Note that all maps on this site are only indicative. You should
never set out without the correct OS map.
We reached Porthtowan on the Cornish coast on the darkest, most dismal day of the year. A symphony in grey, with only the bright colours of one or two anoraks and the day-glow flash of a surfboard or two alleviate the monotone.
Basic hike: from Porthtowan north along coast path to Chapel Porth, then inland to Town Cross and back via Towan Farm.
Recommended map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 104.
Distance and going: three miles, easy going.
Never mind the greyness. What you can do is dwell upon the following marvellous passage in JRA Hockin's brilliant and indispensable 'Walking In Cornwall'.
Writing in the 1930's, Mr Hockin thought it only right to remind readers who were planning high days and holidays, that this was a county of grim realities as well as great beauty. He advises walkers enjoying the splendours of nature not to ignore the lot of the miners who still toiled hereabouts in those days. Speaking of the local communities (now largely given over to holiday-cottages) he says:
"I would have you realise that back there in those close-packed streets with their dingy chapels and squalid pubs, and up in those barren, mine-riddled hills with their chimney crests and clusters of wizened cottages, there is a vivid and indispensable human Cornwall, introspective, apart, with an age-long continuity of hard labour behind it, the Cornwall of Wesley and Billy Bray and Personal Salvation.
"You cannot sentimentalise it," Mr Hockin goes on. "Nor can you know it, for with the decline of the fishing industry - mining and china clay quarrying are the principal activities which 'keep Cornwall Cornish'."
The 75-odd intervening years have see the complete disappearance of the Cornish miner. The evidence of his labours might scar this corner of the coast more than any other, but the men and their families have gone. A handful of fishermen and china clay workers remain in the count - but where, I wonder, would Mr Hockin find Cornish Cornwall today?
Maybe it's out there among the surfers you can see riding waves at Porthtowan. They, perhaps, are the new Cornwall. At least, they are out enjoying the best bit of this glorious county, rain or shine, 365 days a year.
To be in love with a place to the extent that you go there in all weathers, must surely lay some sort of claim? To the surfers, the wild, inhospitable north coast is a heaven upon Earth. It's also that to local winter walkers who are drawn to explore the wind-blasted littoral when most folk are at home by the fire.
Upon such a day - in a place like the highlands that lie between Porthtowan and St Agnes - you are able to absorb more of the indescribable essence and spirit otherwise known as Cornishness. Somehow the luxury of a bright spring or summer day doesn't quite afford it. You have to know that the fundamental nature of this county is all about being on the edge - and, believe me, you really do know that when the Atlantic chucks the worst it has to offer at you as you walk the clifftops north of Porthtowan.
We park at Porthtowan, we admire the great blonde sweep of beach, and we set forth towards the mighty eminence of St Agnes Beacon.
At once we find ourselves in a clifftop world of savage beauty. Much of this walk is on National Trust owned land and it's only right and proper that the organisation should hold sway in this lost kingdom of the miners. It would have been easy for developers to have 'prettified' these industrial wastelands and ruined them forever, but such places have a severe form of beauty all of their own which is well worth saving. Not to mention, of course, a hugely important historic significance.
The Trust has published a special pamphlet on the area and in it you can read all about the mines - the Great Wheal Charlotte, the Charlotte United, and the famous Wheal Coates which is featured in nearly every Cornish calendar ever printed.
By the way, you could walk the first section northwards to Chapel Porth by enjoying the level sands of the great beach - but only if the tide is out. Or perhaps I should say - going out. From the aerial vantage point of the clifftops, you can see how incredibly easy it would be to get cut off along this section. So play safe and enjoy the superior views offered by the coast path.
This, in time, will bring you to a knobbly headland called Mulgram Hill, and from its upper ramparts you are treated to a spectacular view of the deep, steep groove that runs north west out of the hills to arrive at the sea at Chapel Porth.
Mentioning the beaches in this part of the world, Hockin decides: "Of these Chapel Porth is the deepest and most beautiful, and though it has lost its mediaeval chapel it has not gained anything more than a single shed where you can lap an ice cream in season and hire a surfboard for the well upholstered little beach."
Happily, not much has changed in the seven decades since he wrote those words.
At Mulgram Hill walkers have a choice. You can either descend to the well upholstered beach, and then make the great climb up to St Agnes Beacon - or you can head inland across the heath towards Great Wheal Charlotte copper mine. We took the latter option as the Beacon was cloaked in low cloud.
Along the way we encountered a large yellowish area almost entirely devoid of vegetation. The lack of growth is due to deposits of arsenic dug out of the mine - apparently, if you go in summer, you stand a good chance of seeing lizards sunning themselves on the bare mounds.
We hurried along the track all the way to Towan Cross where we turned sharp right, walked along the road a little way, and then turned right again along the track which took me down past Towan Farm. This then zig-zags down past the peculiarly Cornish looking bungalow estate - and if you bear right under the lowly homes, a path will connect you with the right-of-way that descends again to the rear of the large car park.
And that is where I sit writing these words, watching the modern Cornish folk performing their icy stunts on the wind-whipped waves. Cold it may be, but surfing is altogether a more jolly pursuit than digging copper 500 feet underground.
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