Balance is an interesting word. The older you get, the more you realise just how important the idea of balance can be.  In China, where I’ve been recently, they talk about yin-yang, so on the plane home I was inspired to practice a bit of balance and harmony. 

For example, I’d been in the Far East, so why not counter-balance that by going to the Far West? In UK terms, that means Cornwall. So, I thought, west of the Tamar I shall go… 

But, also in the search for a bit of harmony, I was feeling the need for somewhere calming, beautiful and peaceful after all those airports and vast concrete Chinese cities.

I’d heard of just the place. The Hotel Meudon is tucked away on a very special section of coast just south of Falmouth, and it seemed to tick all the required boxes. 

For a start, this is subtropical garden country. There’s no other corner of Britain like it. The hotel’s near neighbours are the amazing Trebah Gardens and also the National Trust’s gorgeous garden property at Glendurgan. Which really are astonishing places. 

Tens of thousands of visitors pay good money each year to walk around this duo of delectable demesnes. And here’s the really cool thing about the Hotel Meudon… It has its own subtropical gardens, tucked away in a deep valley which (as is the case with the two neighbouring properties) stretches down to the sea. 

It’s these highly sheltered and warm valleys that allows them to play host to all manner of plants which couldn’t be grown in the country outside a greenhouse. 

Where better to escape the madding crowd? What finer antidote to the teeming millions I’d walked among in those vast modern Chinese cities?    

In fact, the Hotel Meudon describes itself as being… “A world unto itself. Nestled in magical, subtropical gardens, a stone’s throw from our privately owned beach, the newly refurbished hotel is a secluded Cornish paradise.”

Located near the village of Mawnan Smith, between Falmouth and the Helford River, the hotel is perched at the top of its own gardens which hare tucked into a tree-lined valley. A ten-minute stroll down the coombe takes you to Bream Cove, the hotel’s own secluded beach. 

From the moment I threw my suitcase into one of the specious and comfortable garden rooms I knew I’d found just the right antidote to the mega-cities of China.

These seaborne valleys in southern Cornwall are among the most peaceful places in all of northern Europe. They really can exude the kind of peace and quiet that can be experienced in so few other places. 

How can that be? Because coastal Cornwall can be a wild and windy place. Often you’ll hear the boom of distant breakers pounding on the sea-cliffs and the whine of the wind in trees, eaves and telegraph wires. 

But step into one of these deep shelter-zones and everything changes. Silence ensues. Even the birds seem to know that these are special places. Within five minutes of checking in to the Hotel Meudon on Tuesday, I found myself strolling through a veritable world of birdsong. 

As a bloke who lives in deep countryside, you wouldn’t think I’d make a big deal about a load of chirping and chirruping. But this was different to the feathered cacophony I hear in my Exmoor valley. It was far, far more intense.  It struck me that there must be many thousands of birds down there in the deep and dripping vale. I barely caught a glimpse of one of our feathered friends, but there were obviously in great flocks of little brown jobs flitting about somewhere in the stillness between the giant tree-ferns and the bamboo plantations.  

We spent a couple of nights at the Hotel Meudon this week and I loved every minute of it. Having undergone an extensive refurbishment in 2021, the hotel has been transformed into what the owners like to call “a stylish home from home”.

The Meudon was originally the home to members of the well-known Fox family, local Quakers who owned several large properties in and around Falmouth, including both Glendurgan and Trebah. At what is now the site of the Meudon, shipping agent Howard Fox joined with wealthy banker and MP, Edmund Backhouse, to transport plants from far-flung reaches of the globe. 

Although much of the structure of the main building dates back to this time, Meudon also incorporates two 17th-century coastguard cottages (complete with escape tunnel – apparently the local coastguards were not averse to a little smuggling). 

Strange name, Meudon. It’s said to come from a nearby farmhouse, which was built by Napoleonic prisoners of war and named after their home village near Paris. The original, Mowi do Non, became shortened to Meudon.

Anyway, as I say, I loved our brief stay at the hotel and look forward to making a return visit, perhaps in springtime when these subtropical valleys come alive with exotic blooms. The Hotel Meudon, as its owners suggest, is one of those home-from-home establishments where you can find yourself relaxing so deeply the cares of the wicked world seem to drift away. By the time our two-night stay had come to an end, I really had regained my equanimity and life loomed gloriously in one big harmonious balance.  

Find out more at https://www.meudon.co.uk/.