Honeymoon in Cornwall England

We were undecided as to where to go for our honeymoon in April, but two things we did know, we didn't have much money (I was out of work at the time), and we didn't want to go overseas. Somewhere close to home would be perfect.

Debbie, who works miracles when it comes to searching the internet and finding great sites, came across this place called The Dovecote, which is a converted farm building in Cornwall. This had a four-poster bed, and a hot tub, and was in a very quiet area, so this sounded perfectly romantic to both of us. As soon as we had our dates fixed and knew that we could afford it, we went ahead and booked it, and we weren't disappointed at all.

The wedding went practically perfect, as you can see HERE and HERE .

We got married on a Wednesday, which was unusual, but as this was the week after Easter, it fitted in well with the school holidays in the UK. That gave us the Thursday to get ourselves organised, and then on the Friday morning we headed off to Cornwall, and Lamorna Cove, which is just under 300 miles to our west.

The drive took about 6 hours, including a stop for lunch at a farm shop/restaurant. The drive took us through some wonderfully scenic areas, such as The New Forest, then close to Dorchester and Lyme Regis in Dorset, and of course close to Poole in Dorset, which is where I grew up, and only 30 miles from where we live now.

There are two routes into Cornwall when you drive along the South Coast of England, the first being the coastal route going around Plymouth, and the second going north of Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, which is a better road and also slightly shorter. Since we had planned to go close to Plymouth on the way back, we decided to take the northern route across Bodmin Moor.

The moors in Cornwall, Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor, are higher elevations than the rest of the region, and once upon a time were bleak barren spots, with lots of rocky outcrops, and heather growing, but few people living there. They are more settled now, but like most of Cornwall, the area is rural with lots of small villages and dairy and sheep farms.

Cornwall is different to the rest of England, with the people being originally closer to the Celts, and indeed there are strong historical ties to Wales and Brittany in Northwest France. You can tell that you have driven over the border from Devon, because the place names change from English, to more ancient ones in the Cornish language.

Examples of these (with their meanings) are: Boscarne (Dwelling By A Rockpile), Boscawen (Dwelling By An Elder Tree), Cadgwith (Thicket), Camborne (Crooked Hill), Looe (Inlet), Lostwithiel (Tail Of The Forest) and Porthcurno (Cove Of Horns).

I am sure that you can imagine how romantic this sounds, like names from a time gone by, and stories from novels like Treasure Island and Moonfleet. The names conjure up images of hundreds of years ago, with smugglers luring ships onto the rocks, then lugging their cargoes of Rum, Brandy and Tobacco into hidden caves to avoid detection by the Customs Men.

The author Daphne Du Maurier lived in Cornwall, and a number of her books are based in the area, including Jamaica Inn, which is a remote inn on Dartmoor.

But I digress, so back to our scenic drive through Cornwall on the way to our honeymoon destination at Lamorna Cove.

We had decided to get into Cornwall before we stopped for lunch, and saw a sign for a Farm Shop at Lifton, just before we got to the town of Launceston. This had a huge new restaurant and Conference Centre (there's diversification for you), and did some good food, and soon we were back on the road, for the last couple of hours of our journey.

After you pass Bodmin Moor, Cornwall narrows, and you can see both the north and the south coasts. There are numerous ruins of old Tin Mines (more about these later), which make great photographs, and also a few Wind Farms, as Cornwall is a very green county, not just in it's scenery, but in it's care of the environment.

We soon dropped down towards Penzance, and spotting fields of bright yellow, Debbie thought "oh no my allergies", as yellow fields in the UK are usually where rapeseed has been planted, and Debbie sometimes does get allergies from various plants. We were later pleasantly surprised to find that it was not rapeseed, the fields were in fact full of Daffodils, which are grown here both for the flowers as well as the bulbs.

I ought to add that the weather in the southwest of England is warmer than it ought to be for it's latitude because of the Gulf Stream. This brings warmer water from the Caribbean and Florida across the North Atlantic Ocean, and because of this Cornwall has a lot of palm trees and other tropical vegetation that you would not expect to see in this part of the world.

We drove through Penzance, famous for it's pirates, although these are not real, only fictional characters from the Gilbert & Sullivan Opera "The Pirates Of Penzance".

Penzance is the largest town this far west in Cornwall, and was to be where we did much of our shopping over the next week, since it has larger supermarkets (both Morrissons and Tesco) than the surrounding villages.

