Morwenstow

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Morwenstow is the most northerly parish in Cornwall, UK. It is made up of several Hamlets including Shop, Woodford, Gooseham, Eastcott, Woolley, Youlestone and Milton.

It is the one-time home of the eccentric vicar and poet Robert Stephen Hawker (1803 - 1875), the writer of Cornwall's regional anthem The Song of the Western Men. Hawker is also credited with reviving the custom of Harvest Festival.

The church is dedicated to Saints John the Baptist and Morwenna. In the churchyard, corpses of drowned sailors were laid out. Hawker buried over forty unfortunate sailors who were drowned at sea and washed up at the bottom of Vicarage Cliff. One of the memorials in the churchyard was the white figurehead of the "Caledonia", whose captain and crew lie buried here. The "Caledonia" was a ship of some 500 tons, from Scotland, which met her fate on the perilous rocks of Higher Sharpnose in 1843. In 2006 the figurehead was removed for conservation, with the intention of placing a replica in the churchyard and the conserved original inside the church.

A path leads from the church and down to the cliff edge. Here you will find the National Trust's smallest building. "Hawker's Hut" is built into the face of the cliff overlooking the sea out towards the island of Lundy. Here, Hawker spent many hours in contemplation, writing poetry, and smoking his opium pipe. He also entertained guests here, including Alfred Tennyson and Charles Kingsley.

The manor of Stanbury in the parish is the birth place of John Stanbury, Bishop of Hereford, who was made first Provost at Eton College by King Henry VI. Sir William Adams the oculist was also born at Stanbury.

A striking example of curved and contorted stratified rocks occurs at Stanbury Creek. Dark cliffs of folded, interbedded shales and mudstones form wave-cut platforms.

In the south region of Morwenstow, there lies a large satellite ground station on the cliffs of Cleave, visible for miles around; this is GCHQ CSO Morwenstow.

Morwenstow and its surroundings feature heavily in the plot of the mystery thriller novel "Set in Stone" (1999) by the British author Robert Goddard.

[edit] See also

The Wreck at Sharpnose Point by Jeremy Seal (June 2003) - A fiction based on the wrecking of the Caledonia. ISBN 0330374656 (reviewed here [1])

[edit] External links

v • d • e Civil Parishes of North Cornwall District

Cornwall

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