Cornwall

There's a fair chance I'll be in Sidmouth during the festival, unfortunately I spend a lot of time there at present. Sidmouth during the Folk Festival is a very different prospect to normal Sidmouth, really the job is just to wander around, it's fun. In the old days every pub had some scratch folk stuff going on, these days not so much, sometimes you can find good stuff in The Swan. My other fave pub in Sidmouth is The Volunteer, but afaict their festival offer now is motley cover bands. There's a really good (quite bumpy) coastal walk from Sidmouth to Branscombe, recommended to finish for lunch in the excellent Fountain Head in Branscombe. Any part of the South West coastal path that's convenient is usually worth it.

St Ives is beautiful, I think it's a bit hollowed out by holiday homes these. days, AIUI the community mostly sold up and moved to Carbis and the edges of town. The Barbara Hepworth garden's unmissable, the Bernard Leach studio is missable but interesting.

I really like Penzance but haven't been there in years. I really like Falmouth and was there a few years ago.

There's a decent little run of standing stones just north of Liskeard: Trevethy quoit (which is an excellent quilt which sits oddly in what seems to e an unloved playing field out the back of a little row of unremarkable houses, but is atmospheric for all that), then the Hurlers Stone Circles and Craddock Moor stone circle (didn't make it to the Cheesewring, heard people like it).

Mark S is the best thing about Plymouth. Ivor Dewdney's (pron: dood-knee) pasties are the second best, it's not true that he killed his brother and turned him into a pasty. There's a good dusty old bookshop down by the Barbican.

There's supposed to be a very good gastropub in Tavistock. The Cider House in Newton Abbot is something of a natural wonder, proper old-fashioned cider pub, there are basically no places like that left anywhere.

Stone things I've enjoyed on Dartmoor: Nine Maidens stone circle, Mardon Down stone circle, Grimspound abandoned village. I should know more about neolithic shit on the moor than I do.

Exeter: the best and friendliest pub in Exeter by a mile is The Hour Glass, the food there is good too. The cathedral wouldn't be in my top 5 but would be in my top 10. There's a surprising number of decent East Asian places in Exeter, my favourite being Rogamo on Sidwell Street, which has no atmosphere, no licence, erratic service and some of the best hand-pulled Xi'an noodles I've ever had.

I've tried not to crap on about churches and / or modern architecture but I can crap on about either if you want.

Sone of my favourite ever rambling in England was between Par and Looe via Fowey and Polperro (an odd little place), should be ideal that time of year.

Not at all, that's a proper language.

Thanks for the thoughts! Keep 'em coming, we won't get to everything but love to know what's out there. (We do have the Julian Cope book and have marked a few places from that for sure.)

Also, my wife requests more info on "modern architecture" as mentioned upthread.

don't start with grimspound abandoned village

Trying to remember the Cornish language bookstore people like

Not quite what I said, but Rubicund in Falmouth.

That'll be those brisk sea breezes.

Okay, here's the one thing you'll want to know about the Cornish language if you want to know anything. The word for music is "ilow." Which is a ghost-word, based on a misunderstanding and a typo, but it has been accepted since there was no other good candidate.

I love ilow

Also this storefront: https://cornish-language.org/kowsva-shop-at-heartlands/

Maybe you can bring me back a souvenir;)

Although I might just order online

Could get you one of those Cornish alphabet books.

We'll be down there in the summer, but taking kids to beaches mainly.
Jam before cream, btw, and I say that having grown up in Devon...

What are the good beaches?

Mark S is the best thing about Plymouth.

― Tim, Tuesday, 20 February 2024 18:41 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no longer true, they just found a v large unexploded ww2 bomb in a garden in keyham up beyond stoke village: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-68156374

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339093341_Haunting_Vocabulary_and_Celtic_Lexicography_Towards_a_Taxonomy_of_Ghost_Words

With small people we have tended to minimise driving (and see friends nearby) so have only been to Rock, Harlyn, Mawgan Porth sort of areas, which were perfectly lovely but I imagine it's more lush the deeper into Cornwall you go - would love to explore more, and also revisit the Isles Of Scilly one day. My one memory of Land's End is my brother throwing up from car-sickness when we were kids...

I'd recommend any of the four great beaches at Newquay, but I'm a crude pleb who can't stand Julian Cope and don't gaf about cosmic leylines or whatever bollox he has wrote about. Get to the fucking chip shop at Towan after walking across all of them, tides permitting, and get attacked by seagulls while you eat - that's the real england!

lol taken under advisement

Trying to remember the Cornish language bookstore people like

There's a great bookshop in Falmouth called Beermoth (iirc) that has a bar and sells wonderful Cornish beer.

For coastal walks I can recommend Fowey > Polpero, finishing off at the Three Pilchards Inn for fish and chips and cider. It's a pretty tough up-and-down walk but with beautiful views.

If you really want to push the boat out, go to Burgh Island Hotel for a night or two, it's full-on 20s Art Deco opulence. Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" was set on a fictionalised version of the island. You get there on a Sea Tractor and there's a pub owned by the hotel on the island.

My only advice is not to bother with Land's End, one of the most disappointing tourist spots in the world.

do not trust satnavs if driving near Polperro, speaking from experience

Tim - if I'm driving down the m5 and want to make it just past Exeter before stopping for dinner with kids early on a Friday evening, is there anywhere you'd recommend that's not too far of a detour? pretty much any pub with food and room to stretch legs...

Sennen and Gwynver beaches are gorgeous - particularly out of season. There are loads along the north coast that are beautiful though - Harlyn, Holywell, Constantine, Porthcothan.

I'm not mad on the ley lines bollocks either but there's something about West Penwith. You can stand on headlands or alongside menhirs and look at 3000 years of history where little has changed. Not many places left like that in England.

Kinder - would I be right in thinking you’re planning to go north around Dartmoor rather than south? If so the Old Thatch at Cheriton Bishop was alright the last time I went, which was probably 20 years ago now.

These days I rarely make it west of the river Exe, mostly for special occasions like seeing Mark S and his UXBs. I’ll ask around a bit, see if friends or colleagues know any gems.

Recommendations from a local friend with kids: If you’re taking the southern route (ie A38 towards Plymouth) the Ley Arms at Kenn. If the northern (ie A30 skirting Okehampton) the Huntsman Inn at Ide.

I haven’t been to either but can advise that Ide is pronounced to rhyme with deed rather than died (the latter is how I pronounced it for many years).

thank you! yeah it'll be northern!

I’m told by other friends that the bit of the M5 near Exeter (esp the roundabout at Sowton) can get absurdly congested round about close of play on Friday nights FYI.

I couldn’t say whether their definition of absurd congestion and my London-centric ones are the same.

Urgh, thanks....