Travel | Alternative Britain
Roseland: Semi-Tropical Heaven at the Bottom Left-Hand Corner of Britain
Plan a summer escape to Cornwall’s secluded paradise.
A parcel of Cornish land, little more than a dozen miles long and only a few miles wide lies remote between broad, languorous rivers and the sea. On the county’s south coast and often missed by holiday traffic heading west to Truro and beyond, the Roseland Peninsula is probably Cornwall’s best kept secret.
Its name comes from the Cornish for ‘promontory’ or ‘peninsula’ — rhos — which was corrupted and Anglicised into its modern form. Despite its picturesque name, however, there is something altogether separate and magical about Roseland that goes beyond the merely scenic.
Part of its character is that it is not just a single peninsula, but many, each of which is separated from the next by deep, wide rivers and creeks. Small, irregular fields fill the fingers and lobes of land where narrow lanes weave in and out of tiny hamlets.
A Segue in the Landscape
There’s some local debate where Cornwall finishes and Roseland begins; the only hard lines are formed by the rivers and the coast that make its western and southern borders, while at the eastern and northern extreme of Roseland, there is less of a hard boundary and more of a soft segue in the landscape. For our purposes, I’ve drawn a line from the village of Tregony — often known as ‘the gateway to Roseland’ — to the magnificent Dodman Point at the east end of Veryan Bay.
Almost completely surrounded by water with only a few narrow lanes connecting it to the rest of Cornwall, Roseland feels like an island. Most visitors approach the peninsula from the east down some very narrow lanes, but if you want to make an entrance, spend a bit of extra time and approach Roseland from the King Harry Ferry in the west.
River Views
This part of the River Fal, almost 6 miles from the sea, is so deep that decommissioned cargo ships and oil rigs are moored here for years on end and serviced by skeleton crews. From the chain ferry that links the steep, forested banks, you can enjoy views up and down the river, of trees which come all the way down to the water’s edge, the sedate river traffic and the carcasses of forgotten dinghies tied up under the trees and gradually melting back into the water.
There’s a sense that nothing much moves quickly and you feel the stresses of modern life ease away.
On the other side, the road twists and turns as you head uphill through the woods. From the brow of the hill, the road widens and the landscape opens and levels into agricultural pasture. Where gorse or may trees break free over the hedge, they lean away from the prevailing south-westerlies. Ferns grow in the dense hedging, buzzards soar above. Along the ridges of the horizon, Scots pines in singles or twins betray the maritime air.
Roseland can feel like it’s not so much a part of Cornwall, but a fairy-tale realm. A kingdom where woods of oak and rhododendron reign; where wide, flooded valleys carry the tide far inland, where carpets of wildflowers stretch across meadows to the sea.
A Curious Churchyard
When I was a child, my father told tales of micro-climates, subtropical plants, an almost tangible numinosity and a curious churchyard with all of the above, set on its own little quay. It could have easily been a disappointment, but when it finally came time to discover Roseland for myself, I fell quickly under its spell.
The church is at St Just-in-Roseland, a few miles down the road from the King Harry Ferry and it is somewhere that comes nearer to heaven on earth than anyone could reasonably expect.
Winding paths take you through the bamboos, ferns, marsh marigold, saxifrage, columbine, comfrey and hydrangea to the medieval church by the water. HV Morton put it best when he wrote In Search of England.
“I have blundered into a Garden of Eden that cannot be described in pen or paint. There is a degree of beauty that flies so high that no net of words or no snare of colour can hope to capture it.”
Sir John Betjeman was uncharacteristically more succinct when he described it as the “most beautiful churchyard on earth”.
If local legend is to be believed, Morton and Betjeman were not the churchyard’s only celebrated visitors. Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of Jesus, is said to have landed at St Just with Jesus as a child. These stories — part of a canon of tales woven into Christian landscapes from here to Glastonbury — are only a little older than the present 13th century church. The tales are not only likely apocryphal, but irrelevant; it doesn’t really matter who visited this beautiful place, its own genius loci lends it an air of depth, mystery and calm that is truly touching.
Despite its obvious qualities of seclusion and retreat, the Roseland peninsula has many other faces. Like much of the south coast of Cornwall, there is a strong nautical flavour about the place. St Mawes, the largest town in Roseland, has a particular appeal for the sailing enthusiast — the annual regatta is one of at least eight town and village regattas scheduled around the Roseland from June to August — more details and dates are available on the Port of Falmouth Sailing Association website at www.pofsa.co.uk
Like the town of Falmouth opposite, St Mawes is situated on the entrance of the Carrick Roads — historically and to this day an important shipping lane and the third deepest natural harbour in the world. Henry VIII was keen to defend the Carrick Roads against the French and Spanish, built two elaborate coastal forts — at St Mawes and Falmouth — to guard against invasion.
The castle at St Mawes was developed less over the intervening centuries and so still retains many of its original features. It’s a fascinating place to visit, in sunshine or showers, and the views across the water, along the coastline and out into Falmouth Bay are breath-taking. After all the thought given to repelling invasions from the sea, the castle was nevertheless over-run from the landward side in 1646, when Parliamentarian forces captured it during the Civil War.
Not much has disturbed the peace since, except that other landward invasion — of summer visitors the town experiences every year. Souvenir shops rub shoulders with art galleries, tea shops and pasty emporia in a way that will be familiar to any regular visitor to the rest of Cornwall. There are pubs with regular live entertainment here and a very beautiful and select hotel, the Tresanton. Even in the throng of the noisy 21st Century, St Mawes still has a touch of 1920s elegance and style.
Part of the nautical appeal of the Roseland in general and St Mawes in particular, is the number of passenger ferries across creeks and rivers. One of these takes you across the Percuil River to St Anthony. St Anthony in Roseland is situated on the southernmost finger of land on the peninsula. This slender strip of land is the most secluded part of the Roseland and it is so narrow that when you drive along the old military road that runs along its spine, you can see both shores of the peninsula.
The road ends in a National Trust Car Park for St Anthony Head, where a warren of steep paths and steps around an old naval battery can be explored. There’s a bird hide at the end of one of these paths, with great views and the chance of catching a glimpse of peregrine falcons.
Like many parts of Cornwall’s coast, the Trust has a hand in managing large parts of the Roseland and there’s a wide range of attractions and events on offer across the peninsula.
Just north of the pretty fishing village of Portscatho with its art galleries, local shops and nautically-themed bars, is Porthcurnick Beach, a fabulous, sandy beach which also has great rock-pooling potential and its own dedicated cafe — The Hidden Hut. Spend long enough there and you might see some exotic wildlife that makes it to Cornwall occasionally — not only are there seals, basking sharks, porpoises and dolphins, but also Portuguese man-of-war and barrel jellyfish. Sightings of oceanic sunfish and loggerhead turtles are becoming more frequent as well.
Further north still are the headlands of Nare Head and The Dodman. At Nare Head, south of Veryan and above Kilberick Cove, the Royal Observer Corp Association maintains a former nuclear bunker which opens for special tours a number of times a year. See www.nationaltrust.org.uk/roseland/things-to-see-and-do/events for details.
At an elevation of 374 feet /114m, the Dodman is the highest headland on the south Cornwall coast and offers panoramic views over the Roseland coastline. There are centuries of history and archaeology and a walking trail starts from the car park at Penare. If you would rather take it easy and watch the children or grandchildren play, there’s another path from Penare car park to Hemmick — a golden sandy beach you could easily spend the whole day on.
Walking, birding, swimming or seeking seclusion, the Roseland really has it all.
