Two Weeks in Cornwall

For many years while Ann was working as a pre-school teacher, we were restricted on when we could take our holidays. Now we're able to escape at any time we like, it's good to get away outside of the main school holidays. It's not so busy (or expensive) and it takes pressure off those who have no choice other than to holiday when the schools have broken up.

We've not been to Cornwall for a holiday for many years, so booked ourselves two weeks on a site located on the Roseland peninsula just to the south and east of Truro during September. The journey there was unexciting - other than the final few hundred yards to the site entrance which was along a narrow lane with a 1:6 hill. When I say "narrow", I mean about 2.6 metres wide between mud and stone banks. The caravan is just under 2.3 metres wide, so we had just a few inches clearance on either side. Not for the feint-hearted.

The site, though was one of the best we have stayed at. A fully serviced pitch with manicured lawns, clean and tidy washing facilities for when we didn't want to use our own and a small shop along with visiting take away food a couple of nights each week.

All set up for a couple of weeks

Our plan was mix lazy days with going out days and over he course of the two weeks, we managed to visit all of the places that we'd planned. We arrived on Thursday and Friday was our 39th Wedding Anniversary, so that called for a meal out in St Mawes, the nearest town of any size.

Looking back to St Mawes from the Falmouth Ferry later in the week

Crossing the River

On Saturday, we thought that a visit to Trelissick House and Garden would be a good day out. The option was a 30 plus mile drive round through Truro or a much shorter trip taking in the King Harry ferry. This is chain ferry in the style of the old floating bridge that some of my age or older may remember operating across the River Itchen in Southampton, but instead of being 20p single, it is now £8 return

It did the job, the waiting was manageable and it saved us 50 miles on the round trip. Trelissick House is just along the road and at 11 am it's already busy. It's another National Trust property, so we have more than paid for our annual membership. The house has only been open to the public for a few years and is a "work in progress" with just the ground floor open currently for visiting. It is set up as a series of rooms with themed displays, but the highlights are the views overlooking the river and the music from the volunteer pianist who during our visit was playing a selection of jazz piano numbers from the swing era. The gardens are spectacular and there's around 300 acres of estate for the energetic. Getting a view of the house is a bit of a challenge as the estate to the front of the house is farmed and therefore inaccessible.

The front of the house, overlooking the river. It bears a similarity to my old school 

Looking from the terrace, overlooking the river.

Crossing back on the ferry, we headed into St Mawes to visit the castle. This was one of many built during Tudor times to protect England from invasions from the French and in conjunction with the similar Pendennis Castle at Falmouth, its primary purpose was to protect the harbour at estuary. From the landward side, it is quite unimpressive and almost invisible, but that changes once inside and viewed from the business end.

The original Tudor castle from the lower level. The drawbridge giving access is visible on the extreme right of the picture on an archway.

Later developments, mostly Victorian to ensure that the original purpose of the castle continued into more recent times

And finally, a view from the sea showing the Victorian enhancements at he base of the castle

More Gardens

We took in a couple more garden themed places. The obvious place to visit, especially on a wet day is the Eden Project. It being a wet day, I think half the visitors in Cornwall had the same idea. It's interesting, but expensive and has become very commercialised since our last visit not long after it first opened

The biomes at the Eden Project, in the rain with raindrops on the camera lens filter

We also paid a visit to Glendurgan Garden. Very hilly, but with a splendid variety of plants to look at and featuring a large maze on the side of a hill. I have to admit we gave  up...

You'l'll be a mazed! Just behind the maze  and the pond is an enormous Gunnera plant

Another "must see" garden has to be the Lost Gardens of Heligan, near Mevagissey. Quite how a garden could be lost is hard to imagine - but the gardens were lost in the sense that they had become thoroughly overgrown, mostly with rhododendrons, and have now been extensively restored.

This enormous bush is a rhododendron, which shows just how large they can grow. Given the correct conditions, they are very invasive and therefore, technically, a weed. 

There's a very attractive Italian Garden. I'm not too sure about the water management regime in the pond as there was no circulation and to prevent weed growth, the water has been dyed.

One of the themed areas is a jungle zone, including a rope bridge to cross

And We Found a Steam Railway!

You'd be disappointed if we didn't! Bodmin is home to the Bodmin & Wenford Heritage Railway and is based at the old Bodmin General station. The location is unusual in that it is at the end of a branch line from the GWR mainline at what is properly called Bodmin Road, now renamed Bodmin Parkway. It is also at the end of another short branch railway that joined onto the Southern Railway's own line from Wadebridge and Padstow to their own terminus station in Bodmin. The heritage trip takes you to both Bodmin Parkway and to Boscarne Junction, where it joined the Southern line. If you time it right, there is a chance to visit the tea room for a sandwich between trains. The gradients are steep and the small loco was being worked hard to pull its short train during our visit.

Our train for our trip. It's a Great Western 0-6-0 Pannier Tank, so called because the water tanks are hung on the side of the boiler like pannier baskets. There were large numbers of these little engines built between 1929 and 1950, the most famous probably being "Duck" who works on the Island of Sodor.

Across the Water to Falmouth

All other things being equal, we would have met up with my cousin Sue who lives in Falmouth, but she was away in Uganda on a business trip. So we went to the Maritime Museum instead. And a very enjoyable time it was. the highlight for me was a display of artifacts connected with the sinking of the Titanic, something that has been of interest to me for many years. And the highlight of the highlight was these two posters shown below, published by the White Star Line:

As you'll see, the artwork for both posters is the same. "Olympic" was the first of the new class of three ships built for the White Star Line by Harland & Wolff in Belfast and was identical to her sister-ship, Titanic. As you can see from the top poster, the two ships were identical. After Titanic was lost and having spent a great deal of money on the posters, rather than just throw them away, the posters were overprinted to remove any reference to Titanic.

