto the shore.

If the crowds aren’t for you, then a 5-minute car ride here will satisfy your need for solitude.

Head south from Bude along the switchback coast road for a couple of miles to find the stunning location known as Widemouth Bay. The bay is overlooked by steep cliffs, on top of which are a few dozen private homes, a couple of decent hotels, and a pub or two, none of them closer than a few hundred yards from their nearest neighbours. The cliffs are covered in the gorse and heathers that predominate this region, along with many species of wildflowers that will no doubt appeal to the botanically minded.

The scenery here is superb, with far-reaching sea views, and you are usually able to look as far north as Hartland Point, some twenty miles distant.

Widemouth Bay has about one and a half miles of clean, yellow sand which, again, like Northcott Mouth, is largely ignored by the tourists in summer. It does, however, boast decent facilities, particularly on the stretch that runs either side of the similarly named village that sits in a central location adjacent to the sands. It is really only this specific stretch that sees the visitors.

The village of Widemouth Bay has all the prerequisites for a holiday destination, such as pubs, cafes, bars, and restaurants, but bear in mind that if you stay here, you will need motorised transport to get to pretty much anywhere else unless you are a cyclist with some stamina, due to the undulating terrain that envelops the village.

Boscastle rightfully claims to be amongst the prettiest of villages along this stretch of coastline, with narrow streets, whitewashed cottages, and a tiny harbour. To find the village, leave the A39 just south of Wainhouse Corner and take the B3263, or if traveling north, take the B3266 from Camelford

All this was to change with a series of catastrophic events on August 16, 2004. The summer weather had been typically British, with heavy downpours in the surrounding areas, most of which was granite moorland.

The rain was relentless, and within a couple of hours, 3 inches had fallen, more than the August total average. The outlying granite moors are slow to drain, and very soon, the land surrounding the village was waterlogged, causing the excess to seek a natural passage downhill via local streams.

Boscastle sits at the mouth of a steep ravine with 300-feet cliffs on either side. Normally, this acts in the village’s favour, protecting it from the worst of the elements; on August 16th, this was to be its downfall.

The huge swell of water began its relentless surge toward the village, following the courses of the two streams that drain into the harbour, ripping up all in its path and carrying it along like a deadly moraine: trees, boulders, fences, and hedgerows. Once at the head of the valley in which the village sits, the natural contours caused the flow to increase speed dramatically as the weight of water was squeezed into the narrow ravine.

The first surge hit the village like a battering ram, a wall of water that crushed houses, turned vehicles over, and swept away all in its path. To compound matters, it was high tide, meaning that the floodwater had nowhere to go, causing it to back up in the village rather than drain into the Atlantic.

Within minutes, it was over, one of the worst natural disasters to hit the UK in many years. Businesses were destroyed; houses, restaurants, pubs, hotels and shops were swept away; and cars floated down through the harbour out to sea. Miraculously, no one was killed, although many sought refuge on rooftops and in trees for several hours whilst a huge rescue mission was coordinated. The RAF had to airlift some 150 people to safety by helicopter.

I visited Boscastle on the February 8, when a full rebuilding program was underway. Some businesses are already open for the first few out-of-season tourists. It will be a painstaking task to get back to normal, probably taking several years, but the resolve of the villagers will prevail. Do see the village - they need all the income they can muster - and the TV pictures cannot really do justice to the devastation that hit this sleepy village last summer. Go and see what these people had to contend with and marvel at their desire to get back to a regular way of life.

Tintagel is just 3 miles southwest of Boscastle on the B3263. The scenery from this coastal route is stunning, with panoramic views of majestic cliffs jutting out into the Atlantic.

Just before you begin the descent into the village, look to the right by a farm gate and you will see King Arthur’s Quoit, a large flat granite stone that was, according to legend, flung by Arthur to land in this very spot. A small plaque details its history.

Tintagel is well served with car parks where you can leave the car for a couple of pounds all day. King Arthur’s tale has existed since the 8th century, and in the written form, since the 12th. It has been retold over the centuries, with the Round Table being added by the chronicler Wace, and various other addenda by Sir Thomas Malory and Tennyson. The legend lives on today, perpetuated by mass tourism and the New Age movement.

The ruined castle we see today was built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, between 1233 and 1236, a full 600 years after Arthur reputedly fought the Saxons at the battle of Mount Bladon near what is now Swindon in Wiltshire. The castle was always a stronghold for the Cornish kings, who were powerful and wealthy. Thousands of shards of Mediterranean pottery have been uncovered on the site, pointing to a healthy trade in wine and olive oil. The castle would have held a commanding view over the sea and surrounding land and was undoubtedly involved in many a battle throughout its history.

Arthur’s legend is briefly as follows: He was the son of Uther Pendragon and was born at Tintagel, where he built his castle. He resided here with his queen, Guinevere, and shared the castle with his knights, who included Sirs Galahad, Tristram, Lancelot, Gawain, Percival, Bedivere, Lucan, Lionel, Gareth, Kay, Lamorak, Mordred, and Dagonet. His magician, Merlin, lived in his own lodgings beneath the castle.

Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, was forged at Avalon and thrown by Arthur into Dozmary Pool on Bodmin Moor (see Bodmin journal).

Mordred, who was Arthur’s usurping stepson, was defeated at the battle of Camlan on the banks of the River Camel, although Arthur sustained serious wounding. He reputedly sailed west to the Islands of the Blest (Scilly Isles) or to Avalon (Glastonbury), where his tomb was "discovered" in the 12th century.

Tintagel is a lovely place, with towering cliffs, thundering seas, and full of myths and legends. It does get exceptionally crowded in summer, but go along and sample its undeniable aura and dwell on the legend of King Arthur awhile.

Port Isaac is to be found on the B3267, about 7 miles southwest of Tintagel. It is a timeless, sleepy fishing village, very much like Polperro and Mevagissey on the south coast. Life continues as it’s done for centuries, although tourism is now the biggest source of income.

Port Isaac has a sheltered harbour, although the fishing boats are all winched in and out of the water from the small foreshore. Lobsters are a principal catch here, and the pots litter the quayside.

The harbour was once used as a small exit port for Cornish slate, mined just up the road at Delabole, reputedly one of the largest manmade excavations in the world.

Today, fishing is still prevalent, although the industry is winding down, much as everywhere else in the Duchy. The village has clutters of white-washed cottages; cozy, low-ceilinged pubs; and a few small restaurants that compete vigorously for your attention. It was recently used as a backdrop for a TV series, which has brought in a small surge of visitors, more though to see the houses used rather than the village itself.

The village has two close neighbors, Port Gaverne to the east and Port Quin to the west, both of which are worthy of a visit.

This entire area is deemed as an "area of outstanding natural beauty," and it is easy to see why. This is how much of Cornwall used to be before mass tourism prevailed. Port Isaac would make a wonderful base for those seeking a restful holiday as long as you require nothing more than a couple of beers in one of the local brew houses as your evening’s entertainment. This is all about peace and quiet and becoming at one with the surroundings for the duration of your stay.

It is not to be missed if your travels take you to this part of northern Cornwall.