Polperro, Cornwall, England - September 10, 2010

Our last port of call (literaly) in the county of Cornwall was Polperro, an acient village and fishing port on the south-east coast of the county. The fishing harbour surrounded by old, tightly packed fishermen's houses makes it magnet for tourists. In fact, tourism grew to become Polperro's main industry during the 20th century with estimates of as many as 25,000 visitors per day during the summers of the 1970s.
Fishing was traditionally the principal occupation of Polperro families and for centuries the village had been a pilchard fishing and processing port. Once ashore, the fish were salted, pressed and canned with the by-product oil being collected and used for heating and lighting.
Smuggling also developed as a prosperous activity after Polperro established itself as a port in the 12th century and reached a peak in the late 18th century when Britain's wars with America and France resulted in high taxation on imported goods. This made it particularly lucrative for the local fishermen to boost their income by the illicit importation of spirits, tobacco and other goods from Guernsey in the Channel Ilses. A more organised Coast Guard service was introduced in the 19th century and this, along with stiff penalties, gradually deterred the smugglers.
For more views of this picturesque village, click here.

Mevagissey, Cornwall England - September 9, 2010

Mevagissey is cradled in a small valley and faces Mevagissey Bay to its east. There are more than 60 registered fishing vessels in the harbor which also offers tourist fishing trips and a passenger ferry to Fowey in the tourist season. Tourism has long since overtaken fishing as the primary economy driver.
Known as Porthhilly as far back as 1313, Mevagissey was the outcome of a merge with the hamlet of Lamoreck in the 17th century. The new name was was formed from two Irish saints, St Meva and St Issey with the "g" borrowed from hag, the Cornish word for "and".
At that time, pilchard fishing and smuggling were the primary sources of income for the locals and supported at least 10 pubs, just two of which remain. The inner harbor was built in the late 18th century with the outer harbor following about 100 years later. Amazingly, in 1895, Mevagissey built a pilchard-oil powered power station to run the lighthouse and local street lighting.

Translucent Pears' Soap

Pears' Soap is well known in England as an expensive and refined product. Andrew Pears was born in Mevagissey in 1768 and trained as a barber before moving to London in 1789. There he opened a barber's shop in the fashionable area of Gerrard Street, Soho and quickly noticed that the London upper classes cultivated a delicate white complexion as opposed to a tanned face associated with the working class. Pears recognized an opportunity for a gentle soap for these delicate complexions and found a way of removing the impurities and refining the base soap before adding the delicate perfume of garden flowers. The resulting product was a high quality soap which had a bonus distinction of being transparent. In 1835 Andrew partnered with his grandson Francis and moved to new premises near Oxford Street. Pears' Soap is now made in India by Hindustan-Lever, part Unilever empire begun by the Lever brother.
More pictures of this picturesque village are here.

Pentewan, Cornwall, England - September 8, 2010

The next stop on our eastward trek was a large campground near the almost forgotten village of Pentewan on the south coast of Cornwall. Thankfully, the weather had improved significantly, the rain had cleared up and the temperatures were back up in the sixties.
Pentewan is a small coastal village in south Cornwall, a one time port used by fishing boats and for shipping local products including tin, stone and china clay. The harbor is long since silted up and is now a hundred yards or so away from the edge of the English Channel. The village and its harbour date back to medieval times.
Since 1945, Pentewan has been dominated by the large 'Pentewan Sands' caravan and camping site that covers much of the beach to the west. The village itself contains the Ship Inn, a post office, and several shops. Pentewan Board School, designed and built in 1877/78 by Silvanus Trevail, is now a restaurant. Many of the older buildings, as well as the harbour, are constructed out of Pentewan stone. A second former village pub was named The Hawkins Arms, but has now been converted to a guest house called 'Piskey Cove'. Tourism is the only substantial industry remaining in the village.
Pentewan was originally known as 'Lower Pentewan', 'Higher Pentewan' being a separate and earlier settlement to the south-west of the village. In 1086, Higher Pentewan was listed in the Domesday Book as the Manor of 'Bentewoin', one of many Cornish manors held by Robert, Comte de Mortain.
During WWII a "pill box" gun emplacement was erected in the harbour and the beach was mined as part of the "Dragon's Teeth" anti-tank defences. An air raid on the port in August 1942 destroyed the Methodist chapel and damaged several houses.
More pictures of this fragment of history are here.

