Falmouth

Today was a rest day so we rested, and we needed it. I think we are getting quite weary. Even after a short day yesterday there wasn’t much in the tank this morning. I guess after 23 days and about 380 km of often strenuous walking we are getting a bit worn out.

We walked through the old town of Falmouth to check out the ferry for tomorrow. We get two ferries in the morning, a twenty minute trip from Falmouth across the harbour to St Mawes and then a short ride from St Mawes across Percuil creek to Place. It was a very casual walk that involved quite a bit of sitting on benches just looking at the boats.

From there we climbed the hill to Pendennis Point to have a look at Pendennis Castle. This was quite a surprise. It was constructed in 1540 and is one of Henry VIII’s finest coastal fortresses. The Tudor Gun Tower is a circular keep with four levels of gun platforms (one on the roof, two inside, one on the ground) enabling artillery fire in any direction. There is a sister gun tower on the other side of the harbour. The defences were regularly upgraded and expanded during Elizabethan times, the Civil War, the Anglo-French Wars, The Napoleonic Wars, WW1 and WW2.

It was continuously used to defend Cornwall for 400 years up until the end of WW2. Consequently it has good examples of moats, ramparts, tunnels, underground bunkers and magazines, barracks, guard houses and a large collection of artillery from very old to WW2. It is all amazingly well preserved and in good condition. At 2 pm each day they fire a canon and at festival times have jousting tournaments etc.

For me the two best parts were the Tudor Gun Tower and Half Moon Battery. In the Gun Tower you can crawl over every inch, up and down narrow stone spiral stairs from the kitchen in the cellar up to the gun platform on the roof. The roof has great views out to the English Channel and all around Falmouth Harbour. There are also audio/visual presentations on the firing of guns in Tudor times.

The Half Moon Battery (because the guns are set out in a half crescent) was built for WW2 and is approached through a tunnel under the Elizabethan ramparts. Here we were lucky to catch a guided tour. Underground there are the magazines where cordite cartridges and the shells were stored. Of course while down there the lights went out (regular generator problems during WW2 apparently) and they simulated the firing of the guns overhead, which was deafening. Outside it had been warm and muggy but down there under 3 metres of concrete it was refreshingly cool.

There is also the Royal Artillery Barracks, built in 1901, that has displays concentrating mainly on WW1. We didn’t spend a lot of time there as we have seen a lot of WW1 100 years commemorative stuff over the last four years. The Barracks had a very good tea rooms where we reloaded with some high calibre coffee and cake.

In the ticket office/ souvenir shop there was an exhibition of the war time (1939 – 1945) newspaper cartoons of George Butterworth. His political cartoons during this time were so successful both nationally and internationally that he was put on the ‘death list’ of both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. It did seem appropriate to have this permanent exhibition in a place that has had such a significant military function for so long. In WW2 Pendennis Castle itself was never attacked or bombed but Falmouth town and its harbour installations were bombed many times.

We were at the castle about three hours and then just came back to the hotel and had a very lazy afternoon.