Cornish Walks: Trevalga
Exploring Trevalga on the Cornish Coast: A Coastal Walk
Trevalga
Discovering Trevalga: A Village with a Story
Always take a map – that’s my motto. Failure to do so could end in disappointment.
Not that there’s anything in any way disappointing about this amazing walk - it’s just that now I’m returned home and looking at OS Explorer 111 map, I realise there’s a slightly more intriguing route available for those looking for a hike around Trevalga.
Anyone who asks “Where?” will have missed the news story several years ago reporting how the charming Cornish village was sold over the heads of its many unwitting and worried tenants. I went down to the North Cornish coast halfway between Boscastle and Tintagel to interview some of these people, and ended the day feeling guilty. Why? Because after I’d heard about their fears of eviction and the like, I went for a jolly nice walk. So pleasant, that I could understand anyone feeling deeply depressed having to leave such a place.
Anyway, in my rush to travel to Cornwall I forgot to take the trusty Explorer map 111 – and so eventually contented myself with a simple walk along the coast path from Trevalga to Tintagel, where I caught a bus back.
The Unintended Walk: Trevalga to Tintagel Coast Path
A Missed Opportunity: The Scenic Circular Route via St Nectan's Glen
Had I been armed with the map I’d have done the much more interesting – but no less scenic – circular route along the coast, then up famous St Nectan’s Glen so that I could return via Tredole Farm down the tiny lane back to Trevalga.
Coast west of Trevalga
In fact, so wonderful does that route seem that I have promised myself a return visit soon. But in the meantime, let’s find Trevalga and the start point of either walk.
Fact File: Essential Information for Your Trevalga Walk
Basic walk: from Trevalga down to coast path then west to Tintagel. Recommend map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 111. Distance and going: just over four miles – up and down a bit but easy going. Return bus service: The 594/595 service runs from Bude to Truro, calling at Boscastle, Tintagel and Port Isaac
Coast north of Trevalga
Getting to Trevalga: Finding the Start Point
The village is located down a cul-de-sac just off the B3263 Boscastle-Tintagel road – I must have driven past it 100 times without even noticing the place before.
Its lane meanders past a jumble of cottages, a fine old church and a farm to eventually terminate at the entrance to a private drive and an agricultural track. There is just enough room at this junction of the ways for a few cars to park.
Setting Off: From Farm Track to Coastal Views
I took the farm track and this conveyed me a few hundred metres to the coast path. From here I could see a walk which featured on this page just a few weeks ago – the Boscastle stroll around the mighty bastion of Willapark is just a couple of coastal miles to the north-east.
Boscastle church across the cliffs
But this time I was heading westwards, initially because photographer Emily Whitfield-Wicks wanted to show me the remarkable rock feature called the Ladies Window.
Photographer Emily Whitfield Wicks
The Ladies Window: A Must-See Coastal Feature
In high season this hole in the rocks is obviously something of an iconic must-see – we came across several dozen all queuing to have their photographs taken while posing in the natural aperture high above the sea. Most were either German or Dutch.
Ladies Window
After we’d waited our turn, and Emily had duly taken a picture of me looking grockle-like in the rocky and vertiginous window, we parted and I strode off along the coast.
Continuing West: Scenic Miles to Tintagel
It’s about three miles to Tintagel – and three very scenic miles they are. First the coast path makes a gentle descent, past Firebeacon Hill and down along the top of Trevalga Cliff beyond which it skirts a campsite to finally drop deep into the mouth of Rocky Valley.
Benoath Cove
Rocky Valley and Beyond: Coastal Beauty Unveiled
This is where I could have turned inland – climbing up what must be one of the most dramatic river valleys in the region, to cross the road into St Nectan’s Glen.
Instead I carried on my own sweet coast path way – up over the cliffs that line beautiful Benoath Cove and Bossiney Haven. It says something about the great knack Cornwall has of keeping secrets that even on a sunny day in August these jewel-like sandy beaches were almost empty.
