Riverside walk at Lerryn

One of our favourite walks, from Lerryn out to St Winnow's church.  Plus the added interest of a side-trip to a 'lost' pleasure garden. And we were lucky with the weather. When you can do this sort of thing, why on earth would anyone bother with mindfulness exercises? Just get out there and enjoy what's around you.

Not a bad message to start a walk with. And off we set, all grinning like loons. Some more loony than others.

A walk we've done several times in the past and it's one that never disappoints, no matter what time of year we do it. The route is simple - follow the waterside path around to St Winnow's church and then come back over the fields. For this one, we added on a short stretch so that we could rediscover the 'lost' Tivoli Pleasure Garden on the south side of the inlet. In total, we walked around 7.25 miles with the weather gods smiling down on us.

Low tide as the River Lerryn widens out into the creek.

Low tide means that we can use the stepping stones to get over to the other side. A little reminiscent of the cover of the Beatles Abbey Road LP? Except that there are more people, no zebra crossing and there was no river in North London. Apart from these minor points, very similar.

A colourful bench in 'pride' of place just over the river.

We were pleased to see quite a few butterflies on our way around. Here's a Red Admiral, looking rather more orangery than red.

The first glimpse we got of St Winnow's church as we walked along the low-tide accessible foreshore path. Why do you like churches so much, you may ask. A few quick thoughts by way of an answer.
They serve two purposes now and always have: as places for Christians to meet and worship and as an entry point to the past, to the history of its location and community. A church is the place in which we traditionally mark life's landmark events: our rites of passage such as births, marriages and deaths. This puts the physical edifice at the heart of the community’s expression of its own story.
A church is also a place in which we remember those who have gone before. It is impossible not to be moved by some of the memorials to people about whom we know no more than it says on their gravestone or tablet, whose names are almost poetry themselves. We know little of Prudence Pengelly, James Bosustow or Mary Tregaddick, but people like them lived, loved and died and are remembered here. They walked down the aisles, sat in the pews and made their contributions to the community of their time. I find myself increasingly wondering what an earth they would think of the state of the world now and how we treat each other. I won't dwell on that as I find it so depressing,
And, thinking more broadly, churches were probably the most expensive building in their villages and are full of interesting architecture reflecting changing attitudes and ideas about Christian worship through the centuries and places where the wealthy could buy ‘attention’ and honour. And finally, searching for them takes us to parts we probably wouldn't otherwise visit and, in this way, helps us to discover new places.

Don’t get too excited: these are modern pastiches of Celtic crosses used as grave markers for various members of the Vivian family. They beg a collective noun: how about a gaggle of Celtic crosses? Or maybe an upright?

 Looking across the nave towards the south aisle. The rood screen survives and, as at many Cornish churches, the rood cross and supporting figures have been reinstated. The screen was renovated by the Pinwill sisters in the early 1900s and I'm a great admirer of their work. I find running my fingers over what they have chiselled to be a very 'grounding' experience.

An unusual monumental plaque with an anagrammatic poem on the name of William Sawle ‘I was ill am well'. Enlarge to read.

The rather lovely carvings on the sixteenth century pulpit.

Some say that the best feature of St Winnow's is its collection of carved bench ends. There are thirty-three in all. Most date from the mid-sixteenth century and expert opinion splits them into two groups carved at slightly different times and in slightly different styles.

One of the two gems amongst the bench ends. This carving of a man drinking from a leather bottle can be dated to around 1530 by the man’s costume - kilts were common in Cornwall then.

 The second gem: a Tudor ship is blown by strong winds represented by the face above and to its left. Four faces of presumably terrified men appear on the decks of the ship. A slight puzzle is the three-stranded projection top right of the crow’s nest - a flag or pennant, perhaps?

An eye-catching headstone with a poignant inscription "See a bee and think of me. In your hearts but flying free". Tragically Scarlett died within days of her birth and there is a photograph of her on the internet. That image will be in my mind every time I walk this way, and there will be other times.

The church is believed to have been named after St Winnoc, who may or may not have built an oratory here around AD670 and who was probably Welsh or may have been Breton. The church itself seems content with this association, although there is a competing claim for St Winwaloe, a fifth century saint. Winwaloe also had Welsh and Breton antecedents. His mother, St Gwen Teirbron, is famous for allegedly having three breasts and unsurprisingly, perhaps, was often associated with fertility. Sometimes I feel that you couldn’t make some of this stuff up. And, perhaps, it was. I have a strong suspicion that some monk got a bit over-excited when he was scratching away in his scriptorium and enjoyed a little literary invention. Who knows? But let’s go with the church’s own assumptions and say ‘hooray to St Winnoc’!

A simple rural scene, just above the church and looking over the River Fowey. And we left the gate as we found it - open.

Another simple scene - looking over the crop and the Fowey, with the white Georgian building of Golant to the left. The big sky and the tranquility are two good reasons for being here.

A Gatekeeper or Hedge Brown butterfly. Can be confused with the Meadow Brown and what distinguishes them easily is the number of white specks within the black eye spots. This one had two such specks.

Look, the tides in and there are no stepping stones. Ian decides not to paddle across.

Now, this is what I call a shed. An object of loveliness and desire. I wonder how many years have been necessary to produce this patina of use.

After we visited the Tivoli Gardens, I read something that describes them as ‘fountains, arches, bandstand and swimming pool, appearing unexpectedly through the trees and undergrowth’ on the edge of a remote Cornish village. I can agree with the undergrowth and the degree of surprise but the plurals are perhaps generous. It was bold to name it after one of the earliest and greatest amusement parks in the world, but ambition should be admired, not mocked. And admire it I did.

Around 1920 a China Clay magnate, Frank Parkyn, who was born in Lerryn in 1850, began work on the park, following a visit to the Danish Tivoli. The scale is very different to its namesake but you can't knock his ambition in such an inaccessible area of Cornwall. Mentally removing the trees, rhododendron and laurel bushes, it is possible to make out a long, relatively level platform about 50 feet above the level of the creek just on the edge of the village.

After a diversion (we weren't lost!), we came across the bandstand and the giant fountain. The band must have been very small for their stand is a small circular structure which has been re-purposed as a garden of some sort.

The Grand Fountain is a rather splendid structure despite the main decorative elements of the central structure being sadly decayed. But you could get the idea of how impressive it must have been when it was flowing in its prime.

The next structure we came across was a plunge pool which would have been about 3 foot deep.Three arches act as a backdrop to the pool and they are very crudely constructed of concrete blocks inset with large lumps of quartz which might have twinkled in the right light, but looked rather naff when we were there. 

From a distance, I could smell something 'creosoty' and this was the source. True to form, I just had to touch to see if it was still wet - and it was. As the notice said it was.

While the Comma was once a rare sight in Britain, it is now the a rare butterfly success story after having a huge increase in the last 40 years. It is believed climate change and the increase in temperatures are the reason this butterfly is thriving.