Port Isaac

Come down into Port Isaac and the world narrows around you. Whitewashed cottages crowd shoulder to shoulder down a steep-sided valley, their lanes so tight you could touch both walls at once, all of them tumbling toward a tiny harbour where fishing boats lean on the sand at low tide. This is the Cornish fishing village of the imagination, and it is entirely real.

Port Isaac has worked the sea since at least the Middle Ages. Its very name is thought to mean "corn port", a reminder that this snug harbour was a place of trade long before it became a place of pictures. In its heyday the little quay shipped out Delabole slate, quarried inland and sent all over Britain and beyond, along with coal, timber and pottery. And it landed fish, above all the pilchard, in staggering quantities. Around the harbour stood the cellars, the low stone buildings where the catch was pressed, salted and packed for market, the whole village bending to the rhythm of the shoals. That trade has faded, but Port Isaac never became a mere postcard. It is still a working fishing village, boats still go out from the harbour, fresh fish still comes ashore, and the place has won new fame as the singing home of Cornish sea shanties and as a favourite location for film and television.

Now walk it slowly and look for what makes it unique. First, the harbour itself, small and tidal, drying to sand and rock at low water so the boats settle and lean; come at low tide and you can walk out among them. Second, the cottages, whitewashed and higgledy-piggledy, stacked up the valley sides so tightly that the roofline seems to climb over itself; look down over them from the cliff path and you have the classic Cornish scene. Third, seek out the famously narrow lanes, and in particular the one known as Squeeze-ee-belly Alley, so tight that it is said to test your waistline; it is one of the narrowest thoroughfares in the country. Fourth, find the platt, the open slipway and space by the harbour where, on many an evening, the shanty singers gather and the old sea songs roll out across the water. Fifth, watch the wildlife of the harbour edge, gulls and fulmars and shags working the cliffs, grey seals surfacing in the bay, kestrels hanging over the headland and sea pinks flowering pink along the rocks.

Let yourself imagine the pilchard days. When the shoals came, a lookout on the cliff, a "huer", would raise the cry, and the whole village dropped everything and ran for the boats. In a good season the nets came up so heavy with silver fish that the sea itself seemed to boil. Every hand was needed, men, women and children, working through the night in the cellars by lamplight, the air thick with salt and oil, to press and pack the catch before it spoiled. Fortunes were made and lost on whether the pilchards came. That same spirit, of a community whose whole life turned on the sea, still sings out today when the shanty crews stand on the platt and lift their voices, songs first made to keep men hauling together on a rope now sung for the sheer joy of them, in the very harbour that gave them birth.

From Port Isaac the Coast Path climbs out along a wild and beautiful stretch of slate cliffs, bound south and west for the Camel estuary and the ferry across to Padstow. But before you leave, buy something fresh from the harbour, wander up a lane too narrow for comfort, and if the light is low and the singers are out, stop and listen. Take care on the steep lanes and mind the tide. Walk safe.