27/10/23 - The Cadgwith Cove Inn

Picture perfect Cornish Fishing Village for a new entry in the 2024 Good Beer Guide

Final walk of the week and we are heading to a couple of tiny coves, related to the pilchard fishing industry.

Cadgwith is that isolated, the signs tell you not to drive into the village. A car park available about 1/2 mile up the hill.

By God, it's pretty.

Could be an Hovis Advert

This walk becomes an ecumenical matter but starts off with a natural feature. A puff and pant onto the high cliffs to look at the Devil's Frying Pan - a collapsed sea cave - from above.

Staring at the Sun

Inland to unlocked churches - first Grade and then Ruan Minor - with a Pilgrimage place, St Ruan's Well inbetween.

Guide Dog in Training gone off with the Zoomies

St Ruan's Well

Ruan Minor Church

A drop down to the sea, to discover a ruined pilchard processing "factory" at Poltesco and then back over the cliffs for lunch.

The Cadgwith Cove Inn easy to spot on approach. We tick all the boxes to be allowed entrance.

Our Destination

To be fair, warm enough to sit outside

We start with the front snug to ourselves. A chat with the owner, the first he new of making the bible was an email to say they had been selected. The local Camra branch appear to follow the full mystery shopper modus operandi and he was unaware of their visit. He says they were probably impressed by how far the beer line has to run for the cellar to the tap room.

For the first time on this trip, I find Betty Stoggs. I am provided with the history of Skinner's recent closure and reopening by another brewery. Yet he says its not what it was and he often has to send barrels back.

And he was right - it wasn't a great pint.  

But still - a fine place for meal of the week and a day when I can proclaim myself truly middle class. We managed to spend £82 on lunch.

Monkfish and sea bream Thai curry racking up the dollar.

Our final walk of the week, so we'll put it down to a celebration feast.

Our place in the snug

Walk Details

Distance - 4.5 Miles

Geocaches - 2

Walk Inspiration - AA 1001 Walks, Walk 22

26/10/23 - The Blue Anchor, Helston

 Celebrating an absolute classic with Spingo Middle

A wet Thursday afternoon on the Lizard peninsula. I've got a designated driver. Only one place to go.

The Blue Anchor,  Helston.

In we go!

This is a completely unmodernised brew-pub - famous for their Spingo beer. The building, a C15th Monk's retreat. A narrow corridor leads to a couple of snugs on the left, two rooms on the right (one with an impressive fireplace), a skittle alley and a separate brewery room.

Time to make a choice

Laughter and life is coming from the front bar on the right. A collection of old boys, clearly in for the afternoon, superbly marshalled by the landlady. Whenever the story telling and micky taking extends to profanity, they are swifty admonished and threatened with the swear jar and/or expulsion.

All of guide dog in training Ivy's previous hard work goes out the window. One of the old boys notices her on her lead and demands that all dogs in this room are free dogs. Mrs M's resolve eventually goes and the dog is allowed loose to make her own friends. Dogs playing in a confined space would alarm some but not in here. I always abide by the unwritten pub rules of following the local customs.

Onto the beer - only two on cask today - a 5% Spingo Middle and a Jubilee IPA. 

Spingo Middle

I vow to try both. The Spingo Middle met with approval and went down rather too quickly. My return visit to ask for an IPA was met with scorn. The old boys said I should stick with the Middle. Even the landlady suggested that the IPA was far inferior. Made me wonder why they brewered it, if they are talking people out of buying it :-)

Before things get out of hand dog-wise, Ivy is rounded back up, falls asleep on her settle mat and we soak up the atmosphere - frequently engaged in conversation with whoever next makes their exit to use the facilities.

Plenty of nick nacks and artworks on the wall. My interest focused on the list of public executions in Cornwall, including a couple for battering a previous landlord of this pub.

Punishment for many crimes, harsh.  Except William Hocking.  He's a wrong 'un

Three rounds and its time to head out for normality of life outside the pleasure palace. Not often I have to leave a premises by providing handshakes with new friends and I don't think they noticed the slight tear in my eye. Three pints of Middle and afternoon bonhomie can do that to a man.

In an attempt to recreate the experience later in the year, I've exported some of the magic to the West Midlands. I doubt it will work in front of Jools Holland's Hootenanny, but I am prepared to give it a go.

New Year's Eve sorted

26/10/23 - Mermaids and Marconi at Mullion

Coves, cliffs, legends and two pubs

Mullion - the largest settlement on the Lizard Peninsula and we follow our guide books advice that this makes an ideal base for exploring the area.

A walk from our front door. Through the town, finding all the amenities. Is it a coincidence that Mrs M used AirBnB to find digs next to a chocolate factory?

Our first special place is Mullion Cove, a still working harbour supporting pilchard fishing.

