Woke to beautiful sunny day with birds chirping. Shorts and t-shirt day today. Drove down to Lands End through the Cornish coast road. It was a great wee drive, through narrow lanes, past great looking villages and farmyards. St Just was pretty, and we ate berakfast with goodies from their hot bread shop. Mike said his chocolate eclair was the best he's ever tasted. I shared a vegetable cornish pastie with Karen. Yummy.
At a town called Sennen Cove we headed down to the harbour. From there we walked up to the headland and had a great view of Lands End. Here was a magnificent looking lighthouse on a rocky island quite a wee distance off the point. It would look quite dramatic in stormy conditions.
We then wandered into Redruth in search of Mike's ancestral roots, the house his great-grandmother was raised in - Trepenty, Cornish for farmhouse.
In Redruth, the tourist information centre (well, one of their customers anyway) said to look it up in the Cornish Studies building. So Mike hurtled off. The rest of us wandered up the steep pedestrian road of Redruth's main shopping street and bought some fruit.
Mike turned up again, armed with maps and directions. So, at about 1pm we hooned off to Lanjeth [Trepenty, Lanjeth, PL26 7TN] near St Austell. As you come into Lanjeth, you take the first right turn, down a steepish steet. Follow the road around, until you see a lane off to the left. This has the bridge near the top, and Trepenty is immediately on the left.
We rang the doorbell, and a woman called Yanah Glenn-Hill welcomed us in. She had been in the house for 13 years, and showed us a photo of what it was like then. There were no trees around it at all back then. She took us all around the beautiful gardens, then we had a tour around the house. She said it was orignally two cottages. The last tenants were Mr Hart (born thereabouts) in the left cottage, and Ms Cox in the right. The rent was £7.50 a year for the left cottage, and £5 for the other. The current owners renovated, and the builders found a hidden, walled-up room in the main bedroom. Apparently they found some coloured glass in there, and a gold ring. There would have been stairs giving access to this hidden room, but they no longer existed.
The walls between the original cottage and the rooms behind were 3 feet thick. There was a hole in the lounge that we were told was originally the doorway into the cowshed - the original function of the building. Then Yanah's husband, Capt Mark Glenn-Hill, joined us. We had a cup of tea and some cake with them. Their daughter was a genealogist in London, and we exchanged addresses.
Mum's foot was heaps better, but starting to aggravate her again. We hopped (haha) into the car and drove up to Wales. We looked at an old map, and missed the road to Tintern Abbey, as a new, impressive bridge had gone up over the Severn. We entered Wales, paying £3.50 toll for the bridge.
We drove through Monmouth to Abergarveny to stay the night. We played three awful games of pool and then toddled off to bed.
The people here seem extremely friendly. The food is lovely and the weather great. We are under the impression that we may not be in the UK at all. I'd love to go back and visit Wales again. The castles and Tintern Abbey look great.
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