Falmouth, Cornwall, England - September 6, 2010

Having traveled the twenty miles from Penzance to Falmouth the weather remained foul. A quick visit to a scenic headland quickly convinced us to just go to our campsite and sulk - certainly a better option than the bonechilling rain that continued to fall.
The following day the rain had largely passed and although we reprised the headland tour we still balked at a walkabout due to the continuing wind and cold.
With a population of around 21,000, Falmouth sits at the mouth of the river Fal - hence its name. Simple isn't it? Many places around the English coast are named by this same logic wherever they are located at the mouth of a river. In this instance however, no one seems to know how the river got its name.
Falmouth is famous for its harbor - the deepest in western Europe and the third deepest in the world - as well as its frequent choice as the start or finish point for various record-breaking voyages. The headland at the east end of town was known as Peny-cwm-cuic in Gaelic but later evolved to 'Pennycomequick' and became the site where Henry VIII built Pendennis Castle in 1540.

The Falmouth Packet Service operated from here for over 160 years between 1689 and 1851 carrying mail to and from Britain's growing empire. News of Britain's victory and Admiral Nelson's death at Trafalgar was landed here and taken to London by stagecoach.
The Cornwall Railway reached Falmouth in 1863 bringing prosperity to town, making it easy for tourists to reach the town and permitting the swift transport of the goods from the ships in the port. Many of the Georgian town houses have been converted into guest houses and small hotels and Falmouth has proven such a popular holiday destination that it is has morphed into a tourist resort.
During World War II, German bombing raids killed 31 local inhabitants and an anti-submarine net was laid from Pendennis to St Mawes, preventing enemy U-boats from entering the harbor. Maritime activity has declined significantly from its heyday but Falmouth remains the largest port in Cornwall, handling cargo and bunkering vessels.
For more views, click here.

Penzance (without the Pirates) - September 5, 2010

 Penzance, or "holy headland" in the Cornish language, is a reference to the location of the chapel of St. Anthony that stood over a thousand years ago on the headland to the west of what became Penzance Harbour. The town is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and was granted various Royal Charters from 1512 onwards and finally incorporated in 1614. With a population of 21,000 the town's location gives it a temperate climate, warmer than most of the rest of Britain except, of course, when we were in town. We spent the night parked behind the seawall huddled against howling winds and heavy rain at unseasonably low temperatures.
Being at the far west of Cornwall, Penzance and the surrounding villages were sacked many times by foreign fleets. In July 1595, seven years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, a Spanish force under Don Carlos de Amesquita landed troops in Cornwall. The force seized supplies, raided and burned Penzance, looted surrounding villages, held a mass and sailed way, all before the cavalry arrived.
Sadly, before buildings were listed and preserved for historical importance, Penzance tore down much of its old town and replaced it with second-rate commercial structures, the net effect of which has greatly diminished the quality of the area.
Penzance was the birthplace of Sir Humphry Davy, President of the Royal Society who invented the process of electrolysis, isolated sodium, discovered laughing gas and proved, in conjuction with Michael Faraday, that diamonds are made of pure carbon. Today he is possibly best known as the inventor of the Miner's Safety Lamp, known as the Davy Lamp. Davy had discovered that a flame enclosed inside a fine mesh cannot ignite firedamp (methane). The screen acts as a flame arrestor though which air, and any methane present, can pass freely enough to support combustion, but the holes are too fine to allow a flame to propagate through them and ignite any methane outside.
A few more pictures are here.

Boscastle, England - September 3, 2010

At the only natural harbor in a twenty mile stretch of the north coast of Cornwall county (the Cornish coast), two little rivers, the Valency and the Jordan, run into the Atlantic ocean. In the 12th century, Bottreaux Castle, a motte-and-bailey structure, was built at the top of the steep-sided valley and eventually gave rise to the name Boscastle.
The harbor is itself is protected by two stone walls which were built in 1584. Boscastle was, for a while, a small port importing limestone and coal and exporting slate and other local produce in addition to being a fishing village. Today, the village is a popular tourist destination with a pottery shop, the usual range of "T" shirt and souvenir emporia and, of course, those crusty little critters known as Cornish Pasties were on sale everywhere.

In August of 2004 a flash flood extensively damaged the village, trapping residents in houses or on their roofs and washing the entire visitor centre out to sea. The largest peacetime rescue mission ever mounted in the UK, using seven helicopters, rescued a total of 91 people with zero fatalities. About 50 cars along with the main bridge were washed into the harbor and, to make matters worse, the sewer system burst adding to the 9 feet of water swamping the streets.
Good choice for a couple of hours walkabout, check here for more views.