I find the myths and conspiracy theories surrounding the sinking to be fascinating. I doubt that the full story will ever be known. But some of the stories are interesting.
First, the ships were never said to be "unsinkable". But the original design meant that they could be their own lifeboat and remain afloat if damaged until help arrived. This plan fell apart when for cost saving reasons, the waterproof bulkheads were redesigned.

Where there enough lifeboats? While it is true that there were not enough places in lifeboats for everyone Titanic carried more lifeboat provision than the law required at the time which was based on the ship's size and not the number of persons that could be carried. The muddle between "Women and Children First" and "Women and Children ONLY" meant that many lifeboats left carrying less than half their capacity.

Then there are the other construction stories. Was the steel of poor quality and were the rivets inferior? It is documented that the steel was the same as used at the time, but it was different to what would be used for a similar ship built today and the effect of immersion in icy cold water on the brittleness of the steel was not so well understood. There is in my mind some doubt over the rivets, which are documented as being "best" quality. Which doesn't mean what you might think. In the same way that the smallest packet of washing powder or breakfast cereal is labelled as "large", at the time, rivets were graded as "best", "best, best" and "best, best, best". So "best" rivets were not exactly the best available.

And so to the Conspiracy Theories. Was there a fire in the coal store? Almost certainly there had been, but was this extinguished, or at worst under control by the time the ship left Queenstown in Ireland for the Atlantic crossing. There are authenticated reports of large numbers of the engine room crew deserting the ship at Southampton because they were unhappy with the ship and being replaced with a scratch crew recruited locally at short notice. The maiden sailing came during a coal miners' strike; coal was in short supply and many ships were tied up. Coal had been transhipped from some of these tied up vessels and the laid off crews were happy to get a berth on anything sailing.

Was the Master incompetent? Captain Smith was the Commodore (ie senior master) of the White Star line. Some reports indicate that he may have been a little cavalier, but that was not unusual at the time. And he had recently been involved in a little incident with Titanic's sister ship, Olympic

Was Titanic switched for Olympic in an insurance fraud? I rather like this story. There is just about enough of it having an element of truth to be believable.  we have to go back a little to an early voyage of Olympic. At the end of Southampton Water, there is a large shallow area called The Brambles. Ships leaving Southampton traditionally turn to port and sail around the Isle of Wight irrespective of their intended direction along the English Channel. But to safely pass The Brambles, it is necessary to first turn to starboard and later make a 180 degree turn to port. In the process of so doing, RMS Olympic was in collision with HMS Hawke. Looking dispassionately at what happened, the accident was probably a result of a miscommunication, but despite Hawke ramming Olympic, it was found that the Master of Olympic was at fault. And who was the Master? A certain Captain Edward Smith. 

White Star line underwrote their own insurance, meaning that as well as having to pay the Admiralty for repairs to Hawke, they also found themselves with a seriously damaged flagship that needed to be towed back to Belfast for repair. Olympic was docked next to her sister ship Titanic, which was in the final phase of fitting out. Remember, both ships were identical, although "Titanic" was modified prior to sailing.

The story goes that an identity switch was carried out with Olympic being patched up and masquerading as Titanic while the real Olympic was repaired. Having been hit with eye watering costs to repair the damage from the earlier accident, White Star Line had now taken advantage of commercial insurance. The plan was then to run into the ice field and cause "Titanic" to sink while a rescue ship from the same line would be conveniently close by to act as a rescue ship. The plan went wrong when "Titanic" ran into ice in the wrong location and the rest, we know, is history.

This story falls apart in a number of areas. Could enough of a muddle have been caused when both ships were docked together to allow the names to be switched - it was just a paint job, but could it be done with no-one noticing? Titanic and Olympic were actually very slightly different - the Promenade deck on Titanic had been panelled in to make it more comfortable while sailing across the Atlantic and while this was intended to also be fitted to Olympic, it may not  have been completed at the time that one of the ships sailed in April 1912.

I don't suppose we'll ever know - but it is a conspiracy theory that has more likelihood of truthfulness than the moon landings being faked, or the 9/11 disaster being the result of maverick operators within the CIA.

Lanhydrock House

Everyone said "You have to go to Lanhydrock House while you're in Cornwall". So we did. Positioned close to Bodmin, it is a large estate house rebuilt in the Arts and Crafts style after a disastrous style that destroyed almost all the original house. Naturally, it is set in a huge estate that includes a formal garden close to the house.

First view of the house having walked from the car park and entrance about half a mile away

First room on the tour is the dining room in full Arts & Crafts style

There are loads of trophies scattered about the house. This moose had several people commenting about Sybil catching her cardi on it

We were told that the Long Gallery was impressive. We arrived at this room and thought...  yes, it is impressive.

Then we arrived at the next room. This IS the Long gallery and has the most amazing ceiling. It is the only part of the house to have survived the fire

Having explored the house and the obligatory National Trust tea room for lunch, we explored the garden.

And then finally, we decided that we needed a break from houses and gardens, so on our final day, we headed off to the former industrial area of Cornwall at Camborne to visit East Pool Mine.

The mine visit covers the above ground works, or at least, what remains. We had a tour with a knowledgeable guide who explained the history of the site, which was part of the complex of the last working mine in Cornwall. As a sign of the times, the site is now mostly a Morrisson's supermarket and car park..

Another enjoyable holiday finished. That was going to be it for the year, but the temptation to go away again for another week was too much. Our next trip will take us on a ferry trip departing from Portsmouth. Where are we going? You'll find out in the next installment.