- Distance:5.5 miles
- Walk grade:Moderate
- Start from:Boscastle
- Recommended footwear:walking boots
Highlights
- Boscastle Harbour
- Views over Boscastle from Penally Hill
- Waterfall at Pentargon
- Grey seal colony at Buckator
- Ancient woodland in the Valency valley
Directions
- From the car park in Boscastle, turn right and head up the hill slightly until you reach a footpath on your left
- Take the footpath which passes in front of some cottage (Penally Terrace)
- Take a right turn up onto the coast path. Alternatively you may want to nip out onto Penally Point first to admire the views before returning to this point.
- Once on the Coast Path, cross Penally Hill and follow it round to Pentargon where a bridge crosses the stream before the strean plummets over the cliff in a waterfall.
- From Pentargon, follow the path around the headland passing some offshore rocks until a gate overlooking a bay.
- Ahead of you is Buckator cliff with the imposing Gull Rock in front of it. On the beach below you there are often grey seals. There is a bench on the other side of the gate but the best view is actually from the hedge which the gate is attached to.
- Rather than carrying on the coast path through the gate, take the path that runs inland back across the headland.
- Go though a gate and down a track which brings you out on a lane.
- Turn left on the lane passing a house then turn down the lane on the right
- Follow the lane past Moomin cottage on your right and past Kelgernick to the next gate and waymarked stile
- Cross the stile and head directly across the field to a gate on the other side
- Follow the path into the field below and head for the stile at the bottom.
- Turn left onto the lane and up the hill to the junction with the main road
- Turn right onto the road and almost immediately left onto another lane marked "Unsuitable for Motors".
- Follow the lane to Trewannett farm where the lane bends sharply to the right.
- Continue on the lane to some farm buildings where the lane bends sharply left and then decends into the valley.
- Zig-zag down the lane until you reach Elm cottage. Here follow the lane round to the right (ignore the waymark to the left) and keep right along the track marked "No Vehicle Access"
- Follow the track to a gate and go through the kissing gate towards the path ahead.
- Follow the footpath from in front of Rose Cottage down the river ignoring any paths that lead up from the valley.
- When you reach a footbridge, stay on the right side of the river.
- The valley eventually opens out just above the car park in Boscastle.
- The Cobweb Inn, opposite the car park - previously a wine cellar and flour store dating from the late 1600s, it has traditionally always had cobwebs hung from the roof beams. Apparently this was thought to keep flies off stored wines and spirits.
- The Wellington Hotel (aka "the welly") is the old village coaching inn, across the road from the Harbour. Some parts of the building are 4 centuries old, but most dates from 1853 when travellers to the area increased. It was once called the Bos Castle Hotel, but was renamed on the death of Duke Wellington in 1852. It has Folk music on wednesday nights
- The Napoleon Inn is Boscastle's oldest pub (built in the 16th Century) and is set up on the hill at the back of Boscastle. It was a recruiting office during the Napoleonic wars. The landlord joined up with Wellington to go to Waterloo and so was called 'Napoleon man' on his return - hence the name of his pub.
From Tudor times until the early 20th Century, Cornwall's pilchard fisheries were of national importance, with the bulk of the catch being exported to Italy (Cornish pilchards were a staple ingredient of spaghetti alla puttanesca). The pilchards were salted and then pressed to extract the oil (which was a valuable by-product) then packed with more salt into hogshead barrels. Huers (cliff top lookouts) helped locate shoals of fish. The huer would shout 'Hewa!, Hewa!' to alert the boats to the location of the pilchard shoals. Cornish tradition states that Hewa cake was baked by the huers on their return to their homes, the cake being ready by the time the crews returned to land.
Grey Seals are one of the rarest seal species in the world and the biggest land breeding mammal in the UK. Roughly half of the world population of grey seals is found in Britain, a large proportion of which are found in Cornwall. They are big animals with the larger males often over 10ft long; the females are somewhat smaller at around 6ft and usually lighter colours than the males. The latin name for the grey seal translates to the somewhat unflattering "hooked-nosed sea pig" and the alternative common name of horsehead seal isn't much better. In fact seals are most closely related to dogs, bears and otters. Seal pups have been seen in every month of the year but the majority are born in the Autumn and early Winter. Common seals are also found along the Cornish coast.
The steep Valency valley acted as a funnel for the dramatic flash flood in 2004 that put Boscastle on (and nearly wiped it off) the map which is thought to have been caused by the Brown Willy effect. Over 1.4 billion litres of rain fell in the course of 2 hours. Around 50 cars were swept into the harbour, the bridge was washed away and roads were submerged under 9ft of water. A total of 91 people were rescued in the largest peacetime rescue operation ever launched in the UK.
In spring wild garlic can be harvested. Unlike domestic garlic, the leaves are the useful bit rather than the bulb, so cut/pull off the leaves (don't pull up the plants). The leaves are quite delicate so you can use quite large quantities in cooking, so you'll want to harvest it in the kind of quantities you'd buy salad leaves in from the supermarket. There are some lillies that look fairly similar (and some are poisonous) but the smell is the giveaway: if it doesn't smell of garlic/onions then it's not wild garlic.
Boscastle has 3 pubs, each with a lot of character:
