Tag Archives: fowey

Remembering Queen Victoria in a car park in Cornwall

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ON THE EIGHTH of September 1846, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert disembarked at Fowey in Cornwall. To commerote this momentous occasion, a stone obelisk was erected on Albert Quay (formerly named ‘Broad Slip’), where the royal couple landed. For many years, it lay on the seabed of Fowey’s harbour.

However, it was recovered from beneath the water in 1977, and re-erected to commemorate the visit to Fowey of queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1962. It was not put in its original location, but at the Caffa Mill car park, which stands on the site of former shipyards. The name, Caffa Mill, comes from the river Caff or Cough which flowed here and the 2 water mills recorded as early as 1272.

Although not one of Fowey’s main attractions, this stone monument is of interest because of its curious history of submersion and recovery.

A rook with a book in a Cornish town

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THE AUTHOR DAPHNE du Maurier (1907-1989) was born near London’s Regents Park, but spent much of her childhood in Hampstead. In the summer, she travelled with her family for holidays in Cornwall. They also lived there during WW1. In 1926, the family bought the still extant Ferryside, a house next to the ferry landing at Bodinnick. The eye-catching blue and white house can be seen across the River Fowey from many points in Fowey. I believe that one of her descendants still owns, and lives in, the house.

In the centre of Fowey, on the waterfront, there is a modern sculpture of a bird holding a book with one of its claws. Called “The Rook with a Book”, it was created by the Thrussels, a father and son team of sculptors based in Bodmin Moor at a point near to the source of the River Fowey. The sculpture was unveiled in 2018 by Daphne’s son Christian. The book being held by the rook bears the title of one of Daphne’s short stories – “The Birds”, published in 1952. The story was inspired by seeing a flock of gulls attacking a farmer working on a field. It was set in Cornwall soon after WW2. What makes this short story particularly significant is that it inspired Alfred Hitchcock to create his horror film “The Birds”, which was first released in March 1963.

Game of cones in Cornwall

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SOME BUSINESSES HAVE chosen names that amuse me. There are plenty of fish and chip shops called ‘The Codfather’. In the small Essex town of Coggeshall, there is a fish and chips shop named ‘Coddes Hall’. And Royal Tunbridge Wells (in Kent) has one of these outlets, which serves fried fish and chips, with the name ‘Happy Friar’. If they have not already been used, I will suggest the following as appropriate names for seafood outlets: ‘Upon my Sole’, ‘The only Plaice’, ‘The Prawn Broker’, and ‘Get on your Skate’.

There is a hair salon in west London’s Ealing district called ‘Pure Barberism’. And when we are in London, one of our favourite coffee shops in Kensington calls itself ‘Perky Blenders’.

You may be excused for asking where this collection of gimmicky names is this leading to? Well, I was inspired to write this short piece after eating some ice cream in the charming Cornish seaport called Fowey (pronounced ‘foy’). The ice creams were sold at a shop called ‘Game of Cones’. I enjoyed the ice cream much more than the only two episodes of the TV show that inspired the ice cream parlour’s name.