Fowey

You come off the little ferry and the town rises straight up in front of you, house stacked on house up the steep western shore, all of them looking down at a harbour crowded with boats. Across the water, the village of Polruan answers back from its own hillside. A china-clay ship works somewhere upriver, and yachts swing on their moorings. Narrow streets climb away between old walls, and you sense at once that this small place has always lived by the sea.

This is Fowey, and it has been a serious harbour for a very long time. In medieval England it counted among the most important ports in the land, its deep estuary sheltering ships that traded, and fought, up and down the coast. Fowey sits on the steep slate sides of a ria, a river valley drowned by the rising sea, and that drowned valley runs so deep that large vessels can load china clay far inland to this day. The clay trade brought later prosperity, and it still uses the estuary. But Fowey is also a town of stories. The writer Daphne du Maurier lived nearby, at Menabilly, and drew on this very coast for her novels, among them Rebecca. Each spring the town holds a festival in her name, and her presence still colours the way visitors read these waters. To walk here is to move through the landscape of her imagination, the wooded shores and secret creeks that shadow the pages of her books.

Let me show you what to look for. First, the town itself, its tiered houses climbing from the quay, packed tight above the boats, the classic Fowey scene best caught from across the water. Second, the medieval church of St Fimbarrus and, beside it, the old mansion of Place House, seat of the Treffry family, anchoring the town's long history in stone. Third, the working estuary, where clay ships and pleasure yachts share the same deep channel, a rare sight of an ancient port still earning its living. Fourth, the Polruan ferry, the small passenger boat that carries the Coast Path across the harbour mouth, photogenic and essential in equal measure. And fifth, the wildlife of the estuary. Watch the muddy margins and wooded shores for herons, waders and woodland birds, and keep an eye on the harbour water, where seals sometimes surface among the moorings.

Now for the tale that gives Fowey its swagger. In the Middle Ages the town's sailors were known, half in admiration and half in fear, as the Fowey Gallants. Bold and lawless, they raided French and Spanish shipping across the Channel, and their exploits eventually provoked a French retaliation. In fourteen fifty-seven a raiding party crossed and struck the town. In answer, the townsfolk built blockhouses on either side of the harbour mouth, and slung a great chain between them that could be raised to bar enemy ships from the estuary. You can still trace that defiant history in the stones beside the water, a small town that once dared to take on the fleets of kings. It is a swagger you can still feel in the place, in the tight streets and the deep, confident harbour.

For the finest view of it all, seek out the Hall Walk, the wooded path on the Polruan side that looks back over the whole harbour. From Fowey the Coast Path presses on toward Polperro, along a shore of hidden coves and steep green cliffs, but the way here depends on the ferry across the estuary, so time your crossing well. Linger a moment first and watch a clay ship slip down the deep channel the Gallants once ruled. Mind the busy estuary and the ferry traffic, keep back from the edges, and if you ever need help on this coast, dial nine-nine-nine or one-one-two and ask for the Coastguard. Walk safe.