St Mawes - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

St Mawes is a small town opposite Falmouth

Falmouth, Cornwall

Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....

, on the Roseland Peninsula on the south coast of Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. It lies on the east bank of the Carrick Roads

Carrick Roads

Carrick Roads is located on the southern Cornish coast in the UK, near Falmouth. It is a large waterway created after the Ice age from an ancient valley which flooded as the melt waters caused the sea level to rise dramatically , creating a large natural harbour which is navigable from Falmouth to...

, a large waterway created after the Ice Age

Ice age

An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

from an ancient valley which flooded as the melt waters caused the sea level to rise dramatically, creating an immense natural harbour, often claimed to be the third largest in the world. The town is in the civil parish of St Just in Roseland.

St Mawes is the home of St Mawes Sailing Club. There is an excellent year-round ferry service to Falmouth, which is less than a mile away by boat, but due to its proximity to the Fal

River Fal

The River Fal flows through Cornwall, United Kingdom, rising on the Goss Moor and reaching the English Channel at Falmouth. On or near the banks of the Fal are the castles of Pendennis and St Mawes as well as Trelissick Garden. The River Fal separates the Roseland peninsula from the rest of...

estuary

Estuary

An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....

it is some 30 miles away by road. The Place Ferry links the South West Coast Path

South West Coast Path

The South West Coast Path is Britain's longest waymarked long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harbour in Dorset. Since it rises and falls with every river mouth, it is also one of the more...

and operates from Good Friday

Good Friday

Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...

to the end of October. It was once a busy fishing port, but the trade declined during the 20th century.

The town of St Mawes is a popular tourist

Tourism

Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...

location, with many properties in the town being holiday accommodation or "second homes". A large number of the permanent residents are pensioners; it is more affluent than other places in the district.

History and geography

The town takes its name from the Celtic

Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

saint Saint Maudez

Saint Maudez

Saint Maudez is a Breton saint who lived in the 5th or 6th centuries. He is also known as Maudé, Maudet , Maodez or Modez , Maudetus , Mandé and Mawes . In the Breton calendar his feast is 18 November....

(Mawe), who may have come from Ireland but is mainly venerated in Brittany.

St Mawes Castle

St Mawes Castle

St Mawes Castle and its larger sister castle, Pendennis, were built as part of a defensive chain of fortresses by Henry VIII to protect the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom...

is a well-preserved coastal fortress from the time of Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

, built to counter the invasion threat from the Continent

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Charles Henderson, writing in 1925, says of St Mawes, "an ancient fishing town which in late years has assumed the different and more sophisticated character of a watering place".

Just outside the town is a closed British Leyland garage on Polvarth Road which retains the British Leyland logo on a hoarding outside.

Church history

The name of the town comes from Saint Maudez, a Breton saint, and there was a chapel here dedicated to him with his holy well nearby. Its existence in 1427 is mentioned in George Oliver's Monasticon and it remained in use until the reign of Elizabeth I when it was abandoned. From that time until ca 1838 there was no chapel for the townspeople until a private chapel built in 1807 by the Marquis of Buckingham was licensed by the Bishop. This was on a different site and was rebuilt in 1881. St Mawes continued however to be in the parish of St Just in Roseland

St Just in Roseland

St Just in Roseland is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated six miles south of Truro and two miles north of St Mawes....

Film and TV location

The Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dame Agatha Christie DBE was a British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections , and her successful West End plays.According to...

film Murder Ahoy was filmed here, as was the 1964 film Crooks in Cloisters
Crooks in Cloisters
Crooks in Cloisters is a British-made comedy released in 1964 and starring Ronald Fraser as 'Little Walter' , the boss of a gang of forgers, including Bernard Cribbins as 'Squirts' , Melvyn Hayes as 'Willy' , Grégoire Aslan as 'Lorenzo' , and Davy Kaye as 'Specs' .-Synopsis:After pulling off...

. An episode of the TV series Hornblower
Hornblower (TV series)
Hornblower is the umbrella title of a series of television drama programmes based on C. S. Forester's novels about the fictional character Horatio Hornblower, a Royal Naval officer during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars....

was also filmed here.

Notable residents

Barry Bucknell
Barry Bucknell
Barry Bucknell [Robert Barraby Bucknell] was a BBC TV presenter who popularised Do It Yourself in the United Kingdom....

, television presenter who popularised Do-It-Yourself in the UK.

External links

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