Cornwall

Our focus in Cornwall was St Buryan, where my Jacka family came from. It's way down in toe, past Penzance & 5 miles from Lands End. Clearly has a mild climate. I expected windswept coastal fields but it was quite woodsy with gardens growing right down to the sea. Although all the distances down there are small, the roads are narrow & hemmed in by hedges & walls, so progress is always slow. Obviously a fertile and productive area.

Didn't have much time to explore the north coast, which is where most of the mining happened. My Davy's came from this area, but we only managed to visit St Agnes.

A Penzance street. Hills surrounding the port are steep, like lots of coastal villages & cities, with buildings stacked up & down the hills.

The 'Admiral Benbow' for those who remember 'Treasure Island'

Sign in Penzance laundromat.

7bThe entry courtyard at Boskenna Home farm, where we stayed. This is significant because it was part of the estate where my gr gr gr grandfather worked as a gardener and where my gr gr grandfather & most of his siblings were born. It is now a B&B.

Paynters Cove near Boskenna

Porthcurno, near St Buryan & Boskenna

The causeway to St Michael's Mount, off Marazion near Penzance. The tide was in so it was under water & we couldn't get across. A regular fleet of small ferries operates, but it was too late in the day for us to take advantage of them, do we had a cream tea instead.

St Michael's Mount

Lands End- without the tourist tat. We did a small part of the South West Coastal Walk from here to Sennen Cove.

A fossicker with metal detector heading to the beach at St Ives towards the end of the day.

Had to leave the car on the edge of the town and catch shuttle bus into the town centre. Full of tourists wandering around- just like us. Lots of shops selling ice cream & fudge & cornish pasties & surf paraphernalia.

For John - Newlyn, Cornwall. If it's not a suburb of Penzance it's a twin town as close as Hepburn is to Daylesford.

A fine Cornish & Daylesford name.

House & garden at Cotehele. This was the first property (owned by the Edgecumbe family) which the National Trust acquired in lieu of death duties. Lovely garden, house not too big, but very austere & dark. Also has a port down the hill on the Tamar river and a working flour mill in another corner of the property.

Viaduct in Tamar valley near Cotehele.