St Ives, Lands End, and The Cadbury Dragon

Tuesday, March 4, 2025

I think I’ve finally caught up on some sleep. Maybe it’s the creaky floors and the fluffy doonas, or maybe it’s just that my body has caught up with the time zone. Who knows, who cares.

It’s a big driving day today as the plan is to visit St Ives and Lands End – a key point on our Bottom To The Top Via Everywhere In Wales Mum Named A Corgi After Tour – returning via Padstow and Tintagel.

St Ives and Lands End

To be honest, even though the weather was fantastic and St Ives is ridiculously pretty I didn’t fall in love with it as much as I thought I would. I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Don’t get me wrong – the place is drop-dead gorgeous and picture-postcard perfect on a day like today and if you’re in the area you have to go.

There are plenty of little galleries selling arty things I’d love to take home (I could have bought the entire contents of Jo Downs’ Gallery – check out her Instagram @jodownsglass and you’ll understand why), and a tangle of alleys that scream of a smugglers past with all the stories associated with that. Even the steep streets are part of the charm.

Perhaps it’s because we’d spent so much of the day in the car, perhaps it was because so much was still closed for the season, or perhaps it’s because there were still enough people around that parking was difficult and the streets felt claustrophobic. Perhaps it was because I was walking around answering whatsapp messages from the friend staying in our house about cyclone preparations and wasn’t entirely “present” (a concept I detest almost as much as “journey”).

I think we’d have enjoyed it more if we’d been staying somewhere down there and could have ducked into some more of the towns I’ve seen on the telly and in magazines. Cornwall deserves more than a flying visit and next time we’ll make sure we set up camp down there for a week or so.

In any case, despite so much being closed we were both glad we weren’t there during the high season. I suspect it would be too crowded for my liking.

We hoped to get lunch in Newlyn or Penzance on our way to Lands End so shared a Cornish pasty to keep us going until then. (Spoiler alert, we didn’t. Parking was a nightmare in both Penzance and Newlyn and the place I had in mind to eat at in Newlyn was closed for the season, but by the time we worked that out it was too late.)

Lands End was an anti-climax and ridiculously commercial – although, again, some of it was closed for the season. Even the famous sign was commercialised – you had to pay to have your photo taken at the sign and could pay to have the sign personalised. We waited until it was clear and took a pic of the sign using the long lens.

What about Padstow and Tintagel?

Because we’d left home later than we’d planned and the drive had taken longer than we expected, Grant just wanted to get home. Besides, as he pointed out, we’d visited both Padstow and Tintagel last time – which is, as I pointed out, why I wanted to go back. (If you’re interested, the post is here.) As it was, we spent over six hours in the car for not a whole lot of sightseeing, so while I was disappointed, I completely understood and had also had enough.

We did, however, stop at a farm shop on the way home for Cornish cheese and Cornish butter. We also shared a clotted cream ice cream in lieu of the lunch we didn’t quite have.

Even though Grant had been sleeping well, I suspect all the driving had taken it out of him so once home he had a sleep while I took a walk around the estate as the sun was setting. It was the highlight of my day and I was disappointed when it began to get dark and I had to go home.

Dinner at home tonight – bread, cheese, pate, pork pie.

Fursdon House

Although Fursdon House is a 17th-century country house, enlarged and refurbished in the Regency period, there have been Fursdons living here since Walter de Fursdon settled here in 1259. That means the Fursdon family has lived here in an unbroken line dating back over 760 years, which makes Fursdon one of the oldest continuously inhabited family houses in Britain.

As the website says, the house at Fursdon has evolved over more than 750 years from humble beginnings as a cross passage dwelling made from cob with a thatched roof. There have been many changes and adaptations – a major rebuild in the 18th century – with the last major addition being the library wing in 1815.

There be dragons …

The Cadbury Dragon lives nearby at Cadbury Castle, an iron Age hill fort on the estate. Cadbury Castle is also reputed to be the location of King Arthur’s Camelot, and the legendary king is said to lie asleep in a cave within the hill. With Tintagel not that far down the road, it’s a myth I have no problem in getting behind.

Anyways, the dragon is said to fly along the Exe valley between Cadbury Castle, where it guards a treasure (a sleeping Arthur, perhaps?), and Dolbury Hill near Killerton. It also guards the estate and protects members of the Fursdon family in need. They say that the dragon’s protection is why the estate has been retained by the family for so many years.

In 1643 during the Civil War Exeter was besieged by Parliamentarians. There was a lot of fighting in the area and in one skirmish at Lyme, George Fursdon was killed. His body was brought back to Fursdon and parliamentary forces under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax followed, camping on Cadbury Hill, but left soon after. Some say it was the weather taking a turn for the worst that sent them back down the hill, but I much prefer the version where the dragon scared them off.

If you want to stay at Fursdon Cottage too, you’ll find all the info here.

A Recipe…

We can’t have ducked into Cornwall and not talk about pasties. You might recall that Grant brought me home a book full of Cornish recipes by the Women’s Institute. You can find the post here.

While I sent the book to a lovely Cornish lady some time ago (it felt right that it found its way back home), I had kept pics of some of the pages referring to pasties and made note of the following passage:

It is said that the Devil has never crossed the Tamar into Cornwall, on account of the well-known habit of Cornishwomen of putting everything into a pasty, and that he was not sufficiently courageous to risk such a fate…

When the pasties are being made, each member of the family has his or hers marked at the corner with the initial of the prospective owner. In this way each person’s tastes can be catered for.

The true Cornish way to eat a pasty is to hold it in the hand, and begin to bite it from the opposite end to the initial, so that, should any of it be uneaten, it may be consumed later by its rightful owner. And woe betide anyone who has taken another person’s “corner”!

This one by Paul Hollywood would be, I suggest, more to modern tastes.

The stats…

Temperature: -1 – 11

Miles travelled: Approx 260 miles*

*Even though we work in kms in Australia, all signage in the UK is in miles, so that’s what I’m going with.

These posts are taken directly from my travel journal … you can find the series here.