Winter Week in Polzeath
Experiencing the Contrast: Historic Homes Versus Modern Natural Light
There’ll be plenty of people reading this newspaper who live in older houses - which, in the mainly rural South West, might well mean homes with thick walls, smaller windows, and so on. Before modern wonders like double glazing and thermal insulation came along, dwelling spaces had to keep folk warm and dry any way they could, which basically meant shutting out the great outdoors. What the builders of yesteryear swapped to gain cosiness, was light. Especially in the depths of winter…
Personal Reflections on Living in an Older Home
I live in such a place. The downstairs interior of our old cottage does a good job of pretending to be a cave!
Discovering Pendeenah: A Modern Marvel in Polzeath
So imagine how delighted my wife and I were to spend a few days last week in a house crammed with natural light. The upper half of Pendeenah, an ultra-modern house in Polzeath, acted like a prism for winter sunshine. Indeed, the upper storey was designed to capture as much light as possible as well as offer stunning coastal views from its wall-to-ceiling windows.
Pendeenah, Polzeath
Innovative Design: The Upside-Down House Concept
If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Pendeenah certainly does that - mainly by being an “upside-down” property. It seems an obvious question: if the upper half of a place enjoys spectacular views, why dedicate that space to the art of lying in bed and being unconscious? Turn the house upside-down! Stick the bedrooms and bathrooms downstairs and put living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, whatever - the places where you spend your waking hours - up in the part of the property where life will be enhanced by oceans of natural light and oceanic panoramas.
Pendeenah does this better than any other house I have ever stayed in. But then, it is part of an impressive stable of holiday homes marketed by a Cornish company called Latitude50, renown for letting fantastic self-catering properties on the North Cornwall coast. The locally-based team operates in just one small geographic zone, around the rather exclusive and beautiful Rock, Daymer Bay, Polzeath and Port Isaac area.
Latitude50 Welcome Pack
Latitude50: Premium Cornish Holiday Homes
“For 20 years, we’ve represented some of the most impressive properties in our local area,” I was told by a member of the team. “Originally founded as DB Holidays in 1996, we’ve grown from a start-up business to a premium brand. In 2007, we became Latitude50; our name (referencing Cornwall’s geographic coordinates) reflects our love for, and dedication to, this most beautiful of regions.”
Not then, the kind of properties which could otherwise be bought by local first-time buyers. Many of us have concerns when we see what could otherwise be affordable local homes taken out of the first-time buyer market for use as holiday accommodation. But the glitzy homes in the area outlined above sell for £millions. It’s simply a fact of modern life that certain honeypot areas are priced outside the remit of most local buyers of any description, let alone first-timers.
Polzeath
Affordable Luxury: Holiday Breaks in Cornwall
However, many of us can afford a stay in one of these luxury homes, especially at this time of year.
Pendeenah, for example, sleep up to 10 people - and a short break in winter is affordable. The three nights we booked costs from £1360 at this time of the year, which means that if you fill it and share the cost, the mini-break comes to just 136 quid each, or £45 a night.
The property really can accommodate 10 adults, although you’d be more comfortable with, say, three couples and some children who could share the smaller bedrooms. And three nights for three couples would cost a reasonable £75 each per night - which is not exactly a fortune when you think of the quality of the accommodation and compare the it with other holiday prices.
A similar house located just a few hundred metres down the road, by the way, is presently on sale for over £3 million. So I, for one, am happy to pretend to be a millionaire at £75 a night - certainly when the views are this good and the levels of comfort (walk-in showers, massive Victorian bath tubs, superb kitchen facilities, Sonos speakers in every room, etc) are set to exceed even a rich man’s expectations.
Swimmers at Polzeath
Exploring Polzeath: Coastal Walks and Scenic Views
So much for the house, but what do you do in a place like Polzeath in the middle of winter? You probably don’t need me to tell you the area is rich in fabulous walks, the very best of these being the amazing hike around Pentire Point and The Rumps…
Coastal Hiking at Pentire Point and The Rumps
Pentire Point is the massive headland which guards the mouth of the River Camel - and which you can view from the windows of Pendeenah. With its easterly neighbour, The Rumps, this two-pronged promontory makes an ideal area for coastal walking because it lends itself to a perfectly sensible circular hike, which is rare by the seaside.
