Polkerris
In July 2018 we drove Mick and Margaret, our friends and next-door neighbours to the south coast, to Polkerris near Fowey, and enjoyed an excellent leisurely lunch at Sams on the Beach. Sams also has a city venue at 1-2 New Bridge Street in Truro; we hope to try it before too long. To older and creakier folks like me Polkerris has one big disadvantage: unless you are lunching at the Rashleigh Inn, and are able to find space in its car park, you have a five hundred yard walk down from the pay car park. Not too bad but, for me, much tougher on the way back.
Sams On The Beach; good eating
Par China Clay Works seen from Polkerris
Photographs
More in Towns & Villages
Polperro
We are not very keen on the commercial aspects of Polperro. Streets bustling with day visitors almost elbowing one another for room to move; shops, restaurants and caf�s all designed to part them from their money. We prefer to approach by the coast path from Looe, avoiding the crowds and enjoying the views from above. We love Polperro's harbour with its small fleet of fourteen working boats, coming and going through a sea-lock which keeps the harbour in permanent water. Around the harbour are a museum of smuggling and fishing, a fish market, net stores, a stall selling fresh fish and shellfish and two of the better pubs, we have enjoyed the Blue Peter though we also like the look of the Lugger. At the landward end of the harbour a bridge crosses the little River Pol that feeds the harbour. Shops and homes back onto it, one of them jettied out over the stream and known as the 'House on Props'. As there are only fourteen working fishing boats, most fishermen's cottages are now artists studios or holiday homes. Not a place for busy times but great in the quiet season. There is no parking in the village itself. Instead you park in a large car park at the head of the valley and walk down or take the bus or horse bus.
Polperro Revisited - 2016
In March 2016 I decided it was high time I revisited Polperro. I was last there in 2009 and that was only a matter of passing through when nearing completion of my Cornish Coast Path project. So I was back there on a sunny day in March 2016. I would have liked to be there at high tide - it always seems to be low tide when I am there - to see the harbour in water but no luck. I shall have to go back again. One major problem with that, the extortionate cost of parking: a minimum charge of �4, a bit strong if you only want to be there for an hour or so. And for that price you have a half mile walk to the harbour. Disgracefully Polperro's web site mentions parking but fails to mention the cost. But then Polperro is generally an expensive place, probably because it has such a captive audience and takes full advantage of its luck. Many of the eating places charge more than their equivalents elsewhere and I found it a little odd that the Polperro Bakery, which had very reasonable take away prices, should charge twice as much to eat in their courtyard. I made a good choice of eating place, the Old Millhouse Inn, where a masive bacon butty and a good coffee cost me just �5. Despite my criticism, I think Polperro a lovely, if rather deliberately quaint, village. It's not a place to visit when the holiday crowds are out in force but a sunny day around high tide in spring or autumn should be ideal. Back to original Polperro entry
Polruan
Fowey on the west bank and Polruan on the east bank of the Fowey River together guard what was once a strategically important deep water harbour. Fowey and Polruan have between them a long maritime history. In medieval times they provided ships for the Crusades and for the wars with the French. Henry VIII considered them of sufficient importance to fortify them with a pair of castles and a chain across the River Fowey. Now there are yachts, fishing boats and a china clay terminal up-river and, thanks to the deep water of the Fowey River, cruise ships visit occasionally. A major regatta takes place on the river and estuary in August. There is a boat repair yard in Pulruan and, indeed, the town has a long history of boat building. Oddly, the town is part of the parish of Lantegos-by-Fowey, oddly because Polruan is a small town while Lanteglos consists of little more than church and farm. Polruan is a steep village. As you enter from the east, Fore Street descends steeply to The Quay where you will find the Lugger Inn; the Russell Inn is nearby. From The Quay a small passenger ferry crosses the Fowey River to Fowey Town. You can leave on Battery Lane, passing the massive Blockhouse, one of Henry VIII's coastal defences, paired with a similar on the Fowey side. At the top of the hill is the remains of medieval St. Saviour's Chapel and there is ample parking. Halfway down Fore Street, look to your left for remains of a granite Latin Cross, perching on top of a shaft of Pentewan stone.