The seafront in Penzance is typical of the older resorts that people used to frequent years ago, with the sea and beach on one side, and lined on the other by terraces of Hotels and small Guest Houses. The railway line from London also ends here, and you can imagine the scene of summers years ago, with people staying in Guest Houses, and spending their evenings walking along the promenade, doing the same old thing every day.

West of Penzance you come to Newlyn, the towns practically joining, and with most of the smaller Cornish harbours now used for pleasure boats, Newlyn is the main fishing port in the southwest of England, with a fleet of large modern trawlers and other types of fishing boats.

Our accommodation at The Dovecote is about 3 miles west of Newlyn, and we had to follow instructions carefully, since it's so far off the main road that the GPS systems often direct you the wrong way.

It was up a steep hill out of Newlyn, so narrow that only two cars could pass, but with parked cars too, so a little dangerous. A mile along the road after the hill we came to a hamlet called Sheffield, after which we had to turn left at a fork in the road, and ended up on a one lane road.

Many rural roads in Cornwall are only one lane wide, and have frequent passing places, so that if a vehicle is coming the other way, one of you has to pull over and let the other one pass. If you are unlucky and just drove past the nearest passing place, sometimes you have to reverse back up, so driving in Cornwall involves just learning to be laid back and taking your time, and driving at what is often 20 miles an hour does give you a much better chance to enjoy the scenery.

A mile along this one lane road, it splits to the left, which goes to a dairy farm, and then right to the farm buildings at Kemyel Wartha, which is where The Dovecote is located. The road now becomes a gravel track, which continues for almost a mile further, until you reach the farm buildings, turn right, and there is a nice empty car park outside the front of the buildings where we were to stay.

We were greeted by the owners when we arrived, the owners Zoe and Phil showed us around and how everything worked. If you click HERE you can see the photos that we took after arriving, and I think you will agree that it's a really romantic location to spend your honeymoon.

On arrival the bed was covered in tiny foil hearts, and other arrival treats included a bottle of champagne on ice, and a Cornish Cream Tea (Scones, Strawberry Jam, and Clotted Cream). We also had enough milk, cereal, juice and fruit to last a few days.

Being early April, the weather was still nippy, especially since we were right by the coast, but we were fortunate to have blue skies every day but one. Aside from a small radiator, the cottage was heated by a coal fire, and this was all set ready for us to light. In fact all we had to do was to leave a not in the morning, and Zoe would make sure the fire was ready for us that evening, it was wonderful.

Since we arrived about 5pm, there was time for a walk down to the village in Lamorna Cove, which is about 3/4 of a mile through the fields and down a narrow path. We decided to explore, and walked out along a field, then left down a path, which turned into a stream as the water from higher up found this the easiest way to flow downhill.

You can follow us along on our walk to Lamorna Cove if you click HERE.

The narrow path went down and around bends, as it zig-zagged down the cliff, with spectacular views of Lamorna Cove to the right, and to the left huge rocks blasted out of the cliff, as there used to be quarries here, but the difficulty in loading ships led to them being closed down. The stone used to build London Bridge was in fact quarried at Lamorna Cove.

Finally we come to the cove itself, a handful of houses, many summer rentals, a car park, and a small cafe, which serves a wonderful breakfast, and that's about it. Further up the road there is a pub, the Lamorna Wink, that serves good food and beer - that's the way to a man's heart!

There is a stream that flows down the valley to the coast at Lamorna, and this also provides good photo opportunities. Close to where it flows into the sea, there are some amazing tropical plants growing in the stream, and these were just opening up as the weather was warming.

Just time for an uphill walk back up to The Dovecote, then a nice cream tea, and as it began to get dark, we lit the fire and headed out to the hot tub, with the bottle of champagne. It was amazing to just lay there in the hot water, letting the jets (and champagne) soothe our aching bodies, looking up at the sky and watching the stars gradually emerging as it got darker and darker. A dark zone is enforced in the area, so there is little light pollution, and the stars look fantastic with no man made light, and also no moon.

Well this concludes the first part of our Honeymoon In Cornwall. I hope you enjoyed coming along on the tour with us, and I hope that you will continue the journey as our week progresses. I have already published a number of slide shows from our trip, having taken over 900 photos during the week, and these have been really popular.

Sources:

Personal experience

The Dovecote at Lamorna Cove

Lifton Strawberry Fields Farm Shop

The Dovecote - Slide Show

The Walk From Kemyel Wartha To Lamorna Cove

Daphne Du Maurier

Jamaica Inn