Pentire Point
From the lofty tip of Pentire Point you are treated to spectacular elevated views of the seaborne Camel and Padstow Bay. Between Pentire and Stepper Point on the other side of the estuary, there is naught but current, turbulence and waves and these three merry maidens like nothing better than to create the watery hell of the infamous Doom Bar.
Polzeath from base of Pentire Point
Just about all the walk is on National Trust land. The organisation owns large stretches of coastal Cornwall. Thank God because, in 1936, the entire headland was divided into building plots and up for sale. Some people, though, couldn’t bear the idea of one of Cornwall’s most handsome headlands being covered with bungalows - protestors organised themselves at both local and national level and raised enough money to buy the entire estate and give it to the nation. When you know this story and walk the walk, you almost feel like weeping with gratitude.
Walkers at Pentire headland
Historical Reflections: Lawrence Binyon and Iron Age Forts
You might also feel like shedding a tear when you see the memorial to Lawrence Binyon up at the top of the headland. The plaque is there to mark the place where he wrote For The Fallen (“They shall not grow old, as we that are left to grow old…”) - a poem that has sunk deep into the nation’s consciousness and recited at every Remembrance Day event.
Read the words on the plaque and you’ll also admire the backdrop of The Rumps, a sort of twin headland located a mile north-east of Pentire. The people of the Iron Age recognised this peninsula’s excellent defensive potential and built a great fort with all sorts of ramparts and ditches, some of which can still be seen.
Looking across to The Rumps
A Serendipitous Encounter: Beach Art and Local History
Having explored the area and admired the neighbouring rocky, conical island called The Mouls, we rejoined the coast path to head east along the cliff edge - past Com Head - to a junction of tracks above Pengirt Cove. From there a turn to the right took us down through the fields past the National Trust farm, to the beach thanks, which we were able to access direct from the coast path thanks to the fact the tide was out.
Bill Bartlett on Polzeath beach
Which is relevent because the low tide allowed me to meet a most remarkable man. Bill Bartlett is a Polzeath historian and a “Jungian Beach Artist” who creates intricate and ephemeral beach mandalas on a vast scale. He happened to be working on one of his intricate designs as we finished our walk, so I stopped for what turned out to be a pleasant and interesting chat.
A website (www.jungbythesea.co.uk) explains that the… “immersive approach to beach art involves the practice of drawing within the coastal landscape, working with the tide, light and weather.”
Bill has a particular interest in the potential of beach-art to unlock personal insights and enhance self-awareness… “I believe there’s immense value in exploring the unconscious mind through the simple act of drawing on the beach.”
I found it all fascinating and was certainly impressed by the design Bill had created that morning - a beautiful motif that was about to be eaten up by the incoming tide. Which is just about as ephemeral as it gets - the whole lot was gone in half-hour - but you can see examples of his work on Instagram - search for billys_beachart.
The Rock-Padstow Ferry
A Day Trip to Padstow: Exploring the Local Area
On another day last week, we walked up the estuary to the Rock ferry, which took us across to Padstow for a spot of lunch. This is a lovely gentle hike which you can do by following the South West Coast Path (located just 100 metres from Pendeenah) all the way to Rock if the tide is in, or by walking across the wide acres of sand direct from Daymer Bay if it’s out. The advantage of the former is that you can make a small detour to see John Betjeman’s grave at St. Enodoc Church, just up at Trebetherick, tucked under the golf course. The advantage of the low tide route is that it’s a lot shorter and you don’t have to worry about flying golf balls.
St Enedoch
I found Padstow much more digestible in January than, say, July or August when you can barely move in the place. Last week only a handful of visitors were milling around and some of the eateries (notably those run by the Stein family and also Paul Ainsworth) were staging amazing value mid-winter luncheon offers (£26 for three-courses anyone?).
View across Camel to Padstow
Midwinter Breaks in Cornwall: Value and Comfort
A midwinter break can represent some of the best vacation value around, especially if, like us, you get lucky with the weather. But even if a storm, like the one predicted for this weekend, had hit during our stay, we’d have been quite happy sitting in a comfy chair up in Pendeenah’s room full of light admiring the coastal drama of it all.
Explore More with Latitude50 Holiday Homes
With houses across Daymer Bay, Polzeath, Port Isaac and Rock – ranging from 1 bedroom boltholes to 10 bedroom dream houses – there is something to suit all.
Latitude50 Website
