Another walk along the Coastal Footpath, plus the church of St Juliot.

PAnother hot day and another chance to complete another stretch of the Cornish Coastal Footpath. This one filled in a gap between Boscastle and Crackington Haven. With this one under our boots, we should be able to finish the remaining miles in 4 or 5 sessions, depending on how energetic we feel about tackling some of the notoriously difficult sections. Not that this one was easy. But we did it and that was very satisfying. Our day was concluded with a visit to St Juliot's church, which has associations with the author, Thomas Hardy.

Our route was pretty simple: keep the sea to the right and head south west. 5.5 miles of  what can be justifiably described as 'moderate to strenuous' walking - with there being more of the strenuous than the moderate. We took a taxi from the centre of Boscastle up the The Strangles, just outside of Crackington Haven, and walked from there.

Our route from a satellite. It looks pretty flat from up there - just proving that appearances can be deceptive The red dot to the right is the location of St Juliot's church, which we visited on our way back home.

Looking south west along the route we'll be taking, although not as far as we can see. We'll be going as far as the white tower that can be seen in the mid-ground. High Cliff, the second lump, is the highest point on the coast of Cornwall and reaches 735 feet (223m) above sea level. And it felt like it when we got to the top.

Looking north east with the white domes of the Morwenstowe tracking station in the distance. Lundy Island can be just about made out on the horizon, giving a visibility of around 30 miles.

Who goes down...……………

……….must go up. I'm not sure how many steps we encountered on this walk but there were hundreds.

By and large, wayside flowers are well passed their prime and coming across a very short section of wall in pretty much full bloom was a very pleasant surprise. What was it about this particular spot that meant that the flowering was delayed? It was well sheltered and that may account for it.

Even to a non-geologist as me, the stretch of coastline between Boscastle and Crackington Haven is truly impressive. The cliffs tower above the sea and the wind-battered, bare rock faces tumble in a series of strange and dramatic formations. This concertina of black shale, sandstone and quartz was formed millions of years ago and is what is known to nerds as the Crackington Formation. Sounds like an obscure '60s rock band to me.

And so we came to the harbour at Boscastle. A delightful place and always a pleasant place to walk around - more so in the out-of-season months when there are fewer people around. The white tower I mentioned earlier on can be seen on the headland. It was formerly an observation tower for whatever was there to be observed at the time.

A Stonechat. There were lots of these all along our walk, flitting from the tops of vegetation and field posts. Perpetually on the move, making getting a decent shot quite difficult.

 

St Juliot or Saint Julitta. Another fascinating gem of a church. It is rather isolated and has a congregation of just 4. It has struggled in the past before its unique claim to fame. The medieval building, particularly the tower, was dilapidated and an architect was engaged in 1867 to make some renovations and, essentially, save the building. The architect was a struggling novelist: Thomas Hardy. He met and fell in love with the Rector’s sister-in-law, Emma Gifford. She encouraged his writing, and after this rebuild he gave up architecture and promptly published his second novel “A Pair of Blue Eyes". The rest is history. Their marriage was not a happy one, regrettably. Hardy married a second time, but this was prejudiced by emotional “baggage” from the marriage to Emma. The setting could easily feature in a Hardy novel and it probably does. It is both beautiful and atmospheric and yet another example of a building that must be preserved.

The Screen and Pulpit are Victorian, installed by Hardy - though not entirely in accordance with his instructions. He had planned to repair the original medieval screen rather than replace it, but the builder he employed for the work is said to have told him, "I said to myself I won’t stand on a pound or two while I’m about it, I’ll give ‘em a new screen instead of that patched up old thing!" and Hardy had to give in. The pulpit was also installed during Hardy's restoration, though again, it was not part of his original plan.

The patron saint of the church , St Julitta, was yet another relatively obscure Christian martyr who came to a gruesome end. She and her three-year-old son, Cyricus, had fled to Tarsus and were identified as Christians. Julitta was tortured and Cyricus, being held by the governor of Tarsus, scratched the governor's face and was killed by being thrown down by some stairs. Julitta did not weep but celebrated the fact that her son had earned the crown of martyrdom. In anger, the governor then decreed that Julitta’s sides should be ripped apart with hooks, and then she was beheaded. Her body, along with that of Cyricus, was flung outside the city, on the heap of bodies belonging to criminals, but two maids rescued the corpses of the mother and child and buried them in a nearby field. What a nice story!

The picture above is of the Thomas Hardy window designed by Simon Whistler. It was presented to the church by the Thomas Hardy Society and dedicated in July 2003. The window consists of scenes from the romance of Hardy and Emma Gifford, his first wife - these scenes taking place in the area around St Juliot, including Beeny Cliff and the Valency river valley. These scenes are frequently referred to in Hardy's poetry, particularly in those poems he wrote in response to Emma's death. 
As I never travel carrying a big piece of black cardboard, because of the light coming in through the engraved glass, it is impossible for my photographs to do justice to how beautiful this window is. My advice is, go to St Juliot and see for yourself.

Why go to Saint-Juliot? What's Juliot to me?
I was but made fancy
By some necromancy
That much of my life claims the spot as its key.

Yes. I have had dreams of that place in the West,
And a maiden abiding
Thereat as in hiding;
Fair-eyed and white-shouldered, broad-browed and brown-tressed.

And of how, coastward bound on a night long ago,
There lonely I found her,
The sea-birds around her,
And other than nigh things uncaring to know.

So sweet her life there (in my thought has it seemed)
That quickly she drew me
To take her unto me,
And lodge her long years with me. Such have I dreamed.

But nought of that maid from Saint-Juliot I see;
Can she ever have been here,
And shed her life's sheen here,
The woman I thought a long housemate with me?

Does there even a place like Saint-Juliot exist?
Or a Vallency Valley
With stream and leafed alley,
Or Beeny, or Bos with its flounce flinging mist?

(A Dream or No: February 1913)

This detail in the right hand window depicts Emma riding her horse near Beeny Cliffs, a couple of miles to the west of the church. We walked across the top of these but not until we'd negotiated yet another of the flights of steps. Emma had it easy if all she had to do was to ride there!

The church in infra-red. It works for me.

As does this infra-red shot of the graveyard.