Cornwall gets crowded. This August Bank Holliday weekend it will be very crowded. Which means many a Cornish village will be choked with traffic. And when you’re stuck in a car in a traffic jam the idea of a Secret Cornwall might seem to be a very long way away…

That might be the case with motorists in the village of Kilkhampton this weekend. Kilk, to give it the local name, is split in two by the busy A39 Atlantic Highway and it often becomes a bottleneck during busy times. What those frustrated motorists will not realise is that they are surrounded by one of the most beautiful villages in Cornwall.

I learned to love Kilkhampton after I was invited there to research an article 10 years ago… what follows is a newly re-written version of that article…

On windy nights when the Duckpool Roar haunts Kilkhampton the wreckers of yore turn in their graves and murmur to one another in old Devonian accents.

Sounds romantic enough, in a swashbuckling kind of way – which is apt because that’s the sort of place Kilkhampton is. But there are a couple of taboos in my first sentence you perhaps shouldn’t mention if you ever visit this North Cornish village.

The wild shores of Duckpool where Wreckers once plied their trade - or not, depending on whom you believe

In the midst of a jolly and amiable meeting with movers and shakers from Kilkhampton I dropped a clanger by mentioning the infamous Cornish wreckers. Silence reigned when I asked if any of the assembled group’s ancestors had lured hapless ships onto the rocks.

But that silence wasn’t as deafening as the one that later filled the Methodist Hall when someone suggested the local accent was closer to the brogue of Devon than the burr of Cornwall. If the majority present agreed with the speaker, they weren’t about to say so.

And one further dodgy moment occurred – all in good humour I hasten to add - when I asked if Kilkhampton had among its citizens any government spies or spooks.

“We’d have to kill you if we told you,” smiled a parish councillor.

I asked the question because GCHQ’s big cliff-top listening station or whatever it is looms on the borders of the parish and it is reasonable to assume some its employees must reside hereabouts.

I would choose to live there if I were spending my working life listening in to Al Queada phone-calls or helping to stamp out terrorist plots, because Kilkhampton and its large surrounding parish offers a peaceful and lovely antidote to such horrors.

Indeed, Kilk, as the locals call it, represents all that is best about England, its rural culture and its lifestyle - and so is the kind of place that I imagine terrorists would love to destroy.

Much of the 8000-plus acre parish is located on the high plateau that is the birthplace of the River Tamar - the other half is to be found among the beautiful steep coombes and valleys that descend to the surfing beaches and razor cliffs that wrecked so many vessels down the centuries.

Given its location it’s not surprising to learn that Kilk has its fair share of romance. Which indeed, is why I began this article in such a mysterious fashion – I wanted to convey how Kilkhampton has more swash-and-buckle in it’s little finger than most ancient villages do in their entire sword-arms. And that is saying something for a highway burg which is often plagued by traffic.

Apart from the unmentionable wreckers, there were smugglers and antediluvian castles. And there were the folk Kilk seems most proud of – its famous swashbuckling squires.

The much celebrated (in Cornwall at least) Grenville family used to be lords of the manor at Kilkhampton. Indeed, the word swashbuckle could have been invented for them…

Here’s what was once written about Sir Richard Grenville who dined regularly with Spanish captains from the Main and would, “carouse three or four glasses of wine, and in bravery take the glasses between his teeth and crash them in pieces and swallow them down, so that often the blood ran out of his mouth without any harm at all unto him.”
He came to a glorious end in 1591 at the Battle of Flores in the Azores where he’d been sent to fleece Spanish treasure galleons returning across the Atlantic. Aboard his beloved HMS Revenge he took on a much superior Spanish force and sank 16 enemy ships before succumbing to the inevitable.

Tempting though it is, one must not concentrate solely on Kilk’s grandiose and romantic past. The community deserves its place in this series because it is a vibrant and happening place. Motorists travelling along the Atlantic highway from Bideford to Bude will know that - because of its shops and eateries there are always mini-traffic jams in Kilk.

Our invitation to Kilk came from local historian Michael Heard who was born and bred in the place and who has lived there all his life. It was Michael who kindly booked the Methodist hall and brought together a number of Kilkhampton enthusiasts and long term residents.

They were Fred Cornish (aged 85, the oldest of the group), Iris Bond, parish councillors Reg Hambley and Clive Vanstone and parish council chairman Rollo McGrath.

First they told us something of Kilk’s vital statistics: “The population is about 1200 – it’s gone up about 50 per cent in the past 40 years,” said the parish council chairman.

