Why the A-listers have fallen for Cornwall's ‘Hollywood-on-Sea' — and you will too
'This is how crazy it's got,' the long, lean surf instructor tells me as he zips into his wetsuit. 'Last year a friend of mine put his house on the market for £1.1 million. Something came up and he had to take it off again, and when it went back on sale six months later, the valuation had doubled. Suddenly it was worth £2.2 million.'
'His house was big, right?' I ask, as I wrestle with my own neoprene and think of Hay House, the new self-catering property (with three acres of garden) that the Newsoms have just checked into nearby. Abell laughs. 'Not really,' he tells me. 'Just wait till you see what's on the beach.' We grab a couple of longboards from the rack at King Surf, the surf school he founded in Mawgan Porth in 1997, then walk across the sandy coast road and towards the sparkling sea.
My jaw drops. There, on the leading edge of the village, on the first flat ground above its dunes and cliffs, stands a parade of the most extravagant Cornish holiday homes I've laid eyes on. Even by the standards of this long-established destination they're huge, and they take their cue from the colours of the landscape rather than the brilliant-white walls of the older hotels and second homes above them. The biggest of them is even mimicking the landscape's shape, with a restless mix of undulating roofs and swooping copper details. Built into the hillside, it's the kind of coastal retreat Bilbo Baggins would have commissioned if he'd hit the EuroMillions jackpot and half of Hobbiton was coming to stay. All but one of these houses has appeared since 2020.
'I always thought this place had the potential to take off,' Abell says as we gaze up at Mawgan Porth. It's something of a rarity along this stretch of Cornwall's coast: a village, rather than a town, with its own soft sandy beach. 'We're close to Newquay airport, the scenery is amazing and in summer the sun sets straight into the sea. But I never imagined it taking off like this.'
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No wonder the newspapers are calling it Hollywood-on-Sea. That's not just because of the Californian proportions of the properties. The two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett is among the newcomers, and rumours swirl about other high-profile owners. Abell laughs when I feed him some of the names, hoping for confirmation. He's met all the owners and surfed with several of them too. But no, despite persistent rumours, Jason Statham, Stanley Tucci and Brooklyn Beckham are not among them. Abell did, however, recently lend a surfboard to Coldplay's Chris Martin and got tickets to Glastonbury by way of thanks. He also taught the TV heart-throb James Norton how to catch waves in the winter of 2023-24 while Norton was filming the ITV drama Playing Nice.
Meanwhile, stories abound of the eye-popping prices that existing properties are fetching, before they're knocked down and redeveloped. There's been anger too about the noise and disturbance generated by the building work.
But what about holidays? Is Mawgan Porth going to be different now for the rest of us? That's what I'm here to find out and, as Abell and I paddle through the churning waters of its waves, the signs are promising.
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This, I should point out, is an immaculate morning. Beneath a cloudless sky, 4ft walls of water are sweeping into the narrow mouth of the bay with barely a breath of wind to spoil their shape. As they hit the cliffs on either side, the rebounding waves sweep back through the swell lines and jack them up to make taller, steeper peaks. It's a mouthwatering sight — and an intimidating one for someone as unfit as I am. But Abell's boundless enthusiasm gets me out to a point where we can stop paddling and sit on our boards, waiting for the right unbroken wave to catch.
Does he give my board a nudge to propel me on to one of these glittering, blue-green walls? Yes, he does. Do I struggle to get upright once I've caught it? Yes, I do, though I am eventually on my feet. Is it a moment that lights up the whole weekend? You bet. It's the firmest, fastest wave I've ridden on this coast. When I come back in, I barely give those Hollywood homes a second glance. I'm too busy rushing to rejoin my family in Hay House. I need to tell them what a rare and precious day this is.
If you're looking for signs that Mawgan Porth's transformation is more than skin-deep, this giant five-bedroom property — available to rent through Kip Hideaways — is a good place to start. It's a mile and a half inland, and its nearest neighbour is the long, low-rise Natural Bridges, which stands on stilts above its hillside and starred in Channel 4's Grand Designs in 2018. But this newer house, which has the same owners, is much quieter architecturally and saves all its best features for inside. Among them is the big window in our double-height bedroom that lets my wife, Vera, and me track every passing cloud during our lie-ins. Then there are the undulating floors of reclaimed wood and terracotta tiles. They're a joy to walk on barefoot.
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It's also remarkably private, squirrelled away in a valley that seems to capture every ray of available sunshine and hold it there, out of reach of the Atlantic winds. That's something to bear in mind if ever you fancy building your own holiday home hereabouts. On the weather-beaten bluffs at Mawgan Porth, the South West Coast Path runs straight past most of the big new-builds as it climbs out of the village. Every passing hiker will be peering in.
Even so, there's no doubting the main attraction here. It's the coast, and you don't need to be a gazillionaire to enjoy it. Yes, parts of it have gone a bit west London. At the Beach Box Café you can buy Eton mess waffles (served with strawberry gelato) for £8.95 (beachboxcornwall.co.uk). Muddle & Press next door is the place for your espresso macchiato or matcha tea (instagram.com/muddle_and_press). But you'll also find accommodation at every price point in its hinterland. The Bedruthan Hotel & Spa and its design-led sister property, Scarlet, fly the flag for high-quality hotel-keeping (B&B doubles from £120; bedruthan.com). Nearby, the Park offers shepherds' huts, lodges and cabins, and if it's a campsite you're after, I can recommend the Camping and Caravanning Club's Tregurrian site, just above Watergate Bay. I first parked a camper van there 25 years ago (pitches from £30.50; campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk).
• Read our full review of the Scarlet hotel
Meanwhile, in the midst of it all, Abell and the team at King Surf are waiting to connect you with the ocean. Group surfing lessons start from £40pp, including a wetsuit and board (kingsurf.co.uk).
Then, when you've rinsed your sinuses with salt water and let the incoming tide swamp your sandcastle, it's time to walk the cliffs. That's what Vera and I do with our younger boy, Ben, after my lesson, while our older son, Sam, takes my place in the surf. You can go north or south and in both directions the sight of such a vast stretch of water will give you goosebumps. There it is: the Atlantic Ocean, with the first landfall 2,200 miles away in Newfoundland if you head due west. On a day like today it glitters and heaves hypnotically, like some kind of vast, sleeping giant. Up and down it goes, in and out, rocked not by the price of Bitcoin or the rise and fall of the stock market but distant storms, somewhere beyond the horizon. It is, in other words, a mesmerising sight, free to view, available to all, and absolutely priceless.Sean Newsom was a guest of Hay House (kiphideaways.com), which has seven nights' self-catering for ten for £2,495
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