I revisited my childhood on one of UK's new long-distance road trips

The Herald Scotland

6 days ago

Hang on, isn't this tourism Mecca already oversubscribed, I hear you ask?
Not any more it isn't. Slumping post-Covid figures have led a small team of businesses to set up SW660 in the wake of hotel and holiday centre closures. Even Cornwall's flagship tourist attraction, the Eden Centre, has had to lay off 80 members of staff due to a slump in visitors.
A perfect storm of unreliable weather and inflated prices have led to holidaymakers voting with two fingers to England's beautiful peninsula. During the 'staycation' period much of the area was crammed to the gunwales. Many exploited their monopoly with price hikes and now significant numbers, it would seem, have neither forgotten nor forgiven.
The worst hit area has been the already impoverished county of Cornwall so I decide to check out the route, focusing largely on the 200-mile coastal drive around Poldark country.
Mark and his mother Jean (Image: Mark Porter)
I pack my bag and my mother - who is Cornish by birth - plus my brother Tom into a smart electric Lotus Eletre SUV and hit the road. Tom and I spent our childhoods beachcombing in North Cornwall and have an affinity with its odd charm.
The futuristic car looks like a Stealth bomber were it not for the bright yellow Lotus livery. 'It should come with crash hats and a G-suit,' says mum who was more shaken than stirred by its whiplash acceleration.
We start from the Devonian port of Plymouth, an under-rated city where we ignore the post-war concrete bits and instead stroll around the elegant Georgian streets of the Hoe and the medieval splendour of the Barbican, which the German WWII bombs thankfully missed.
The Barbican is where 102 austere pilgrims boarded the Mayflower and set sail in 1620 for the New World, but in a decidedly unpuritanical spirit we decide to visit the 14th century Blackfriars meeting hall, now the home of Plymouth Gin, for a guided tour.
Mark and his brother Tom at Plymouth Gin Distillery (Image: Mark Porter)
'No ship left port without a big stock of gin, apart from the Mayflower,' says our spirited guide. Could there be a connection here with the number of wrecks that adorn the seabed of Plymouth Sound?
We dine out in a splendid locals' restaurant in a cobbled street and the following morning cross the River Tamar, which acts as the county boundary, on the Torpoint ferry. Suddenly the roads become twisting lanes with spectacular coastal views. We pass the beaches of Cawsand and Kingsand, hidden gems where my mother played as a child. 'Uncle John launched the tin bathtub from here,' she says. 'It sank.' Unperturbed, John went on to spend 40 years in the navy.
It is late afternoon and it's raining heavily when we reach St Austell (pronounced 'Snozzle' by the locals) so a guided tour of the St Austell Brewery seems a good idea. It used to be a byword for filthy beer, but in recent years has produced some of the finest ales in the land, and has rescued many a local pub.
Nearby is Charlestown, which will be familiar to practically everyone as its spectacular ancient harbour has featured in Dr Who, Poldark, and the film The Eagle Has Landed, to name but a few. We check into the Pier House, a small pub/hotel adjoining the harbour. The angry ocean crashes over the outer sea walls and we dine on local gamebird.
A seadog who has been lashed to the bar all evening puts on his sou'wester and careens into the night. I watch him cross a perilous gangplank onto a sailing boat moored outside, in the calm of the inner harbour. Central Casting could never find anyone that authentic. "He's become a local," says the barmaid. 'I think he's from Tunbridge Wells.'
The weather has cleared and we head west past Dodman Point and Mevagissey. We stop for an ice cream at the Idle Rocks hotel in St Mawes, before taking the King Harry chain ferry across Carrick Roads towards Falmouth.
At the historic Greenbank hotel, on the edge of the ancient deep water harbour with terrific views up the junglelike mouth of the Fal, we have lunch looking out on dinghies, sailboats and the Royal Navy's auxiliary fleet.
Falmouth's National Maritime Museum is a cornucopia of history, boatbuilding, seafaring and a great place for kids and adults alike. But so too is The Oddfellows Arms, where we head afterwards.
The next morning we pass Penzance, skirt Land's End and are on the north coast where the Channel morphs into the raw Atlantic. Craggy tors dominate the skyline with tufts of gorse and lichen seeping from ancient cracks in the jagged granite.
The scenery opens up - rolling greensward as far as the eye can see, bordered by a white-flecked, seething ocean which beats against the beetling cliffs. We visit the squat Norman church at Zennor where yew trees keep vigil over the graves of wreckers and miners. Next door at the 700-year-old Tinners Arms hikers hunker down in front of an open fire.
Past St Ives we check into our new billet at Three Mile Beach. We are in a three-bedroom bungalow with sauna, hot tub and log-burner a short stroll from the famous surfing beach of Gwithian Towans.
The following day we move on past Fistral Beach and head to The Pig at Harlyn Bay, a 15th century Cornish manor house with log fires crackling in each public room and a kitchen garden supplying much of the needs of the locally sourced and excellent restaurant. Only a thick slate wall separates The Pig from the sands of Harlyn Bay.
The Pig at Harlyn Bay (Image: Mark Porter)
The final drive takes us to Port Isaac, home of TV's grumpy Doc Martin, a pretty fishing village near Rock. We cross Bodmin Moor, past Brown Willy, Cornwall's highest point which looms nearly 1,500 feet above the granitic moorland. 'I do like the Flying Banana,' confesses mum from the leather-clad comfort of the passenger seat. It's her nickname for the Lotus. 'I could get used to it.'
Our final night is at Boringdon Hall Hotel just outside Plymouth. It boasts a wonderful spa. Tom and I lounge in the outdoor bit of the heated pool after checking out the saunas and hammams. We sign off the family odyssey with dinner at its Michelin-starred Aclèaf restaurant. The plates are such works of art that it seems a shame to despoil them. Almost.
Footnote: the SW660 is best tackled out of peak holiday time and you might want to park up and enjoy some of the villages on foot. Don't forget your credit cards.
Fact Box
E-Vehicle Lotus Eletre. www.lotuscars.com/en-GB/eletre
Zap-Map. Vital resource to avoid range anxiety www.zap-map.com/
Plymouth
Boringdon Hall Hotel boringdonhall.co.uk/
Hotel Moxy www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/nqypo-moxy-plymouth/overview/
Charlestown
Pier House Hotel pierhousehotel.com/
Falmouth
Greenbank Hotel greenbank-hotel.co.uk/
Gwithian Towans
Three Mile Beach threemilebeach.co.uk/
Harlyn Bay
The Pig at Harlyn Bay www.thepighotel.com/at-harlyn-bay/