“We've got three housing estates - Kilk grew and grew after the war and since then there's been some private developments which have brought people in from the outside,” commented Mr Heard. “A considerable number of these people have joined in with community activities. But it’s also a commuter village - they commute in all directions - even across the border to Bideford.

“The school now has 86 pupils in three classes, and is full and very popular,” added Mr McGrath. “In fact, Kilk is thriving. Over the years the developments have brought in younger families as well as giving homes to existing families. There’s a post office, two other shops, a butchers, two pubs, the Methodist Chapel and church…”

Michael Heard, who gave me a tour of the parish at Kilkhampton

He would have continued his list but other members of the parish council wanted to tell us how they were keen to see businesses remain in the village.

“In fact we've tried to increase the number of businesses,” said Mr McGrath. “Take the property next door to this hall – the owners wanted it turned into flats, but we insisted it remained a shop. Now it’s a picture-framers’. We’ve also got an internet cafe.”

I’d noticed it as I’d strolled around the village earlier – it’s part of a pizza parlour. I also spotted a Chinese takeaway, a large electrical retailers and an intriguing looking wooden toy shop.

“That’s in what used to be a public hall called the Central Rooms - Kilk is awash with public halls,” declared Mr Heard.

He started to list them but fell upon fertile ground in terms of the general conversation when he reached the football pavilion.

“We are in the process of getting a new sports pavilion,” said Mr Vanstone. “We need £150,000 for the project altogether and already we’ve raised more than half the money here in the village. We are just waiting for the last piece of the grant now - at moment we’ve got £109,000 towards it.”

The need arose after the old pavilion had burned down in an arson attack, which was particularly disastrous because it wasn’t insured.

“We are hoping to start building this calendar year,” said Mr Vanstone. “There’ll be new changing facilities for two teams and officials. That’s half the building - the other half will have new public conveniences and a meeting room.”

At this point the conversation developed into a listing of all Kilk’s many clubs and societies. You can have no doubt that you’re in vital village when you hear of such enthusiasm and creativity – thriving clubs and societies have been a theme in all the successful communities this series has visited so far.

But what about that busy A39 – we asked - didn’t it cut community life in two?

“Six weeks a year it is a pain,” responded the parish council chairman. “The rest of the time we just get used to it. We've instigated traffic calming and put protective bollards up.”
“If people don't come through the village the shops won't be so busy – and we are on the way to everywhere, so it does get very busy,” said Mr Hambley.
“It wasn’t anything like that when I was young,” remarked Mr Cornish. “A few had Austin Seven cars – it was so quiet we used to chuck an iron hoop down the main-street.”
As we began to speak of Kilk’s past Mr Heard said: “You realise we speak the Devon dialect here instead of the Cornish.”
There was a silence until someone commented: “Everyone in Kilk is fiercely proud to be Cornish.”
Having hit one taboo I thought I’d raise the other and talk about the wreckers. Did any of the group have ancestors who’d lured ships onto the needle rocks two miles and 596 feet below the village?
“There weren’t any wreckers here - not that we know of,” said Mr Heard. “It was inevitable that wrecks occurred along this coast.”

I mentioned famous Parson Hawker who lived in the neighbouring parish of Morwenstow and who claimed to have been the man who convinced locals to stop wrecking ships and help stricken mariners instead.

Ah, another Kilk taboo. Don’t mention Morwenstow. And don’t insist Parson Hawker was a hero who invented the Christian event we call the Harvest Festival.

“That’s one of my pet hates,” said Mr Heard. “The Methodists invented the Harvest Festival and not Hawker. He was a self-publicist.”
“But what about the wreckers?” I went on, fearless as a Grenville.
“When I was a boy some men would go wrecking - that is: they’d go picking up firewood and things like that on the beach that could be useful,” said the historian. “More beachcombing really…”
“I remember we had a wreck at Sandy Mouth in 1944 called the Ebenezer,” said Mrs Bond. “Even though it’s two miles away you can hear the sea all the time up here in Kilk. When it’s stormy we call it the Duckpool Roar.”
Mr Cornish remembered a wreck that had hit the rocks nearby. “It had
cigarettes, tinned food, nail varnish, everything… It was Christmas every day. Condoms. There were lots of condoms.”

Someone joked that Kilk’s population had suffered as a result. If it did, that was rectified a long time ago - Kilkhampton looks set to be a romantic and delightful village for a long time to come.