Holiday Cottages in Boscastle – The Harbour, the Walks & the Cliffs

Everything you need to plan a self-catering holiday in Boscastle, the National Trust harbour village on Cornwall’s dramatic north coast.

Boscastle is one of the most rewarding places in Cornwall for a self-catering holiday. The village grew up where the Valency and Jordan rivers meet in a deep, twisting valley that opens out into a narrow natural harbour – for centuries the only safe natural haven on a long stretch of cliff-bound coast. A large part of the harbour, the Valency Valley and the surrounding coastline is owned and cared for by the National Trust, and the whole area lies within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Staying in a holiday cottage here means you can walk out of the door onto the South West Coast Path, stroll down to the harbour for breakfast and come back to your own fireside in the evening.

Holiday cottages in Boscastle fall into a few distinct groups, and it is worth knowing which suits you before you book:

• Harbourside and lower village – whitewashed and slate-hung cottages in the valley bottom, a few steps from the harbour, pubs, tea rooms and shops. Ideal if you want everything on the doorstep and do not mind visitors passing in summer.
• The old upper village – the High Street and Fore Street area around Forrabury and the Napoleon Inn, with 17th- and 18th-century cottages lining lanes that wind steeply down to the harbour. Quieter in the evenings, with sea glimpses and a proper village feel – but expect a climb back up.
• Countryside and farm cottages – converted barns, dairies and farmhouses around St Juliot, Trevalga and the Valency Valley, a mile or two inland. Plenty of parking, gardens and big skies, and usually a short drive or a woodland walk into the village.
• Larger houses for groups – detached homes sleeping eight or more, often with gardens and parking for several cars, popular for family gatherings and walking groups.

A few practical points. Parking in the lower village is mainly in the large pay-and-display Cobweb car park in the valley bottom, and space in the old upper village is very limited, so check whether a cottage comes with its own parking. Many owners welcome dogs, and the coast path and Valency woods make Boscastle a superb place for a dog holiday. Most cottages change over on a Friday or Saturday in the summer, with short breaks widely available from autumn to spring – when the village is at its most peaceful and the winter seas are spectacular.

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Boscastle Holidays advertised four high-quality self-catering cottages in and near Boscastle on Cornwall Online, and the business still lets them directly – see their website, www.boscastleholidays.co.uk, or call 01840 250233 / 07968 172506.

Tresquare – sleeps 8 plus cot

Penrose – sleeps 4

Wideacres, St Juliot – sleeps 4

Old Dairy, St Juliot – sleeps 2

• Tresquare – a family house in Boscastle sleeping eight plus a cot, with a large private lawned garden, open fire, sun lounge, parking for four cars and dogs welcome. The harbour is reached along the Green Cut, a level path with seats looking down over the village.
• Penrose – a cottage in Boscastle sleeping four, with parking for two.
• Wideacres – on a working farm at St Juliot, sleeping four (cot on request), with parking and WiFi.
• Old Dairy – a cosy cottage for two on the same farm at St Juliot.

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Boscastle harbour is a dramatic place: a narrow S-shaped inlet squeezed between the slate headlands of Penally Point and Willapark, invisible from the open sea until you are almost inside it. The inner harbour walls were built in 1584 by Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge, and for centuries small trading ketches were warped in through the entrance by rowing boats and teams of horses, carrying coal and limestone in and slate, corn and china clay out. The old lime kiln still stands on the quay.

Today the harbour is home to a handful of fishing and pleasure boats, and is one of the most photographed spots in Cornwall. At mid-tide in a westerly swell, watch for the Devil’s Bellows – a blowhole beneath Penally Point that sends a jet of spray booming out across the entrance. At low tide there is a small shingle and sand beach (see Boscastle Harbour beach), and in summer boat trips run along the coast to look for seals, seabirds and the occasional dolphin.

On 16 August 2004 a flash flood swept down the Valency Valley and through the lower village, carrying cars out to sea and damaging many buildings. Remarkably, no one was killed. The village was rebuilt with a wider, deeper river channel and new bridges, and the restored lower village – with the National Trust shop and café, the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, galleries, gift shops and the much-loved tea rooms by the harbour – is now as welcoming as ever. For a pint, the Cobweb Inn and the Wellington Hotel are by the bridge, and the Napoleon Inn crowns the old village at the top of the hill.

