West Cornwall

Scott's Quay Circular

One of the delightful things about roaming the Westcountry is that each and every place seems to have at least one claim to fame which locals are only too happy to air at the slightest excuse. All well and good - except when the same assertion is made time and time again.

For instance, I keep meeting up with the Thames Embankment in the most unlikely of places. Walk anywhere in Devon or Cornwall where the bones of the earth are made of granite, and what you'll get is: "Did you know the rock from here was quarried and taken to London to build the Embankment." London Bridge is another candidate.

Such was the case the other day when I was down in West Cornwall working on our Up The Creek series and strolling about a particularly lonely and lovely old quay set on the side of one of the region's most secret and alluring waterways.

Basic walk: north from Constantine on footpath which then turns south to top of Polwheveral Creek and from there along old quarryman’s route to Scott’s Quay, returning via footpath direct across the fields to village

Recommended map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 103 The Lizard Distance: Four miles easy going.

Note that all maps on this site are only indicative. You should never set out without the correct OS map.

At Scott's Quay situated on the spur between Polpenwith and Polwheveral Creeks high up the Helford River I asked some men who were messing about in boats if they knew anything of the history of the place:

"Oh yes," they said. "It's from here that they exported the best granite in the world from the quarries around Constantine. They used it to build the...."

"Don't tell me - the Thames Embankment."

They looked at me as if I was some particularly annoying, know-it-all, type of emmet.

Which I suppose I was, but I didn’t mind because I’d just enjoyed a splendid lunch at the nearby Trengilly Wartha Inn. This walk actually starts a mile or so away in the village of Constantine.

We started at the village's small car park and immediately took a detour into the church. Somehow, the wonderful old temple added a melancholy feel to proceedings. First there was the grave of a girl who’s Christian name was Mercy and I felt a curious sadness that anyone with so beautiful a name should be dead.

And then there was the plaque on the wall commemorating the lives of a Captain Someone-or-other who passed away in his forties, his daughter who died at 18 and a little boy who died at just a few months of age. The wife had eventually left this mortal coil in her seventies and I was crushed thinking about the loneliness the poor woman may well have suffered living all those long, empty years by her self.

Out in the village, in the bright autumn sunlight, it took sometime to lose the rather lugubrious spirit. But we were soon in high spirits marching north past a place called Comfort (according to the map) to descend into the wooded valley that bypasses the village to the east and leads down to Polwheveral Creek.

Even on a warm day this wood remained cool and silent and in its depths we found what must once have been the site of an old waterwheel. Who built it and why I have no idea, but the two vast walls enclosing a narrow slit - where presumably the wheel must have turned - were dark, damp and dripping causing the place to appear unutterably forlorn.

We left this unloved edifice to its dankness and went downstream across a road and down the valley again to where a small lane touches the top end of Polwheveral Creek. The place immediately cheered me up because, as WMN readers will know, I've gone a little creek-crazy of late.

And I was in for more creeky-treats on this walk as we turned right and went up the steep hill to take a left and stroll down the old quarryman's track to Scott's Quay.

This route follows the ridge of a small cape that points south towards the main Helford River and divides the aforementioned Polwheveral and Polpenwith Creeks – and being on a ridge it affords excellent views of this little visited corner of Cornwall.

And then we were down by the water again and standing on a wall that once protruded another 15 feet out into the creek when it groaned under the heavy loads of granite. I say down by the water but there wasn't a drop in sight as the moon had dragged it elsewhere for an hour or two on a spring tide.

But there, in this heavenly spot, were some men mucking about in boats and there was some talk of London's Embankment and the Mr Scott who built the quay back in the early 1800's when he owned the mines and quarries behind Constantine.

It used to be very busy indeed around here – in 1935 there were no fewer than eight large granite quarries hard at work in the parish of Constantine.

Walking back towards that village, first on the quarryman’s track, and then directly across the road on a footpath that leads directly across the peaceful fields, it was somehow difficult to imagine the rocks from hereabouts now shaking under the traffic of the metropolis.

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