Our journey today took us to Totnes, particularly to visit Berry Pomeroy Castle. Graham's forebears built the castle and lived a lavish lifestyle here until they fell upon hard times (probably because they were too busy trying to keep up with the Jones) and had to sell. The Seymour family bought the castle and promptly began to rebuild a bigger and better one, still leaving some of the original walls in place. Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife and mother of his only son and heir to the throne, belonged to this family. The Pomeroys and The Seymours are the only two families to have owned this castle. The Seymours also had to abandon the castle before the grand extensions were completed.
Graham was ready to march around the derelict walls of his castle, claiming it as his own but the man at the ticket office was very quick to inform him that the Pomeroys no longer owned it! Undeterred, we received our commentary phones and walked around the castle and heard a great story of the rise and fall of the Pomeroys and Seymours.
We managed to tear Graham away from his castle and headed for Totnes, our stopover for the night. We had a few hairy moments, getting the car parked outside the guesthouse but Graham kept his cool and all was well.
We enjoyed a leisurely stroll around town and checked out the pretty houses and buildings, asking the locals for their recommendations about where to eat dinner. The King William IV pub won the night, a gorgeous looking building with a curved facade, but the food was fair to middling. On our walk back we came upon a memorial to William John Wills of Burke and Wills fame. Allan was feeling a Graham moment, ready to claim a connection.
We headed off on Tuesday morning, after a beautiful breakfast, for Polperro and Megavissey. The weather had turned again and we were in for a wet day. On arrival at Polperro we realised that we couldn't take the car into the village so parked in the expensive car park outside the village and caught the expensive 'bus' into town.
Parking can be very difficult in Polperro.
We decided to cut our losses and headed back onto the narrow windy roads of Cornwall until we came to Megavissey, another fishing village tucked into the South Cornwall coast.
More narrow windy laneways, pretty and colourful houses and pretty gardens
This is the Fountain Inn, built in the 15th century. It is the oldest pub in Megavissey.
The tide was out but work was still happening. In the boat FY270 a man was sitting in it working on his nets. He has a white hat on.
We all enjoyed Megavissey, it's a bit bigger than Polperro and prettier and seemed to have a better quality of shops. But I have to say, any of these little villages along the south coast would be pretty bleak come wintertime. We saw some photos of snow and a wild storm with the waves crashing against the walls of the dock.
As we drove to our little cottage at Mawnam Smith, we enjoyed the generousity of our previous guesthouse owners who agreed to let Graham leave one of their cases with them until Friday. Now Ammie and myself can see the hedges out of the windows. We had a scary moment at a corner where Graham was wanting to turn left and a bus was wanting to turn right. We were nearly squashed as the bus came out onto our road. A great experience with narrow Cornish roads and buses. A great day, finished off with dinner at the Red Lion, a beautiful pub with a thatched roof in Mawnam Smith.
Inside the Red Lion there were many sayings printed on the walls, below the low ceiling. We had a good laugh.
Have loved travelling around Cornwall and Devon with you Joan and Alan, has revived many memories. We particularly enjoyed St Austell and Megavissey, the quaint harbours with their walls and narrow boats. We had a meal at the Fountain Inn with the locals and their dogs!! Lovely to see it in your photos.
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