Tales of Cornwall's Wild Side

I had heard of Gurney stoves, and always assumed that harvest festivals were an ancient tradition, but until this week, I had no idea that both were invented by eccentric Cornishmen living on a remote stretch of the county's wildest and most dramatic shore.

Here, narrow lanes with high stone walls are dotted with primroses in spring and foxgloves in summer and lead into steep wooded valleys and over rolling maritime grassland. The coast is rugged and treacherous, with spectacular rock formations – barrel-shaped folds of rock, diagonal strata, zigzag chevron patterns, stripy layers of pale sandstone and dark siltstone.

The Cornish side of my family has farmed on this coast for 200 years, and the non-Cornish side has been coming here on holiday since 1900, but I had no idea that harvest festivals were invented in the 19th century at Morwenstow church. Stephen Hawker arrived in 1834, Morwenstow's first vicar for more than a century. He devoted his life to converting local smugglers, wreckers and looters into a congregation of lifesavers, who warned ships away from the rocks, gave drowned sailors Christian burials – and celebrated harvests.

Bude: Tales from Cornwall's wild side - Telegraph

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