From Ghost Hill to Mullion Cove

Another special place

You could while away the time by playing "Guess the name of the Island" - Mullion a given, but Tregwyn, the Var (Boo, say all football lovers) and Scovarn taking more time.

It's then up onto the cliffs to be rewarded by two perfect sandy coves. Polurrian first and larger of the two. Guide dog in training Ivy getting a well earned free run with the other canines.

Many would have just stopped here

Back on the cliffs - for legends, true and probably false. Angrouse Cliff has the Marconi Monument, celebrating the first transatlantic communication in 1901. And what did he send?  The letter S in Morse repeated three times and received in Newfoundland.  The radiowaves bending across the globe, a feat the naysayers said impossible.

120 years later and Sunday morning politics TV has a genuine feature about AI causing the end of civilisation. We all know it will be the 27th named storm of a particularly terrible Autumn. 

Understated Monument to Transatlantic Communication

Mrs M had the big white building down as a hotel, offering skinny flat whites. Disappointment that its now a care home tempered by the realisation that she can be plonked there in her later years. Certainly quite the spot.

The cafe is on Poldhu Beach - another doggy playground but this time with a fable.  Magical Britain tells of an Old Smuggler Lutey who returned a stranded mermaid, Morwenna, back to the water. Granted three wishes, he made the mistake of not asking for unlimited wishes. Instead, he asked to be able to charm away illness, restore stolen goods (odd request for a Smuggler) and the power to break evil spirits. Lutey and his descendents became famous Pellars, Cornish expellers of evil. Happy ending? Nah, nine years later Morwenna dragged Lutey back into the waves and he was never seen again.

Guide Dog Ivy with a glint in her eye....

Enough folklore Mappiman, I hear you cry.  What about the pubs of Mullion?

Our AirBnb host waxed lyrical about the Old Inn. Her face changed when discussing the Mount Bay Inn. She stated it used to be a nice place but was now being run as a hostel.

Takes more than that to put us off - so we tried it out and found a large holiday pub, setup for Sunday Carveries. Closed Monday and Tuesday and a 3pm opener on other weekdays. Our first visit was Saturday night and we can confirm that this is where the youth of Mullion head to for "prinks" before taxiing to the bright lights of Helston. Proper Job was available, but after my Johnny Depp (pirate) lookalike bar man had to ask the single old bar hanging boy whether anyone had one today, I quickly changed to keg Korev. 

The locals were friendly but were the enough of them to keep the place going?  I'd be surprised if Mullion is still a two pub town on future visits.

The Mount Bay Inn

The AirBnb host was of course, totally correct about the Old Inn.  A charming, thatched C16th building originally hosting the workers constructing the church over the road. Packed out on both visits and impossible not to get into conversation with tourists and locals alike.

The Old Inn

The community centre - it hosts several dining rooms, a pool room and even the community library. A proper one, council endorsed and everything.  

Drinkers are catered for, with a perfect front bar. A battle to get through the local bar hangers and enquiries need to be made as to their gold loyalty cards. I joke with the barman that I intend to be that loyal, I will have one by the end of the week. He scoffs that I need a TR postcode before I would be bestowed the golden ticket?

Could this be the first pub I have been to with a two-tier pricing system? Should I have been angry that I was paying more for my St Austell beers than the locals?

Maybe... I was more disappointed in today's cashless society, I didn't have 50p for the pool table.

Hicks sampled, but the Proper Job was the "go to" pint

Walk Details

Distance - 5 Miles

Geocaches - 3

Walk Inspiration - 40 Walks in Cornwall, Walk 14

25/10/23 - Loe Bar, a GBG Tick at Gunwalloe and into Porthleven

 In a week of pretty walks, the prettiest

Rather a special walk this.

We start at Penrose - a National Trust House and Gardens and follow excellent paths alongside Cornwall's largest freshwater lake to the sea.

Heading to Loe Bar

Loe Bar is a slender strip of land separating the freshwater Loe Pool from the  Atlantic Ocean. This remarkable barrier beach, approximately one mile long, is composed of a mixture of sand and shingle, and it's the largest of its kind in the county. Legend has it that the Bar was formed when a colossal storm in the 13th century breached the sand dunes that once separated the freshwater Loe Pool from the sea. It certainly stopped Helston from being a sea port.

Ivy, impressed by the natural wonder

And then hitting the bar

We actually have a choice of walks now. Head South for a Good Beer Guide Tick or head North for the previously unexplored town of Porthleven. The sun is shining, we are on holiday so the correct decision has to be to do both.

This enthusiasm is rewarded by the drinking gods. It's 11:15 when we arrive at the tiny fishing port of Gunwalloe. Mrs M thinks I am lying twice. Once, when I say the Halzephron is an 11am opener and twice when I say its just a quarter mile further up the lane.

