Hall Walk

Hall Walk runs from Bodinnick to Penleath Point and is the first stage in a four mile walk to Polruan. It provides unparalleled views of the harbour and was created as one of the earliest private ornamental promenades by the Mohun family of Hall Barton, Bodinnick, once an important manor but damaged beyond repair during the Civil War. The remains of the fourteenth century family chapel, which retained its roof until 1976, can still be seen.

In 1585 Richard Carew described the Promenade as being cut out in the side of a steepe hill….evenly levelled, to serve for bowling, floored with sand, for soaking up the rayne, closed with two thorne hedges, and banked with sweete senting flowers: It wideneth to a sufficient breadth, for the march of five or sixe in front, and extendeth, to not much lesse, then halfe a London mile …..and is converted on the foreside, into platformes, for the planting of Ordinance, and the walkers sitting; and on the back part, into Summer houses, for their more private retrait and recreation.

One of these Summer Houses survives at Penleath Point behind the memorial to Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, the local author and scholar. Within, a plaque records, in the words of Q's daughter Foy, the incident during the Civil War when Charles I, a guest of the Mohuns and out for a stroll, narrowly avoided being hit by a musket shot fired from the parliamentary troops stationed in Fowey.

The Walk was given to the National Trust by the Shackerly family as a joint memorial to Sir Arthur Quiller Couch and the men of Fowey and Polruan who had died during the Second World War.

Research Tim Caulfield

Sources: N.A. Ackland & R.M. Druce, Lanteglos by Fowey: The Story of a Parish (Fowey, 1978);  Richard Carew, Survey of Cornwall, 1602 (London: Tamar Books, 2000);  Liz Luck, A Visitors Guide to The Fowey Estuary (Cornwall County Council, 2000).