Barnstaple Town Centre :: Cornish Accommodation

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Crackington Haven
Sheer cliffs tower above the beach at Crackington high up on the north coast. This is a remote coastline of dramatic scenery and extraordinary geology, with the horizontally-layered strata bent and contorted by ancient earth movements. Coastal vessels used to run up on the beach here to land limestone and coal and load slate from the local quarries – a hazardous undertaking in any weather on this exposed coast but the one to which the hamlet of Crackington Haven owes its existence.

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Crantock
Separated from Newquay by the heavily silted-up estuary of the River Gannel, the ancient churchtown of Crantock has been swollen by post-war suburban housing. The church of St Carantocus is unusual and, in the view of Sir John Betjeman, one of the most attractive in Cornwall. Crantock Beach, which occupies much of the old mouth of the estuary, is a broad expanse of sand; a cave in the deep cleft of Piper’s Hole on the south side of the beach contains carvings of a woman and a horse with some lines of verse, the work of a local man called Joseph Prater in the early 1900s.

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Delabole
Within the place-name of Delabole is evidence that the great slate quarry for which the village is famed is more than 700 years old. The Cornish word poll, meaning ‘pit’, was attached to the name Deli as early as 1284. Delabole slate is the best in Cornwall and its quality as a roofing material is easily distinguishable by the untrained eye from the cheaper Spanish alternative, let alone from the artificial asbestos ‘slate’ that has become so prevalent in recent years. The quarry itself is more than 500ft deep with a circumference of 1.5 miles, although still very much a working concern, there is a viewing platform for the public and a showroom selling gifts. Nearby, at Deli Farm, is Britain’s first commercial wind farm.

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Devoran
Devoran had a short but glorious career as one of Cornwall’s busiest ports, thanks to the Redruth and Chacewater Railway which linked its docks and quays on Restronguet Creek to the greatest copper mining district in the county, around St. Day and Gwennap. Ironically, the same mines which brought such riches also helped to cause the heavy silting of the Carnon river, which drains the mining area, and Restronguet Creek into which it flows.Today Devoran is a pleasant village, but down on the water’s edge there are still plenty of reminders to be seen – wharves, ore bins, massive granite bollards – of its origins as a substantial riverside port.

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Duloe
The name Duloe means ‘two pools’ or, more specifically in this instance, ‘two Looes’, the parish being situated on high ground between the East Looe and West Looe rivers. The village is noted for its stone circle of eight large quartz stones, one of which has fallen. It is the smallest of Cornwall’s stone circles which date from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age (c.2500-1400 BC). The parish church has a massively-built 13th-century tower topped by a Victorian pyramidal roof and, inside, the splendid carved tomb of Sir John Colshull who, in 1450, was the second richest man in Cornwall.

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