Hardly a dozen hardy beach-lovers were down there on the golden sand – and would certainly have joined them for an hour or two if I’d had the time.
But for me the coast path rounded the corner of a great headland which, like its Boscastle neighbour a few miles up the coast, is also called Willapark. Why two Willaparks? What does the word mean?
The path now continues along plainly named Smith’s Cliff, high above exotic sounding Gullastem Cove. Then there’s Barras Gug – whatever a gug is – and Barras Nose.
Tintagel's Legendary Castle: Myth and History
Only then do we finally see the famous castle perched so dramatically on the great bold bastion of Tintagel Head. Of all the castles in all the world, it is difficult to imagine one more laden with myth and fancy than the 1 romantic, sea-borne, fortifications at Tintagel.
For those who may, somehow, have escaped the legend, it goes something like this: King Arthur’s mother, Ygerna, was the most beautiful woman in Britain – a fact which brought her to the attentions of violent King Uther Pendragon. He invaded Cornwall specifically so he could have his wicked way with her, despite the fact that she was married to one Gorlois, ruler of Cornwall.
Ygerna was hidden at Tintagel, while Gorlois’s Cornish forces were besieged at a hill-fort near by. But Uther was so smitten with lust he couldn’t be bothered to mess about fighting and asked his friend Merlin if he could come up with a magical shortcut. The bearded one brought him a drug that would change the king into a living, breathing, copy of Gorlois.
Effectively disguised, the wicked Uther managed to gain entry to the queen’s bed, where he “satisfied his desire” - and Arthur was conceived.
English Heritage rules the airy roost nowadays and you must pay an entry fee if you want to explore the place where King Arthur is said to have begun his life.
Returning from Tintagel: Completing the Journey
I’d been across to the fortress many times before, so for me it was a quick climb up to Tintagel village where I caught one of the regular buses that runs along the coast to Boscastle, passing Trevalga as it does.
HERE IS THE NEWS STORY I WROTE IN 2010
Life in a beautiful Cornish “bubble” could go pop today. “Bubble” is how some residents describe the small village of Trevalga, perched above the north Cornish sea cliffs, because it is the only community dominated by affordable rented properties in a coastal area where villages are full of holiday cottages and second homes.
But the Manor of Trevalga, along with its five tenant farms and 16 rented houses and cottages, goes up for sale today with a price tag which expected to be in the region of £10 million. And the tenants are losing sleep with worry.
People like Jess Frohlick-Watson have called Trevalga home for decades, and most thought their tenancies were safe long into the future because the large estate was part of a legacy set up by a man who loved the place and its community.
But Jess, who has lived in Trevalga most of her life, was close to tears when she spoke to me this week because she fears new owners may develop the unspoilt but highly scenic honey-pot village which boasts stunning views of the coast.
Her children are the family’s fifth generation to reside at Trevalga – now Jess worries they’ll be the last because her short-term tenancy will offer little in the way of protection.
“We could be out within two months,” she told me, speaking in the small back garden of the cottage that has been her home for the past 15 years. “The worse case scenario is that my children, who are 14 and six, could be evicted from their beds - their home - just so other children can have a nice holiday in the countryside.
“We could be homeless by Christmas, we just don’t know,” Jess went on. “If the estate is bought by someone who wants to turn it into second homes or holiday lets, it will be a ghost town for nine months of the year.
“And they will be kicking out families, for that…?” asked Jess, filled with obvious emotion.
“My biggest worry is that we won’t be re-housed in this area – and this is our whole life. It’s not just about it being a home or about the schools. The children have got their clubs, their football teams, and whatever - and they’ll just have to leave it all.
“I hope the people at Marlborough College are sleeping well at the moment because, I can tell them, no one in Trevalga is. It’s a close-knit place – we know all our neighbours here. We all trust each other. We all respect each other and get on. But where will we all be?”