An honour to be the first patrons of the day at this ancient smugglers pub. If you want to read about tunnels and attempts to recover Spanish fortunes, head here.

Freehouse, serving mainly Sharps

As you would expect

Good Beer Guide 2024 Entry

A straightforward coast walk, crossing the Loe Bar for a 2nd time and into Porthleven. A picture perfect Cornish fishing village, with tourist throngs taking advantage of the chippy and the pasty shop.

Coast path to Porthleven - Monument to the lost HMS Anson

Into Porthleven

Boats across the harbour

An Adventure Lab Cache takes us to 5 interesting locations. Saving the best till last, the final stop is the C17th Ship Inn. Right on the harbour, a perfect place to sit and watch the world go by.

Eponymous beer - Skinners Porthleven

Walk Details

Distance - 8.25 miles

Walk Inspiration - 40 Walks in Cornwall (Walk 15) and Pub Walks in South West Cornwall 9 (Walk 13)

Geocaches - 3 and 7 Adventure Lab Caches

24/10/23 - The Paris Hotel, Coverack

 Easy walking from a perfect Cornish fishing village

There's not a lot in Coverack but its still very easy to fall in love with the place.  A free car park, a sweeping promenade and when heading north on the coast path, you are very soon out into the wilds.

Lowland point - disappearing into the sea on the RHS of the photo

One of those fishing boats has just brought in our lunch

This is a simple walk that took us across stony paths to the Lowland Point. Never has a place been so well named. It's a low point, where the only danger is from young grazing cows.

After surviving the stampede, Ivy gets a photo at Lowland Point

Turning the corner 90 degrees, we see the workings of Dean Quarries ahead. A path diversion sends us inland earlier than expected but we soon are back on track.

A surprise in store and a chance to keep the troops' morale up. It's been steep. It's been muddy but Roskilly's ice cream farm shop will put a smile on even the most disillusioned of walkers.  Even if it is half term and we are sharing space with a higher than national average quota of little Tarquins.

My reward comes back in town. It may only have the one pub, but when its as pleasant as the Paris Hotel, that's all you need. 

The Pars Hotel - Above the Harbour

Named after the SS Paris - an American liner that ran aground off the just walked Lowland Point in 1899. There was no loss of life, so not quite so ghoulish. A large scale model of the liner in a glass case behind the bar.

St Austells beers on offer, so not for the first time this week, a Proper Job was selected.  By the week's end, I am hoping to have found its angrier brother, "Big Job".

Proper walk, Proper Job

A chalk board of interesting specials on offer for lunch. The Lemon Sole was detailed as "Back on tonight" but our host informed us that the boat had just unloaded their catch within the last hour.

My next blog may be "Extraordinary Places to Eat with Mappiman".

Walk Details

Distance - 5.25 Miles

Geocaches - 4

Walk Inspiration - Pub Walks on the South West Coast Path (Walk 13)

23/10/23 - (Half of) The Good Beer Guide Pubs of Falmouth

 Too many pubs, too little time

Firing up the Good Beer Guide App shows the highest concentration of South Westerly dots in the nautical town of Falmouth.

If I only had time

Seven to be precise and unusually for the no man's land of pub ticking windows - Monday lunchtime - six of them are open.

With my drinking partners a Guide Dog in Training and a taxi driver whose primary concern is for the aforementioned life-changer, I need to pick my negotiated three carefully.  

Have I chosen wisely?

Beerwolf Books - on paper sounds like I have died and gone to heaven. Is it a book shop? Is it a bar?  Is it a pinball machine arcade?  Well actually, all three.

Mappiman's Drinking Team for a Monday

Steep stairs lead to a long bar stocked with Cornish brews (and others), comfy seating and surprisingly less books than you would expect.  

Does it work as a pub?  Well, if I ran it, I think I would be shouting at the loiterers hanging around all day "a drink on the go at all times".  This, combined with a bring your own food policy, made me think it must be being run as a charity, rather than a profit centre.

I bet if I looked hard enough, I would have found charging points

Unique experience and after taking a time to make the right selection, I enjoyed my Penzance Brewery Hoptimystic.

Finding one of the seven that actually did food proved harder than expected. A cafe on the pier lured us in with the promise of their world famous crab sandwiches. We get the dog settled, only to find they have run out of crab. I think better of telling them to dangle a hook with a bit of bacon on it out the window. The second choice of a bacon and cranberry toastie was fine.  With Mrs M and the dog settled, I was allowed to explore the next pub as a free man.

The bible blurb says that Seven Stars is not to be missed.  An interior of national importance, a bottle and jug serving hatch and the promise of Bass meant that I agreed.

Seven Stars - a Free House

It also has its own Wikipedia page and unsubstantiated internet rumours suggest that its been owned by the same family for the last 150 years.

I do think I can pick them.

