This is the second of my Cornwall posts. Back in the 1990s/early 2000s Battleaxe and Philosopher used to have spring holidays in Boscastle, north Cornwall. We lived in Birmingham back then, so the journey to Boscastle was not too long. Readers may remember that Boscastle suffered a catastrophic flood in 2004, when parts of the old village were washed away. We have never been back since, so decided to revisit on our way home this year and spend the night. On the way we called into Bodmin, which was interesting. The next day we had a magical viewing of the partial eclipse of the sun and revisited another magical place, Minster Church, before starting our journey home.
Here’s Philosopher viewing the famous blowhole at Boscastle Harbour – it was puffing and snorting, but the tide was a bit too low.
So, what was surprising about Bodmin? Well, it was incredibly, scarily, run-down. I can remember visiting the town as part of one of our holidays – 2001 to be precise, the year of the foot and mouth outbreak, when many of the footpaths were closed. This time, the High Street was full of empty shops, and the whole town looked very poor. Forgive me if you live in Bodmin, I’m sure it’s fine, but it was a shock to us. The branch of WH Smith was closing down too, so Battleaxe snagged some excellent 50% off bargains!
When we used to come to Boscastle in the old days, Battleaxe was very into a goddess/witchy phase. I used to read endless books about the power of the female divine, and collected little goddess figures – I still have some of them now. In Boscastle there were several shops that sold such things, mystic sites including Rocky Valley, St Nectan’s Glen, and numbers of earth-mothery pagan holy wells to visit. It was all a bit mystic and new-agey. In addition, the village had a dark, faintly brooding atmosphere, with its dark, looming rocks and rushing rocky streams.
The floods of 2004 must have been a truly terrifying event. We watched a BBC documentary about it a while ago, and some of the helicopter crews were beyond heroic, rescuing people from rooftops. Part of the problem was caused by cars washing down to the sea from the car park at the top of the village – about 75 of them were swept out to sea. Along with fallen trees, the cars did extensive damage to the buildings on their way past. This time, we stayed in The Riverside, which features prominently in the rooftop rescue stories. Here is a link to a good gallery of photos. Also, here is a photo of The Riverside in 2004, and another, taken by me, as it is today.
2025 Boscastle has been rebuilt, restored, regenerated, National Trustified and prettied up within an inch of its life. I’d almost dare to say it looks twee – which is a shame, given its previous edgy self. There are umpteen National Trust rental cottages, a huge NT visitor’s centre, shop and cafe and even the obligatory NT second-hand bookshop. Here’s Philosopher on a new bridge. The enormous new NT set-up is behind him.
Still, all was not lost. The Boscastle Pottery was still going strong, with the same bloke doing the potting. I bought a big coffee mug way back then, which is still going strong, but still had to buy a new one. Here’s a nice link to a blog post about the pottery – from 2013, but it hadn’t changed then, and hasn’t changed now! Then we had our lunch in the murky old Cobweb Inn, which hadn’t changed a bit either. I’d swear the same geezers were sitting at the bar chuntering on about the state of the world. It’s a great old place – photo from the internet.
So, what of The Riverside. Well, it was alright, but I think we had been spoilt by the luxury of the Captain’s House in Marazion. It was reasonably priced, had a restaurant on site, was clean, the breakfast was OK, but our room felt a bit cramped – the bathroom was tiny. Our window overlooked the actual river, the Valency, which was largely responsible for the flood. All through the village the river has been deepened, widened and shored up to maximise flood defence for the future. Despite the recent dry weather, it seemed to be very full of water, and roared past the hotel busily and loudly. Didn’t disturb us in the night though.
The next day was sunny but windy. We decided on a walk up the Valency Valley, which used to be one of our favourites. At one point the river rushed across a rocky outcrop right by the path, and when we stopped to admire the view, we could see the sun reflected in a sheltered rock-pool. We had forgotten all about the partial eclipse of the sun, but when we looked into the pool the sun did not look quite right. On looking again, it had a large chunk missing from it. It was even clearer when we looked through little spaces between our fingers. We tried and tried to photograph the eclipse in the pool, but of course our cameras did not co-operate. A woman came along, with a lovely dog, and we shared our excitement with her. As soon as we pointed at the pool the dog jumped into it, scattering the reflection.
It reminded us of yet another visit to Boscastle, in 1997, when we saw the Hale Bopp comet on a dark evening walk.
After that magical experience, we decided to revisit another – the little Minster Church, hidden deep in the woods near where we were walking. It is a mystic, beautiful and interesting place, built on the site of an ancient healing well, and dedicated to St Materiana, a Welsh princess who lived on the site in the 6th century. I remember that in Spring, the churchyard was covered in daffodils, and this was still the case. Although the little church was damaged in the 2004 floods, it still looked and felt the same – incredibly quiet, calming and peaceful.
Another couple of random photos.
To finish up, here is Battleaxe in Boscastle in 1997, the Hale Bopp year. Note the hair. It was obviously growing out a bit, but the desired look was Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics. It is interesting how few photos we have from those days – still had to take the film out of the camera to be developed. Only about 6 from that Boscastle holiday – today it is more like 66!
After the church visit, we didn’t drive straight back to Hastings – still a long way. Stopped for the night at a very good Premier Inn in Ferndown, near Ringwood. Had a perfectly OK Beefeater on site – some of them are a bit grungy, but not this one. Battleaxe would recommend for a stop-over.
