Will Stone

Morwenstowe

The first time I encountered Morwenstowe on Cornwall’s north coast I was alone. It was early spring and the church wore a fresh skirt of primroses. As I crossed the stone stile next to the lych-gate, the churchyard inclining before me, I glimpsed beyond the sturdy grey church tower a triangle of greenish blue, a patch of sea tantalisingly held between the sides of the combe. The faint but undying roar of the Atlantic rolled in across the pastureland. Here was a scene of raw beauty preserved by isolation, a fortuitous harmony of landscape, architecture and perspective where something of the spiritual, the poetic undeniably lingered. Now in early autumn I return, greeted by rooks loitering by the gate like bored pall-bearers.

The name Morwenstowe breathes history; ‘stowe’ is old English for ‘meeting place’ and Morwenna — meaning fittingly ‘waves of the sea’ — was a Welsh saint who settled here in the 6th century. Her church is enclosed by sycamore and scrub oak, sculpted into smooth elongated shapes by the relentless winds driving inland. A sheep track leads invitingly west. Suddenly the greenish blue triangle is an ocean, flecked with white tufts of surf where the heads of black rocks pierce through. Towering cliffs to north and south bear intriguing names like Henna Cliff and Higher Sharpenose Point. Between them are the ‘mouths’, Marsland, Welcombe and Spekes Mill, with their primeval waterfalls. On the point, walkers are seen bent under the weight of their towering packs, like Sherpas or brick-bearing Roman slaves. This is the untamed ‘wreckers’ coast’, whose lines of shark’s teeth rocks would slit the hulls of unwary merchant ships. Sailors were forewarned. ‘From Pentire Point to Hartland Light, a watery grave by day or night.’

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