A small bar at the front had every seat taken by mainly old boys wiling away a Monday afternoon. After service - Bass, gravity fed - I retreated to the rear bar to sit on my lonesome. I felt like one of the uncool kids, unaccepted into the main gang, laughing and taking the pee out of one regular, whose birthday was being celebrated in the best possible way.  

Let me spend a Monday afternoon in a pub on my 67th please.

The back room provided ample opportunity to further explore upstairs, to admire a cabinet full of red wine with price labels, consider the least ornate bass mirror ever found and to see if the barman would crack a smile, lest join in with the front room banter.

Gravity Bass in front of the least ornate Bass Mirror found

I keep my claret in the sideboard here

A fortunate downpour kept me here for two but it did come at the expense of additional brownie points that could have upped the ticking to four. The rest of the gang picked up from the crabless cafe.

I needed to choose wisely for my final tick and the Chain Locker seemed promising. One of Falmouth's oldest buildings. Packed full of maritime memorabilia. Open fires. Ghosts. There is usually a ghost.

Unusual beers too - with St Austell Red Sky at Night red ale, never previously encountered.

Nautical memorabilia mainly nailed to the ceiling

'Red sky at night...light of shorter wavelengths is being dissipated by water vapour and atmospheric dust. Red sky in the morning...same.'

A short lived, celebratory pat on my own back at my great choices was ended on looking at the harsh digital display on the contactless machine.

£8.55 for a pint and a half of diet coke.

At least Dick Turpin kissed me first.

Ambulance on permanent standby for shocked pub tickers.

22/10/23 - Kynance Cove for the Pubs of the Lizard

Shipwrecks and ghosts for the mainland's most southerly pubs 

Kynance Cove - often the winner of most beautiful beach in Britain. Trust us to time it at high tide, when not an inch of sand can be seen. Good job we have been before.

We start at the Lizard, the remote road down emphasising the end of the world feel. It was our home from home in 2011 and I was keen to see what had changed. With both pubs still serving, I am pleased to report very little.

We head away from town to become the most southerly people on mainland Britain.

Arriving at the gates of the Lizard Lighthouse

Soon down to the lifeboat station

The walk takes us down to the lighthouse and through the National Trust's Pistell Meadows. The route notes rather overegging the ghostly backstory. Believe Country Walking Magazine, and 698 men of a 700 man crew are buried in a mass grave in the meadows. Dogs refuse to walk there and the cliffs are haunted by a shrivelled grey haired man.

A bit of research dispels the story somewhat.  The National Trust completed an archaeological dig to look into 300 (not 700) casualties of the 1721 loss of the Royal Anne. They conclude;

...... it is felt that burials of the scale described in the accounts written over 120 years after the event would have been discovered during this work, leading us to conclude that the legend may have no basis in fact, being little more than romanticised invention. Accounts of the event changed with each re-telling.

No wonder Ivy the Guide Dog in training was as happy as Larry.

Even when we met the cows.

Like everything else in Cornwall, friendly

The familiar sight of Asparagus Island (no asparagus) shows that we are close to the turning back point. The cafe at Kynance Cove cruelly out of reach by the high tide.

Time to turn back

No direct route to the Cafe

Sunken lanes inland to the Lizard providing a more direct route for refreshment. 

We are booked in the Top House Inn for Sunday lunch and what an honour it is to be given "Lifeboat Corner". 

Top House Inn, The Lizard

I love a pub with stories. Our seat is directly below the bell from the stricken ship, Adolf Vinnen. Sunk on her maiden journey to Belfast in 1923, she was the last great sailing ship lost to this coastline. The 24 man crew rescued by the local lifeboat crew.  The former landlord a collector of maritime memorabilia.

A breeches buoy rescue from the cliff tops

Ship's Bell.....

.... in Lifeboat Corner

The roast dinner was better than a mediocre St Austell Proper Job.

Never mind, onwards to the Witch Ball. Fond memories of Betty Stoggs in the beer garden from many years previous. Googling Skinners led me to articles showing this C15th former farmhouse had closed down in Feb 2023. Succombing to the cost of living crisis and lack of staff availability. 

Less heralded in the press was its sudden June '23 reopening. 

This provides the casual pub tourist the chance to soak up the atmosphere. Log burners banishing the chills of resident ghosts - an unfortunate Spanish soldier from the Armada, washed up half dead and succumbing to his injuries in the 1588. The Witch Ball?  An ornament hanging from the low ceilings to ward off evil spirits, dating from 1721.

Its still a proper pub, providing food with a very Jamaican feel. We may well return before the week is out. Remembering to duck down on entering the bar.

No Betty - but all the Sharp's on cask - a lesser spotted Sea Fury taken

Walk Details

Distance - 4 miles

Geocaches - 2

Walk Inspiration - Country Walking Magazine October 2004, Walk 3