A Weekend on the Penwith Peninsula, Part 1

We decided to go as far to the southwest as is possible in Cornwall, and England for that matter, with a weekend trip to the Penwith Peninsula to round out the half-term break.  A couple of towns on the peninsula are fairly well known: Land’s End and Penzance. We planned to check those places out, but we were really more interested in seeing a couple of other places: St. Michael’s Mount, the English counterpart to France’s Mt. St. Michel; Mousehole, the location of Gwendolyn’s favorite book The Mousehole Cat; and Lamorna Cove, Porthcurno, and Sennen Cove, all three of which had been recommended by Roland. The Penwith Peninsula is essentially an “island” of granitic rocks that sticks out from the rest of Cornwall. Here you can tell where the granitic rocks are because they form a circular tip to Cornwall.

It was about a two-hour drive to get to this part of Cornwall. Our first destination was St. Michael’s Mount, picturesquely positioned on Mount’s Bay. In silhouette, it definitely resembles its French twin. It also looks like Brentor, which you may recall is also dedicated to St. Michael and has a church at the top as well.

After the long drive, the girls, of course, had to get their daily allotment of travel-day ice cream. The walk across the beach was the perfect place for them to eat it.

St. Michael's Mount has a dry harbor on the north side. At low tide, you can walk the 400 meters across the inlet; however, at high tide you must take a ferry.

The ferries actually go across the path that we’re walking across here – the highest tides in the bay are above five meters (>15 feet!).

The National Trust operates the island, and once again we were impressed with how they’ve managed the site: St. Michael’s Mount was so much less touristy than Mt. St. Michel!

The two places are related. Fishermen in the 5^th Century had a vision of the archangel Michael, built a church, which was followed in the 8^th Century by a Celtic monastery, and then the building of a chapel in the 11^th Century by Edward the Confessor. He brought in the Benedictine monks from Mt. St. Michel to inhabit the abbey. It became more of a fortress in later years due to its strategic position on the bay. In fact, it was the first location in Great Britain to see the Spanish Armada arrive in the English Channel.

There is a very small village on the north side of the island, with one hotel, one bakery, one café, and one souvenir shop. Other than that, it’s operated by the National Trust except for a few portions that are still lived in by the St. Aubyn family, who have lived there for hundreds of years. This map mural on the side of a building that you see as soon as you cross to the island will give you an idea of the setting (north is down in this map!).

Getting to the fortress and chapel is a bit of a chore, just like in France. We took the very rough Pilgrim’s Steps, so called because pilgrims used to make the trek to the chapel at the top of St. Michael’s Mount,

and eventually reached the fortress. Ironically, the place was crawling with French teenagers on a school trip, possibly seeing what a non-touristy Mt. St. Michel would be like!

The inside of the castle was impressive. We were particularly impressed with the Chevy Chase room, which was the monks old refectory. Armor adorns the walls

and coats of arms are on display all over the room. The one on the left in the next picture has the same ermine spots as the Breton flag, showing the connection between this castle and Brittany. We saw similar coats of arms throughout Brittany.

The Chapel of St. Michael sits at the top of the island.

Here you can see Rebecca working on a National Trust quiz. Also, to the right, you may notice an interesting statue of St. Michael holding a cross high above a prostrate Devil.

The view from the top was excellent. It was low tide at this point, and the beaches are wide and the harbor is dry.

The gardens surrounding the fortress are also visible from up here. They looked great from above but we did not take the time to explore them.

We ended our time at St. Michael’s Mount with a delicious lunch at yet another great National Trust café, The Sail Loft Restaurant.

It was time to leave the island and head to the car, but not before we got a quick parting shot of the cobbled path. Gwendolyn is proudly presenting the badge that she earned for successfully completing the quiz. She continued to wear it the rest of the weekend. Rebecca got one, too.

As we drove around Mount's Bay, we had visions of France: just as in France, we were able to get glimpses of St. Michael’s Mount throughout the weekend. It really is striking out in the bay. This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but you’ll get the idea.

Our next destination was Mousehole on the other side of Mount’s Bay. Mousehole (pronounced ‘Mowzell’ by the locals) is a tiny fishing village that has been made famous by the children’s book The Mousehole Cat. The story centers on the tiny harbor,

which has been beset by a major winter storm that has prevented the village’s fishermen from venturing out to sea. Finally, Tom the fisherman and his cat, Mowzer,

decide that they can’t let everyone starve and head out to fish. The townspeople figure out what is going on and light all of their lanterns so that he’ll be able to find his way back. He is, of course, successful. We love this book. The illustrations are beautiful and the story is quite touching. Mousehole has a big harbor lighting ceremony on the 23 December to commemorate this event. Gwendolyn wants to come back some day to see it.

Gwendolyn was our driving force in coming to Mousehole. She was able to wade in the harbor.

You can tell here that she is quite excited to be in Mousehole.

We had dinner in The Ship Inn, which also appears in the story as the place where one of Mowzer’s kittens lives with her owner, the pub landlord.

The pub overlooks the harbor and the girls were able to sit in the window, look at the view, and play a new favorite card game, Top Trumps.

Christine and I enjoyed some food and some local ales: St. Austell Brewery’s Tribute Ale, one of our favorites, and St. Austell’s Tinners Ale, named after the Cornish tin-mining industry and sporting a logo of a mine engine house and chimney.

The rest of our time in Mousehole was spent exploring the harbor walls and their narrow opening

and going on a coastal hike on the omnipresent South West Coast Path, which snakes its way through Mousehole. Here is Gwendolyn in front saying goodbye to her favorite place

and one more of the harbor. The evening light was fantastic!

We spent the weekend at a youth hostel, the YHA Penzance. We’d never stayed at a youth hostel before, but we really liked this one. We had an ensuite family room that was very clean, and there was an on-site café where we ate breakfast each morning and even had evening tea one night. The location of the hostel was great and the building was a renovated Georgian mansion. Here are Christine and the girls in front of it,

and as a parting shot, here they are doing the YHA logo.