Call of the Tide: Winter in Cornwall
In winter, the beating Cornish wind whips around the crooks and crevices of the county’s boundaries, infiltrating all the spaces where there are no people. From the tops of the desolate moors in Bodmin to the far reaches of Sennen beach in the very west, its whistling replaces the echoes of laughter from the millions of excitable holidaymakers that travel here each summer. Many months ago, every square inch of these spaces were being taken in, admired and photographed by people from around the world. Now, in the depths of January, the annual cycle returns these areas to the land and sea.
I’m walking down old paths that have seen generations of different footsteps in the far west of Cornwall. Out to sea, beyond the indistinct, foggy, grey horizon, a rain shower silently tracks towards the coast, spurred on by the surging wind behind it. It moves over me and I redo the zips on my waterproof and secure my wooly hat. Below me I can see an ancient landscape of brick-lined fields - small square patches of farmland unchanged since the Iron Age, and still home to small-scale family farms making a local living.
Between these fields and the looming granite cliffs, the narrow, winding Southwest Coast Path meanders around the edge of the county. Aside from the odd outcrop, there is little shelter here, and the winter winds feels elemental and all-encompassing. I’m walking from Zennor south towards the town of St. Just, a town and civil parish which can quite easily call itself the furthest westerly settlement in England. There are very few people to be seen, but every so often, a local tractor or car from a nearby village will pass me on the coast road slightly further inland, their lights severing a beam through the mizzle (a Cornish phrase for a mixture of drizzly rain and mist, often of a winter’s evening). Signs of life are found in equal measure out to sea, with a small smattering of lights belonging to fishing boats cutting through the gloom and rolling with the rising swell.
A few miles down the path I reach the old mine stack at Geevor Tin Mine, and recollect stories of miners here miles out into the ocean, hundreds of miles down, with the water crashing across the seabed above them. I begin to see other signs of life, but in winter in this part of Cornwall, they’re indistinct and hazy. Small farmhouses in the distance with lights on, the faint misty glow of a collection of street lights or lamps burning bright outside the warm familiar glow of a village pub. Here is where the life is in winter in this part of the world - small enclaves of community gathering to keep warm both literally and in spirit.
Further down the coast path towards St. Just and it begins to get dark. Portheras Cove, a small beach below, stands in the shadow of the Pendeen Lighthouse, which keeps watch over this part of the Atlantic with its light shining majestically into the winter gloom. I stand looking at the beach and a few seals appear to say hello. The waves crash enthusiastically and with nobody to hear them but me, the isolation feels intoxicating and renewing. I walk on to St. Just and am greeted by a small, artistic and brave outlying community hunkering down for the long evening by drawing their curtains, shutting up shop or meeting each other for a late afternoon pint. In what is often a heaving area during the summer, I had seen two dog walkers on my whole journey. It felt great.
The joy I feel in Cornwall in the winter is not only because it feels mine again, but because it feels closer to the communities that make it what it is. The county is not just a collection of beautiful landscapes, it’s also like anywhere else a working, community driven, proud and highly functioning place. Perhaps, because of its isolation and its limitation, it has to function better than other parts of the country in order for people to survive and make a living. Within this, a hard-worn love and affection for your neighbour keeps everyone motivated. Community in its truest sense, in this instance, are the farmers markets that keep going with a small handful of local growers, the two people who sit at the bar until closing time not because they want to drink but because they want company. It’s the lone tractor ploughing the fields with nobody watching and the fishing boats heading out to sea to to put food on the plate for the restaurants who strive to keep going and make a profit all year round. It’s the numerous builders who work day and night to get not only holiday homes ready for the summer but build homes for the dwindling communities. Little by little, these people work to get Cornwall ready for everyone else to see, relishing the opportunity to give it a go and make a living through the elemental, often brutal colder months.
Cornwall carries on when nobody is watching. Those of us who know the southwest of England well have become accustomed to news stories about overcrowding. Last year, with social media spreading the word faster than ever about the beautiful beaches and coastline, police even had to turn people away from some spots to stop the congestion turning into an issue of safety.
We’ve reached the peak of what’s possible geographically. Cornwall is long and thin. There is by necessity of space only a few roads that span its length, and these inevitably get dangerously congested. In my mind, travelling, exploring and living mindfully in these times is to explore the boundaries of not only our physical space but also our sense of empathy. We learn the most about a place when at the limits, and this goes for seasonality too. Speak to the lone farmers, the disenfranchised fisherman and the local drinkers in the pub, who hide away during the summer months, and you instantly get a sense of the county without Instagram clouding its reality. As we continue to move towards ever uncertain times, this is the only kind of travelling rural communities will keep being able to sustain.