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Walking is the real reason many people choose a holiday cottage in Boscastle. You can leave the car for the whole week and still find a different walk every day.

• The Valency Valley to St Juliot – follow the river upstream from the car park through National Trust woodland to St Juliot church, about two miles. The young architect Thomas Hardy came here in 1870 to restore the church and fell in love with the rector’s sister-in-law, Emma Gifford; their courtship inspired A Pair of Blue Eyes and many of his later poems. Return via Minster Church, hidden in its wooded combe, and Peter’s Wood.
• Willapark and Forrabury Stitches – a short, steep climb from the harbour to the white lookout tower on Willapark headland, now a National Coastwatch station, with views along the coast in both directions. Behind it, the Forrabury Stitches are rare surviving medieval strip fields, still farmed in the old way. Come back past Forrabury church and down through the upper village.
• North to Pentargon and Beeny – from Penally Point the coast path climbs to the head of Pentargon, where a stream drops over the cliff in a waterfall into the cove below, then on across Beeny Cliff towards High Cliff and Crackington Haven. A tough but magnificent walk.
• South to Rocky Valley and Tintagel – five miles of clifftop path past Trevalga and Bossiney to Rocky Valley, with its ancient labyrinth carvings and mill ruins, and on to Tintagel Castle. Inland from Rocky Valley, St Nectan’s Glen leads to a beautiful waterfall plunging through a hole in the rock.

Good boots are essential – the paths are steep, often muddy in the woods and exposed on the cliffs – and many walkers use the local bus along the coast road to walk one way and ride back.

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The cliffs around Boscastle are some of the highest and most spectacular in England. They are made of folded and twisted slates, shales and sandstones, laid down around 300 million years ago and crumpled into the zig-zag patterns you can see in the rock faces. North of the village the coast rises to High Cliff, at 223 metres the highest sheer-drop cliff in Cornwall, while Beeny Cliff, which Hardy celebrated in his poem of the same name, looks down on a lonely beach reached only at low tide.

The clifftops are a haven for wildlife. In spring and early summer they are carpeted with thrift, sea campion and squill; fulmars and ravens nest on the ledges, and peregrine falcons hunt the updraughts over the headlands. From the cliffs you may spot grey seals hauled out in the coves, and on calm summer days dolphins, porpoises and even basking sharks offshore. Please keep to the path and keep dogs on leads near the edge – most of the cliffs are unfenced and the edges can be undercut.

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Boscastle is a village of two halves. Down in the valley, around the bridge and harbour, are the National Trust shop and café, galleries and gift shops, the bakery, tea rooms and the famous Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. Up the hill, the old village around Fore Street and the High Street is quieter, with slate-roofed cottages, the parish church of St Symphorian at Forrabury on the clifftop and the Napoleon Inn, a 16th-century pub that is a favourite with locals and walkers alike.

For a self-catering holiday you will find a village store for everyday supplies, with larger supermarkets about twenty minutes away at Camelford, Wadebridge or Bude – many visitors bring a first night’s shop or order a delivery to the cottage. Eating out is easy: pasties and cream teas by the harbour, pub suppers at the Cobweb, the Wellington and the Napoleon, and plenty of good restaurants within a short drive at Tintagel, Port Isaac and Padstow.

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Every season has something to offer. Spring brings primroses, bluebells and wild garlic to the Valency woods and thrift to the clifftops, with quiet paths and good-value short breaks. Summer is the liveliest time, with boat trips, busy beaches nearby and long evenings on the harbour wall – book cottages well ahead for July and August. Autumn is many regulars’ favourite: warm seas, golden bracken on the cliffs and fewer crowds. In winter the village is at its most peaceful, and a cosy cottage with a log burner is the perfect base for watching Atlantic storms crash against the harbour entrance before retreating to the pub.

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Boscastle makes an ideal base for exploring North Cornwall. Crackington Haven, with sand, rock pools and a café, is about six miles north; Bossiney Cove and Trebarwith Strand are just south, past Tintagel and its castle. Further afield are Port Isaac, the surfing beaches of Bude, the Camel Trail and the open moorland of Bodmin Moor, where Rough Tor and Brown Willy are Cornwall’s highest hills.

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