“There’s nowhere else like it around here,” commented her husband Dax. “This place is like a bubble – the people who live here couldn’t afford to live in the other villages on the coast which are full of holiday homes.”
“We’ve paid the rent and looked after the village all these years,” shrugged Jess. “It looks nice and this is how they’ve thanked us!”
It’s a story which seems very much at odds with an official document the WMN was shown in a cottage just a few hundred metres down the tiny lane that passes for Trevalga’s pretty main street.
It described the intentions of the man who owned the estate and left it to a charitable trust. Gerald Curgenven, a former teacher at Marlborough College, bought the estate in 1934 for £14,000 and tried to ensure it remained untouched long after his death…
“With the declared wish that the estate be preserved and improved - and as far as possible not sold or broken up – and that the payment from the estate should go to the trust.”
The words were shown to us by Jess’s mother, Linda Frohlick, who has been in her house for 34 years and who is better off than many of the tenants as she has an old fashioned long term lease.
“This is a little pearl among the tourist areas,” said Mary, describing the village which is situated halfway between Boscastle and Tintagel. “There is a genuine spirit here.
“I’m one of the lucky ones, but my concern is for the people either side of me who have short-term tenancies. One has spent £1000s on doing the cottage up on the understanding they’d be there for years, because that’s how the estate was always run. And I mean many £1000s. Then there’s a hard working farmer the other side of me – obviously he needs to live here for his work.
“It would destroy the community as we know it and the chances are it will just be another holiday village. And there’s another worry - if all the short-hold tenants are evicted they will be competing for the very few houses there are for rent in the area.
“One couple have already given in their notice without waiting to find out what’s going to happen – and I can see their point,” said Mary. “They wanted to be first in the queue to find an alternative home around here.
“The ideal outcome would be for Marlborough College to work with us and find just one buyer who will continue to run it as it is – keep it as just one community. We didn’t know until recently that they owned it outright – they were bequeathed a residual income from the estate after maintenance was paid, so it was a bit of a shock to the village that they suddenly were able to sell it.”
As we left her cottage Mary showed us a collection of old photographs: “This one’s of Pentecost Symons – my mum’s father – taken way back in the early part of the last century,” she mused. “He was a farmer and it was taken in the road just out there. Look at it – nothing has changed at all.”
That is one of the great joys of Trevalga – there are no gift shops such as the ones to be seen in the two famous neighbouring communities. There are no ice-cream outlets, pubs, fast-food joints or anything else… The place is a living shrine to a Cornwall of earlier times.
Down the sparrow-filled lane towards the sea-cliffs we came across a woman walking her dog. Mother-of-two Katie Leeds is a tenant in the village and she told the WMN that the general belief was that the sale of the estate had been inspired by the recent building of a South West Water sewerage plant nearby.
“Boscastle didn’t want it – Tintagel didn’t want it – and so it was built here, which is ironic because all the properties in the village have private cesspits,” said Katie. “But a lot of people think it was the sale of that land that gave Marlborough the idea to sell the whole lot off.
“It’s a huge worry to us – everyone here is worried,” said Katie, adding that locals had first been told of a possible sale at a public meeting in the tiny village hall.
Villagers learned that lawyers for Marlborough College had discovered that, after half a century, the trust set up by the late Mr Curgenven was invalid - not having an end date or ultimate beneficiary. The private college then took direct ownership of the Trevalga estate, but became concerned that owning such a large asset appeared to contravene the Charity Commission’s guidelines.
That was when the school took the step of instructing Savills estate agency to put the entire estate up for sale, with the one exception St Petroc’s church.
In that hallowed and quiet temple, situated down an unpaved lane to one side of the village, there is a comments book for visitors – the last entry is typical of several written recently…
It says: “We hope Trevalga stays as a proper community…”
Even the name of the church bears an irony – the St Petroc Society is a Cornish-based charity that helps look after homeless people. Its list of clients might soon be extended.
