EGLOSHAYLE FACES WADEBRIDGE across the River Camel. The Earl of St Vincent pub is hidden away up a hill behind Egloshayle’s St Petroc church. It is housed in a building built in the 17th century as a boarding house for masons. Later, it became a pub. One of its many guests was Admiral Sir John Jervis (1735-1823). When we visited the pub in May 2022, I wrote the following about it:

“The interior of the pub has timber roof beams and a delightful feeling of times long gone by. It is a great example of many people’s idealised vision of a typical ‘olde worlde English’ country pub. Soon after entering the dimly lit establishment, and your eyes adjust to the low light levels, it becomes evident that the pub is full of clocks, mostly differing in design. Most of them appear to be in working order, but not many of them show the same time. A great number of them chime at least once an hour, but not all at the same time. This being the case, there is usually at least one clock chiming at any given moment. This produces a lovely background symphony of chimes. I asked one of the pub’s staff why there were so many clocks in the pub. She replied:

“Some people like children. We like clocks”

Later, I asked the landlady about the clocks. She told me that when they took over the pub some years ago, there was no clock in it. She and her husband bought one clock for the pub, and this became the start of their collection. From then onwards, they could not stop buying timepieces. She told me that there are over 200 clocks in the pub and winding them up every day is quite a huge task.Apart from the fascinating clocks, the pub can be recommended for the delicious, excellently prepared, unpretentious food that can be eaten there.”

In 2023, when we returned to Cornwall, we were looking forward to eating at the eccentrically decorated Earl pub. However, it had closed by then. In September 2025, we noted that the pub had re-opened, and we booked a Sunday lunch there. Apart from a few clocks outside the pub, there were no clocks within it. The pub had been tastefully renovated. I asked what had happened to the clock collection, and the new publican told me that he had got rid of them. That was a shame, but the food we ate was far better than what I remember eating when the pub was filled with clocks and owned by two ageing sisters, who have, sadly, died since our last visit. The Sunday roast lunch was excellently cooked by the publican, who does the cooking.