- Distance:5 miles
- Walk grade:easy-moderate
- Start from:Park Farm
- Recommended footwear:walking boots/shoes or trainers in dry weather
Highlights
- Panoramic coastal views from Penhallic Point
- St Materiana church
- Tintagel Castle
- Tintagel Haven
- Views over Tintagel and the church from Trewarmett Downs
Directions
- From Park Farm, turn left and walk up to the crossroads and take the lane going left to Treknow.
- Walk down the lane to Treknow and turn right onto the road going through Treknow.
- Walk along the road through Treknow bearing right up the hill, past some tracks to the left and a small grassy island, past a hotel and a house. At the point you have passed all the houses, a public footpath runs down to the left past the last house. Take this.
- The footpath (once a track used by quarrymen) comes out on the coast path near Hole Beach. Turn right along the coast following the path round to the left onto Penhallick Point. From here there are excellent views of the bay.
- Walk along the path along the coast past the Youth Hostel until you reach St Materiana Church. Stop to have a look inside.
- Walk further along the coast path and you soon reach Tintagel Castle (admission fee to enter).
- After having a look at/around the castle, walk down the steps to the beach to the right and explore Merlin's Cave beneath the island.
- Once you've explored the beach, walk up the valley (Vale of Avalon) following the track until you reach Tintagel.
- More or less opposite (slightly down to the left) is Pengenna Pasties if an emergency pasty is required after the climb up from the castle.
- From the track up from the castle head right into Tintagel past The Wootons pub then immediately turn right down the hill before The Cornishman pub.
- Follow the road past the Vicarage and Fontrevault chapel and just as you start to climb the hill there is a footpath on your left.
- Take the footpath, keeping left along the hedge. Watch out for enormously deep rabbit holes along this path. Take the gate ahead marked "Trerammett" (not the path to the left which goes back up into Tintagel). The path comes out onto the main road beside the Tintagel sign.
- Turn right, following the main road away from Tintagel - walk on the pavement. Once you reach the hill, walk up the pavement on the left side of the road.
- Just past the school there is a footpath on your left. Take this and walk across the fields until you reach a lane.
- At the lane (Tregeath Lane), turn left and walk uphill along the lane.
- Turn right at the T junction at the top, stopping to have a look at the views of St Materiana Church across the fields.
- Walk along the road which comes out in Trewarmett next to the post box opposite Park Farm.
Treknow (which in Cornish means 'the valley place') is perhaps one of the oldest 'industrial' settlements in the area dating back to Medieval times, based mainly on slate quarrying with some early metal mining. The physical structure of Treknow - its bowl-like formation, in parts literally carved out of the rock - could be the result of early slate excavations. It was in direct response to the needs of industrial workers in the expanding quarrying industry of the early 19th century that the rows of cottages were constructed. The use of slate for roofs, chimneys, walls and paving, which contributes so greatly to their character, is further testimony to the dominant role of the local industry.
There are 9 slate quarries along the coast path between Tintagel Church and Trebarwith Strand. Slate quarrying began here in the early 14th Century and the last of these, Long Grass Quarry, closed in 1937. The Lanterdan and West quarries above Vean Hole and Hole Beach were once some of the biggest in North Cornwall.
In Lanterdan quarry there is a tall, distinctive, pinnacle of rock left behind as the slate in the pinnacle was not of a sufficiently good quality. Shorter pinnacles were left in West Quarry for the same reason. The slate was exported from Tintagel Haven and in the late 1800s a wharf (which has now been taken by the sea) was also constructed at Penhallic Point where the cliff edge was trimmed to form a 100ft vertical face. Ships could lie against this face as there is a natural deep-water berth alongside Penhallic Point. The slate was lowered by crane down into their holds.
Cutting the stone and loading it onto boats was harsh work and could be lethal. A local man - Alan Menhenick - recalled in the 1920s "we worked with the tides, around the clock. I've been at the quarry at four in the morning. When the tide was in, we blasted; when the tide was out, we went down and collected the slate". In 1889 three men vanished into the sea when the face that they were boring sheared off the cliff.
The quarry workings never reached the shoreline as there is a fault along the base of the quarry below which is the Trambley Cove Formation made of volcanic lava which was no good to the quarrymen. Lanterdan Quarry is now owned by the National Trust and is a site of geological interest for its brachiopod (spirifid) fossils and also a rare mineral called monazite.
The first church on the site was thought to be in the 6th century, founded as a daughter church of Minster in Boscastle which is even older. The current church was built on Glebe Cliff at Tintagel in the late 11th or early 12th century with the tower added in the late Medieval era. The Norman font bowl by the south wall is believed to have been brought from St Julitta's chapel at Tintagel Castle. The church also contains a Roman stone bearing the name of the Emperor Licinius which may be evidence that there was once a Roman camp nearby.
Tintagel castle (also known as "King Arthur's Castle") is perched on an island which was joined by a land bridge in the middle ages. The ruins that you see today were built in the 13th century by Richard Earl of Cornwall, though from coins and pottery fragments found at the site it is thought that before this the site might have originally been a Roman settlement and later in the early middle ages a Celtic settlement. There is speculation amongst historians that the site was a Summer residence for one of the Celtic kings, perhaps leading to the legends of Arthur.