Zennor
Just off the scenic north coast road from St. Ives to St. Just-in-Penwith is a tiny charming village, too easily passed by on your way west. Zennor consists of just an essentially Norman church, a cattle farm, the excellent Tinners Arms Pub, a backpackers hostel with tea rooms, a group of holiday cottages known as Post Office Row, and the excellent and surprisingly comprehensive Wayside Folk Museum. Legends attach to the church. One concerns its founder St. Senara, cast afloat in Brittany in a barrel and washed ashore in Ireland, returning with her son, Budoc, who was born at sea, via Cornwall where she founded the church. The short walk to the towering cliffs is rewarding, with views over Pendour and Porthzennor coves. By the coast path, it's a tough 6 miles to St. Ives and 11 to Cape Cornwall. However, you may like to consider the Zennor Churchway, an inland route between the two, with its return over the hills on the Tinners Way.
In the churchyard are several Cornish Crosses and one lantern cross.
If you like the idea of a serious challenge, struggle up Zennor Hill, through rampant furze, to find a logan stone at The Carne and to see Zennor Quoit
B3306 coast road from St. Ives. Normally open Apr - Oct
Zennor's Wayside Folk Museum Return to Towns and Villages
CORNWALL
More in Towns & Villages
Altarnun
Altarnun is an attractive village, along with Blisland the most interesting on this part of Bodmin Moor. Aalong the main street there is a straggle of houses, stone or slate built, some slate-hung, one or two of them substantial Georgian homes. At the lower end of the street is the church, dedicated to the mother of St. David, St. Nonna, said to have founded this church in 547AD. Her Holy Well is just off the road that heads north. Known as ‘The Cathedral of the Moor’, the church is approached by a narrow and ancient packhorse bridge over the fast-flowing little Penpont Water. Outside, unexpectedly exotic trees thrive in its churchyard and a Cornish cross stands at the top of a bank. A little way up the hill in the village is a former Wesleyan chapel, over its door a stone likeness of John Wesley, a regular visitor, carved by local man Nevil Northey Burnard. Wesley stayed often in the nearby village of Trewint in Digory Isbell's home, now a museum to Wesley and Methodism. Altarnun, surprisingly, has three shops but no pub or teashop. Perhaps it doesn't really welcome visitors, although I felt welcome enough when enquiring about a trail leaflet for the Inny Valleys Walk, which I did in July 2006 - there wasn't one, nor a sign from the village which, for a walk shown as a trail on the Ordnance Survey map, really quite shocked me.
And Even More St. Mawgan
Mawgan
Another View of Coverack - From Tess Warburton
Hi Oliver, I was just reading your rather critical review of Coverack. I holiday in Coverack every year, along with many other families who return there each summer to enjoy beautiful surroundings and friendly inhabitants. I have been going to the village for almost twenty years and although I have travelled to many places in the south west it is still my favourite. In many ways I am pleased you don't like it. If you had stayed long enough in the village and been bothered to find out what it is really like you would have written a more far more colourful description. This would however have encouraged lots of other people to holiday there, including people like yourself (who think it is possible to understand and make judgments about a place within a paragraph). I wish you luck with your touring. However, maybe you should 'stay put' in some of the places you visit before you judge them and influence the decisions of others.