Cornwall gazetteer M

Madron

A village of granite cottages, NW of Penzance. The village church of St Maddern used to be the mother church of Penzance. The church has a broad wagon roof, some old carved bench ends, and the Trafalgar banner, commemorating the first news of the victory at Trafalgar in 1805. There is a wishing well in the village that is said to have great healing powers.

South of the village is the Nation Trust garden of Trengwainton, which is rich in semi-tropical plants

There are a number of prehistoric sites in the area. Lanyon Quoit, an exposed Neolithic chamber tomb is 2 miles north. Men-an-Hor or "holed stone" is another mile further north. And near to it is Maen Scryfa or "inscribed stone" said to mark the grave of a 6th century chieftain.

 

Marazion

The name comes from the Cornish for "little market". It faces St Michael's Mount, and the cobbled causeway snakes out from the village to the mount. It is a pretty, but busy ,village today because of the numbers of tourists going to St Michael's Mount.

 

Mawgan

Some pretty cottages, an inn, shop and church nestle in a wooded valley south of the Helford River, Nearby is Trelowarren, for 500 years the home of the Vyvyan family. A Tudor house, set in parkland, with neo gothic chapel, stables, a restaurant and craft shop.

 

On the Lizard Downs to the south are the enormous satellite dished of Goonhilly, BT's satellite earth station.. There is a visitor centre at the station.

 

Mawnan Smith

A very sheltered part of Cornwall, with exotic and semi-tropical plants flourishing. It is a quiet village, with a thatched inn and cottages. The village church is on the cliff edge overlooking the mouth of the Helford River.

 

To the south are the National trust gardens of Glendurgan, and to the north Penjerrick where fine gardens surround the house owned by the Fox family.

 

Along the riverbank to the west is the Ferry Boat Inn, with a passenger ferry across to Helford.. Also nearby is the hamlet of Porth Navas, which is a popular yachting centre.

 

Mevagissey

Named in the 15th century after the Welsh and Irish saints, Meva and Itha. A very pretty fishing village with rows of colour washed cob cottages grouped round the steep sides of a valley and a natural harbour. Although today tourists bring in more money to the local economy than pilchards, the port is still an active fishing harbour. In the past pilchards were salted in quayside pits and pressed into barrels by the fishwives. The press oil from the pilchards was used for both lighting and heating. The old port has retained its character in spite of the tourist influx.

 

Just to the south, boatbuilding is still carried on at Portmellon, and there is the charming village of Gorran Haven, with the looming headland of Dolman Point to its SE. The whole area was famous for boat building in the past, making vessels fast enough to outrun the excise boats, and also warships during the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Also close by are the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

 

Minions

An upland village on the SE of Bodmin Moor. It has a number of prehistoric sites and old mine workings in the area. Caradon Hill, now with a television mast, used to be mined for copper, tin and lead, which would be carried to Looe by train.

 

The Cheesewring quarry produced a blue-gray granite. The Cheesewring itself is a spectacular series of flat boulders over thirty feet round set on top of a number of smaller stones. Just below the Cheesewring is a cave used by Daniel Gumb, a gifted 18th century thinker and stone-cutter. There were more rooms in the caves that he and his large family lived. His penchant for mathematics can be seen from the fact that one of Euclid's problems is carved on the roof f the cave.

 

Also nearby are The Hurlers (a line of three stone circles) and the Round barrow (early Bronze Age, whose treasure is now on view in the British Museum)

 

Morwenstow

This village, near the high, wild great cliffs on the coast, is perhaps best known for its vicar/poet Robert Stephen Hawker. He served as vicar to a motley collection of smugglers, wreckers and dissenters from 1834 for the next forty years. He was concerned that the bodies of drowned men received a Christian burial, and would scramble down the cliffs, and carry back the bodies for a church grave. His driftwood hut, in which he sat , smoked opium and wrote poetry is now owned by the National Trust. His poem Song of the Western Men, became Cornwall's National Anthem. Hawker also did other strange things like dressing up as a mermaid and excommunicating his cat for mousing on Sundays.

Mousehole

Pronounced Mouzell. Another village with a long and colourful history, full of narrow lanes and granite cottages. In the middle ages it was a departure point for pilgrims to the Holy land and to Santiago di Compostella. It was raided and sacked by the Spanish in 1595. Four galleys with 200 Spanish soldiers, burned the village to the ground, with only the 15th century Keigwin Arms (no longer a pub) surviving.

 

The local culinary specialty is Stargazy Pie, where the heads of the fish stick out from the pie. It said to be eaten in memory of Dolly Pentreath, who died here in 1777, and is reputed to be the last person to speak nothing but Cornish.

 

Dylan Thomas spent his honeymoon here in 1938, and it is thought that Llareggub in Under Milk Wood is based on Mousehole.

 

The small village had a major catastrophe in 1981 when the local lifeboat, the Solomon Browne, was sunk while trying to rescue the crew of the Union Star. Both lifeboat crew and coaster crew were lost with all hands in the hurricane force winds.

 

Mullion

A former fishing port on the Lizard. Of note is the church with its magnificent 16th century bench ends (depicting surprisingly bawdy scenes) The church tower is partly built of serpentine.

The solid granite piers of Mullion harbour, 200 feet below the edge of the Lizard plateau, was built in the 1880's, and is now owned by the National trust. There is a winch house, net store and wooden fish cellar at the harbour. To the north at Poldhu Point, Marconi transmitted the first radio Morse code signals across the Atlantic to St johns in Newfoundland.

 

The Mylors

A village surrounded by trees at the head of the Mylor Creek, one of the many arms of the Carrick Road, the deep water anchorage round Falmouth. The parish church of St Melanus contains the graves of many of the skippers of the packet boats that sailed the world delivering mail to the colonies. The scenic churchyard contains many amusing inscriptions on the tombstones.

Restronguet Passage and Restronguet Weir can be reached from Mylor

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