Travel
Winter in • Cornwall
By L. A. G. STRONG THE summer charms of the West-Country are world-famous ; but, though I was brought up on Dartmoor, where one sees the grimmer side of the weather, I have always obstinately preferred it in the winter months. Dartmoor can produce bitter weather on occasion, and the place where we lived was exposed to every wind that blew. Even so, going to school at Brighton, I was never in the least doubt as to which was the colder ; and it was not the moor. Three or four miles to westward of us, on the Cornish border, there was a different climate altogether, mild, sheltered, and equable—for nowhere else that I know can one find such astonishing variations in so small a space. But that was in Devon. Once one has crossed the Tamar, the flight from winter is complete. Comparative statistics are never very helpful unless one is well acquainted with both the things compared. We may not all be much the wiser for being told that there are towns on the South Coast of Cornwall with a winter temperature the same as that of Madrid, or even that the mean temperature thereabouts is within two or three degrees of that of the French Riviera : both of which statements are, I am assured, perfectly true. More impressive, to me at any rate, is an experience of my own during a visit to St. Austell, which no one has bothered to pick out as especially favoured by the climate in one way or another. Staying there in early January, I more than once lunched in the woods above the town, on a completely sunless day, without any sort of overcoat, or even a mackintosh. We sat for a good while after luncheon, too. . At one of the known sub-tropical places, such as Falmouth or Penzance, this would hardly be worth recording ; but there all sorts--of prodigies take place.
No one would, of course, pretend that there were not parts of Cornwall which get their share of really wintry weather. Those stunted trees, on the moors and near the North coast, that lean in such strained attitudes away from the West, tell their own tale, Even on the South Coast, there are places to avoid if one wants to make certain of warmth and sunshine. I have met bitter cold in the neighbourhood of the Lizard as late as April. That iron-bound coast has its charms, but they are all of the more rigorous order, in winter at any rate. It is to the secluded little towns and villages on the South that the seeker after warmth should go.
He has ample choice. If he does not want to go far, and likes
to keep within range of a big town, there is Downderry, on the wide Whit,sand-Bay, not far over the border. More sheltered are Looe and Fowey, from either of which a whole host of delightful little villages lie within easy range. I have myself a stubborn liking for St. Austell, which, though not on the sea, is close to it, and makes as good a centre for motoring or walk- ing as any I know. I shall never forget a very unorthodox trip, many years ago now, which I took in the company of one of the local dentists. ..9n a given day he made a tour of many of the neighbouring vfilages, going right across to the North. (Cornwall is very small, a mere eighty miles long, and, at its narrowest point, only six miles across.) We started immediately after breakfast. At each village where we stopped, anything from one to a dozen sufferers were waiting. The place of assignation varied : sometimes it was an office, once, with grim appropriateness, a butcher's shop, another time a smithy. Several times the size of the doleful queue gave me time to explore the village before we went on. The circuit took all day, and we drove back in the evening across Bodmin Moor, admiring the marsh lights which twinkled as if from forgotten villages of long ago. It was a memorable day, but I am not sure that the most remarkable thing about it was not the mildness of the weather. We drove in an open car, and that in days when cars were much less comfortable than they are today.
There is no need to describe the attractions of places like Falmouth and Penzance. The convalescent can go there in full confidence, and rely upon mild weather. More exciting are the innumerable smaller places and villages, where in the winter one can live for half nothing and enjoy just as good a climate. And, the waist-line of Cornwall being so slim, it is easy when one feels in adventurous mood to run over to the North coast and encounter an air which, while still kindly, is rougher and more bracing. Bude is an excellent winter resort in this kind. In summer—how shall I put it ?—the inhabi- tants are very much alive to the financial possibilities of a short and crowded season but in the winter accommodation can be had at very moderate figures, and the climate is exceedingly healthy all the year round. To see the big Atlantic rollers coming in is worth a longjourney. •
The ideal way to spend the winter in Cornwall would be to. pick upon a South Coast town or village about half way down : half way, that is, between Plymouth and Penzance. Then, at the very worst, one could be certain of mild weather. (The sunshine average, incidentally, is high, and the rainfall, for the West Country, low. It is the higher parts that earn the West its reputation for heavy rainfall and for mist.) For everything else, one could be guided by the weather. If it is mild, one can run across and spend one's day—or, if one does not mind moving about, several days—on the bracing North. If one strikes a wet patch, there are endless old country towns and villages to be explored. In the matter of architecture, Cornwall can hold her own with any county. If the weather is fine, there are miles of cliff and miles of beach ; and, still within easy reach, there are the hills and moors.
Finally, a word as to the people. They are a race apart. One is always hearing how secretive, and sometimes even how unfriendly to the stranger, they can be. All I can say is that I have never myself found this. What is more, a friend who, bound upon some official agricultural business, was obliged to thrust his nose in and ask a great many questions which might easily have been resented, told me that nowhere in the entire peninsula did he meet with discourtesy or unfriendliness. It was, he added, a pretty severe test.
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