Note that all maps on this site are only indicative.
You should never set out without the correct OS map.
There are times at Morwenstow when you are glad you've arrived
by car and not by beleaguered boat on that awful, sinister, shore
- and glad too that there were no wreckers around to welcome you
with a knock on the head. That's the way it was for unlucky visitors
a couple hundred years ago. If the razor rocks of Cotton Beach,
Higher Sharpnose Point or cynically named Lucky Hole didn't get
you - the locals would.
Not that the good folk of Morwenstow had to resort to setting
up dodgy lights to lure sailors to their doom. The wind, the sea
and those terrible rocks are so well orchestrated in their overture
of destruction, they need no help in dealing with little ships armed
with nothing more than canvas wings. In the days of sail such vessels
caught off here in the wrong wind, were mere moths in a storm.
Getting there: Morwenstow is just off the A39
Barnstaple to Bude road and on the Devon/Cornish border.
Basic Hike: From the church at Morwenstow, down
past Rectory and St John's Well to find footpath down through the
bottom of the valley, then down to the cliffs and the SW Coast Path
which you take to Higher Sharpnose Point. From there head inland
up Tidna Valley to footpath that leads left back to church.
Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 126
Clovelly and Hartland.
Distance & Going: Short hike of about three
miles - very muddy in places - steep in others.
Watching dawn arrive over Morwenstow's cliffs in
a bad nor' westerly must have been grim indeed if you were in a
sailing ship. If the locals gazing out from the cliff-tops had worn
T-shirts back in those days, the logo would have said: "Welcome
to Hell."
As good a place as any then, for an atmospheric hike - especially
if you wait for a day when low, black clouds and rain scud off the
Atlantic to give you the full, authentic effect...
They go on about Heritage UK nowadays - where our history and
tradition is potted for us in interpretation centres, museums and
the like - but come to Morwenstow on this most savage coast on such
a day, and you can almost hear the sailors scream without having
to resort to an audio guide to enhance the experience.
All you get, and all you need, is the National Trust's little
notice-board showing a map of the land they own around here and
how you can walk from the famous old church, down to the sea-cliffs,
and back by a different route. Tucked in the valley behind the board
is Morwenstow Church nestling in its wooded graveyard over-looking
the sea. Rooks caw and flurry about in the wind which moans through
the bent old trees as you cross the stile by the lych-gate and enter
a demesne that seems to belong to another dimension.
Perhaps it's something to do with the
white ship's figure-head that you used to see on the left hand side
as you walked down towards the church. It has been removed for renovation,
but used to mark the grave of Captain Peter and many of his sorry
men, who died on the nearby razor-rocks, back in 1842.
They had been on the brig Caledonia out from Rio de Janiero via
Syra, Smyrna and Constantinople when her luck began to wane. It
started when she reached the eastern Mediterranean where the cook
was badly injured in a knife fight with an innkeeper.
Imagine the scene as you wander through that cold wooded graveyard
400 feet above the crashing Atlantic... A barrel-lined inn, cool
and dark in the heat of the southerly sun on the shores of the Bosphorus;
strange scents of the east; lilting, dangerous, seductive music
and perhaps an exotic dancing siren or two. Was it the dancing girls
who caused the fight?
What a rude awakening those wine and sun-soaked men must have had
when they saw the cliffs of the Sharpnose on that cold black dawn.
Hell indeed... Captain Peter ordered the men up the rigging as the
Caledonia was pushed onto the rocks by the hard-blowing NNW gale,
but no sooner had they climbed it the mast came down killing most
of them.
There were only two survivors. A tortoise which
somehow managed to swim ashore to be collected by a local boy, and
mariner Edward le Dain who was found much be-draggled, but alive,
by a farmer the following morning. If he had any luck at all it
was that he had washed up here during the time of the Reverend R.S.
Hawker, the eccentric, intellectual and humanitarian parson. If
le Dain had arrived a few decades before he might well have been
left to bleach his bones on the rocks.
Talking of Hawker let's begin the hike by taking the footpath
to the right of the church and passing down between the outbuildings
of the vicarage which he built. The house is now a private residence,
but while you're walking by, have a look at the chimneys which adorn
the place. They represent each of the church towers which had been
relevant to his life up to that point.
The wonderful now house is now a very classy and delightfully
romantic bed and breakfast establishment.
Not far beyond the vicarage the path turns left down through a
small wood to follow the stream at the valley bottom to the sea.
Winter walkers be warned - this can be very muddy but the National
Trust has recently put in a few walkways that certainly help.
After ten minutes or so of bog-hopping you'll come to the sea,
but don't get any ideas about exploring the beach. An attempt to
descend the cliffs around here would guarantee you a passage to
join Capt. Peter and his crew. The sharp rocks far below are so
efficient at cutting up human limbs that Parson Hawker used to dole
out brandy to the men chosen to search the shores for bits of body
- known locally as "gobbets".
Reverend R.S. Hawker
Armed with such thoughts, go easy as
you ascend the coastal path to reach the old parson's hut - which
is still there, thanks to the National Trust, and is reckoned to
be one of the smallest buildings they own. A path zig-zags down
to the hut which stands just the way it did the day it was built
out of ship's timbers and driftwood a century-and-a-half ago. Open
the stable door to sit in the tiny room and the place makes a fine
and cosy refuge from the wind.
In here, gazing out at the ocean, you can almost feel the mental
presence of Hawker next to you - puffing away at his opium, dreaming
up new ideas such as the Church of England's Harvest Festival and
writing lines like:
"And shall Trelawney die?
Here's twenty thousand Cornishman
Will know the reason why!"
But as the afternoon darkens, leave the dear old Parson to his
musings and walk down to Higher Sharpnose - the headland you'll
see lurking below - and frighten yourself by leaning out to watch
the waterfall tumble into the abyss.
Then it's up the Tidna Valley and back over to Morwenstow which
is an easy and pleasant end to the walk.
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