Tuesday 5 May 2026

Rest day number 2 Port Isaac

A very relaxed day. The only highlight was a Cornish cream tea at “The Chapel”, the former Rosscarrock Hill Methodist Church. A tearoom/cafe, gallery and shop all in one large space that still contains the church organ and pews on the upper floor. I’m not sure what music the Methodists would have had, but the background cafe music didn’t quite set the right atmosphere. We had tea with our cream tea, not coffee, and two scones with lashings of jam and clotted cream. It is very filling. That was my birthday treat.

For TV drama watchers Port Isaac is the setting for Doc Martin, starring Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz. It ran for 10 series, 79 episodes, over 18 years from 2004 – 2022. Port Isaac is called Portwenn in the series with exterior scenes filmed on location here and interior scenes in a converted local barn. After initial enthusiasm a lot of locals got fed up with their village being a film location. Hoteliers, restaurateurs and shop keepers made a nice profit and trendy boutiques and smart art galleries muscled in, but the locals living here became a bit disgruntled with constant blocked roads and traffic stoppages, film crew basically taking over the town and doing whatever they wanted. Now it is busy with “TV location tourists” being led around by guides pointing out the locations of various scenes.

Port Isaac  was not named after anyone named Isaac, it comes from the Cornish Porthysek meaning “port abundant in corn” indicating a trade in locally grown corn. The pier was built during Henry VIII’s reign and there has been fishing here since the 14th century. Apart from corn the port also handled, coal, wood, stone, ores, limestone, salt, and pottery. It is still a working fishing port but it is now mainly a tourist destination. It has lovely white painted, slate roofed cottages and narrow winding streets. The old part of the village is quite small and compact with newer development on the surrounding hills.

We are at The Old School Hotel which was a primary school built in 1875 and operated until 1977 with a roll of up to 238 local children. As I said yesterday our room is called Mathematics and there are also rooms called Latin, History, Geography etc. The door to the kitchen is appropriately named Domestic Science. Our room is double height and there are two large skylights, one right up at the ridge. The skylights are electrically controlled so you open and close them for ventilation, and open and close their blinds, at the push of a button. All very cool. Part of the roof is now being re-slated and it has been interesting (at least to me) to see the process of stripping off the old slate tiles and installing new. The tiles are very thin, only about 4mm. thick.

Back on the Coast Path tomorrow. One rest day is enough, we are restless (?) to be on the move again.