Tag Archives: English Heritage

Autumn Getaway 2

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When I am kept from sleep by a dull ache in my hips and knees I wonder why I’m so enthusiastic about walking the Cornish coast path and then I remember that a time is coming when I won’t be able to.

We move on from Batallack, near St Just, to a site with wonderful, dramatic views at Trethevy, near Tintagel. Tintagel always sounds as if it should be a settlement for an elven community and it transpires that there are Cornish influences in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. It’s breezy but dry, as once installed, we set off to walk into Tintagel, short in distance and long in time. The descents and climbs begin quickly with a sharp drop from our camp site into a deep ravine and across a footbridge then up the other side with steps and slopes until we reach a gentle, upward field.

We reach the top of the field where a glimpse of a turret suggests Tintagel Castle but is, in fact a grand hotel, then we round the rocky headland and drop down again, this time for a view of the footbridge across to the castle, now a ruin and accessible only by reserving tickets from ‘English Heritage’. Foiled again, by our ineptitude in booking ahead!

We aren’t devastated. It’s another steep walk up to the village [on the road this time] passed by shuttle runs of land rovers taking sightseers down to the castle and back and those of us who walk it feel smug, if not achey, from gaining the top under our own steam.

We’ve a couple of hours to kill in Tintagel village, which we fritter by having tea then meandering in and out of gift shops and picking up a few things, which helps the local economy in these straightened times.

For once, we’ve been prepared and booked a table for dinner at the excellent ‘Olde Malthouse Inn’, a lovely old stone building in Fore Street. The meal is delicious enough to merit being Husband’s birthday dinner, even though there is still a couple of days until this milestone is reached. There is a relaxed ambience and we are not too out of place in our muddy walking gear. But we are saved from braving the soaring and plummeting coast path home by an elderly, jovial taxi driver who proudly declares he’s never set foot on the coast path.

Next day it’s our last walk, in the opposite direction to Boscastle, famously devastated by floods in 2004. The walk is mostly undulating but punctuated by steep steps in places. We climb to the coastguard lookout in a white tower, where it feels like the top of the world, then down into Boscastle’s tiny harbour, now restored and lined with tourist shops.

Further up there are cafes, pubs and a smattering of shops. It only remains to find the bus stop for our return to the site, where a visiting fish and chip van is the main attraction of the day!

Goodbye Cornwall, for now. But we’ll be back!

    A Tourist in my Birthplace

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    So last weekend we became tourists in the city of my birth. Strictly speaking, since, like my siblings I was born at home in a house with the aid of midwife I was not born in Salisbury but nine miles away in what was then a small village but officialdom does not accept small villages as places of birth, so Salisbury it is.

    We parked up in a site overlooking ancient Old Sarum [http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/old-sarum/]

    Clearly, Salisbury and its environs are a magnet for overseas visitors as we were surrounded by vans and tents from Germany, The Netherlands, France and Italy. So we are not yet ostracised to the extent that ‘etrangers’ will not set foot upon our shores; rather that we are, I suppose cheap for visitors from the EU.

    We followed a nifty, easy cycle path down into the city, where I dragged Husband around in a search for my old Aunty Ethel’s house, long since occupied by others. Aunty Ethel was one of that breed of spinster aunts whose vocation was to care for elderly relatives, which she did in return for occupying a small apartment upstairs in their house. She also worked on my uncle’s market stall, as did my mother, on Saturdays. My father would then bring me on the bus to ‘Miss Pinegar’s’ ballet school for my morning session, after which he’s buy me ‘99’ ice cream in the market and I’d sit at the back of the stall swinging my legs and eating it. The stall backed on to a second hand bookstall which, together with the ice cream combined to create small-girl heaven.

    I’d been convinced that the house had an arched porch but memory is a fickle attendant; the arched houses occupy the opposite side of the terraced road. Aunty Ethel’s had a square porch. The road now seems quaint and fashionable, having been gentrified and tiddled up.

    We cycled up the steep slope to The Wyndham Arms, once a lowly backstreet corner pub, now with a trendy, real-ale, Tripadvisor reputation and ate at ‘The Wig and Quill’ where banners announced a third birthday party [for the pub] to be hosted by ‘Beaky’ who we assume is Beaky from the 60s pop quintet ‘Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch’. We consumed our [presentable] steaks as a trickle of blinged-up party arrivals entered for the celebrations and it was time to leave.

    Next day we undertook a hilly cycle to Amesbury, narrow lanes along the Avon Valley and some steep climbs causing intermittent knee protests. The rolling English countryside is voluptuous in late summer, full blown oaks and beeches in their last Hurrah before Autumn begins to get a grip. Arriving at Amesbury we quickly decided that there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for visiting this unremarkable, small town and I imagine the population might be on their knees every day in a debt of gratitude to Wetherspoons, whose establishment dominates the main street and who are able to provide a decent cup of coffee.

    On the return and after more hills we stopped at The Bridge Inn for a glass of cider in the sun, with a view of the river flanked by weeping willows and bulrushes. Beautiful!