From the wildly beautiful Yorkshire coast to the sun-drenched southern counties, England has a beautiful beach for every taste. A rocky, tidal island topped with an ancient castle and steeped with Cornish folklore, St Michael’s Mount is one of the most famous places to visit in Cornwall. The climate of Cornwall is closely affected by the proximity of the sea. High winds and sea mists are common; rainfall is frequent and heavy, especially on high ground. As a result, the vegetation is luxuriant, especially in sheltered coastal areas. Hugging the south-west, Devon is a playground for adventurers, explorers and foodie lovers.
Of these, the highest ranked — by two flights — is Truro City F.C., who will be playing in the National League South in the 2023–24 season. Other notable Cornish teams include Mousehole A.F.C., Helston Athletic F.C., and Falmouth Town F.C. Colin Wilson, a prolific writer who is best known for his debut work The Outsider and for The Mind Parasites , lived in Gorran Haven, a small village on the southern Cornish coast. M. Thomas was born in Redruth but lived and worked in Australia and the United States before returning to his native Cornwall.
A partnership involving Cornwall Airport Newquay, Goonhilly Earth Station and … Newquay has a very long runway, a growing airport with national and international connections and easy access to uncongested airspace over the Atlantic. Its Aerohub Enterprise Zone offers hundreds of acres for developing the business and manufacturing that will support the spaceport.
The flag of CornwallSaint Piran’s Flag is the national flag and ancient banner of Cornwall Media, and an emblem of the Cornish people. The banner of Saint Piran is a white cross on a black background (in terms of heraldry ‘sable, a cross argent’). According to legend Saint Piran adopted these colours from seeing the white tin in the black coals and ashes during his discovery of tin.
Regardless of what you want to do when you visit Cornwall, you’ll discover a county packed with charm and intrigue. Cornwall had a minor Roman presence, and later the Cornovii tribe formed a subregion of the Brittonic kingdom of Dumnonia. The remainder of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period were relatively settled, with Cornwall developing its tin mining industry and becoming a duchy in 1337. During the Industrial Revolution, the tin and copper mines were expanded and then declined, with china clay extraction becoming a major industry. Railways were built, leading to a growth of tourism in the 20th century. During this period, the Cornish language went into steep decline, but is now being revived.
In the Paddington Bear novels by Michael Bond the title character is said to have landed at an unspecified port in Cornwall having travelled in a lifeboat aboard a cargo ship from darkest Peru. From here he travels to London on a train and eventually arrives at Paddington Station. St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall is the setting of the Little Beach Street Bakery series by Jenny Colgan, who spent holidays in Cornwall as a child. The book series includes Little Beach Street Bakery , Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery , Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery , and Sunrise by the Sea . David Cornwell, who wrote espionage novels under the name John le Carré, lived and worked in Cornwall. Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Golding was born in St Columb Minor in 1911, and returned to live near Truro from 1985 until his death in 1993.
An extensive public transport network links the many different attractions and places to visit in Cornwall, providing a reliable means of getting around. Visit Cornwall has a useful interactive map to help plan your trip to Cornwall. Park and Ride schemes run in peak season at Lelant Saltings for the town of St Ives and at Liskeard for Looe, while two parking sites at Langarth Park and Tregurra Park serve Truro. Discover Cornwall’s subterranean world of tin mines, excavated tunnels and rocky passageways with Cornwall Underground Adventures. From entry level underground expeditions to a full day exploration, this experience will show you a different perspective of Britain’s coastal county.
The coastline is composed mainly of resistant rocks that give rise in many places to tall cliffs. Cornwall has a border with only one other county, Devon, which is formed almost entirely by the River Tamar, and the remainder by the Marsland Valley. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations and is the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the east by Devon, and to the south by the English Channel.
Around the 880s, Anglo-Saxons from Wessex had established modest land holdings in the north eastern part of Cornwall; notably Alfred the Great who had acquired a few estates. William of Malmesbury, writing around 1120, says that King Athelstan of England (924–939) fixed the boundary between English and Cornish people at the east bank of the River Tamar. While elements of William’s story, like the burning of Exeter, have been cast in doubt by recent writers Athelstan did re-establish a separate Cornish Bishop and relations between Wessex and the Cornish elite improved from the time of his rule. Port Isaac in north Cornwall is easily up there with Mousehole and Polperro among the county’s favourite fishing villages, complete with a mandatory labyrinth of narrow streets clustered around a little harbour.
Several companies offer bike hire in Cornwall to explore its coastal tracks and golden beaches at your own pace. Direct trains from Bath and Bristol provide regular links to Cornwall. At the same time, the Night Riviera Sleeper Service operates nightly from London Paddington to Penzance taking around eight hours. In addition to the main train line between Plymouth and Penzance, five branch lines serve different parts of the country. National Express services also link Cornwall with the rest of Britain. Discover the ends of Britain at Cornwall’s West Coast, filled with tranquil beaches, beautiful bays and an abundance of places to stay – you’ll find the West Coast has everything you need.