Walking the South West Coast Path: The Anti-Burnout Workflow
The coast path is very good at exposing nonsense about pace. What it can teach founders and freelancers about workload, focus and finishing without burning out.
WRITING
What I’m thinking about while I’m actually making things.
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The "Desk by the Sea" Myth vs. Reality: How to Actually Ship Work from Newquay
Working from Newquay is not a laptop-on-the-beach fantasy. The freedom is real, but it only works if the operating system behind your life is better than the Instagram version.
Smugglers, Tinners, and Bootstrappers: The Cornish Blueprint for Independent Hustle
Cornwall has a long history of people making a living outside the obvious centre of power. What that can — and cannot — teach modern bootstrappers about independence.
Before the Railway: How Perran's Iron Ore Reached the Sea
Gravel Hill’s iron mine stood beside the Atlantic. Its ore still travelled about three miles by cart to reach a ship. That awkward journey explains a great deal about this coast.
When Ships Sailed Up the Gannel
The Gannel carried cargo, served mines and supported shipbuilding. Restoring that movement changes the relationship between Newquay and Crantock.
From Waterwheel to Railway: The Industrial Landscape Hidden Around Holywell
A wheelpit, a corn mill, coastal mines and competing transport schemes reveal the working landscape behind Holywell’s beach.
The Smelter on the Other Side of the Gannel
Ore from Newquay crossed the Gannel to be processed near Crantock. A forgotten works connects the town’s mines to the opposite bank.
Before the Beach: Perranporth Was a Mining Town
Wheal Leisure, the workings around Droskyn and Cligga’s wartime tungsten put the mining town back beneath modern Perranporth.
Before the Mines: The 10,000-Year History Hidden Between Poly Joke and Holywell
Between Poly Joke and Holywell, flints, burial mounds, imported pottery and cliff castles reveal thousands of years beneath an apparently quiet landscape.
Perran-in-the-Sands: The Two Churches the Dunes Nearly Swallowed
The lost church on Perran Sands turns out to be two buried religious sites—and a centuries-long argument with a moving landscape.
The Woman in Piper’s Hole: The Crantock Carving and the Story That Grew Around It
The woman, the horse and the verse at Piper’s Hole look like one tragic story. Their chronology tells a more complicated—and rather revealing—one.
Crantock’s Lost Chapel: St Ambrusca, the College and the Old Churchyard
A named chapel, a wide cemetery and a newly excavated medieval building make Crantock’s religious history much larger than the surviving churchyard.
The Gannel Crake: The Ghost That Was Supposed to Save Your Life
A strange cry on the Gannel acquired a surprisingly useful ghost story. Its real setting was a crossing where the tide decided when the journey ended.
Langarrow: The Lost City Under the Dunes — and the Real History Inside the Legend
Seven churches, a corrupt city and three days of divine weather: Langarrow is a magnificent legend, rooted in a landscape that really did disappear beneath sand.
The Strange Holes in the Rock at Fern Pit — A Gannel Mystery Since 1890
The hollows beside Fern Pit have attracted explanations for more than a century. Their history is easier to establish than their purpose.
The Holy Well the Cliff Buried: What Was Inside Holywell Cave Before the 2026 Collapse
The August 2026 rockfall hid Holywell’s cave. Its pools, healing traditions and rival inland well tell a history which survives the loss of access.
Seven Churches Under the Sand? The Crantock Story That Keeps Changing
Seven churches, seven churchyards and a real religious community: how much of Crantock’s most persistent story can we put back on the ground?
St Piran: The Saint Who Floated to Cornwall — and the History Beneath the Legend
A floating millstone is an excellent entrance. The harder question is how much we can recover of the man behind Cornwall’s most enduring saint story.
Four Saints at the Crossroads: The Lost Chapel That Linked Piran, Carantoc and Cubert
A vanished chapel east of Cubert brought four saint traditions together. Its story includes relics, road works and a remarkably versatile stone.
I Picked the Cursed Leaf at St Newlyn East — and I’m Still Here
A childhood warning about St Newlyn East’s fig tree leads into a saint’s staff, newspaper scepticism and the surprisingly difficult question of how a local curse becomes ancient.
The Ancient Circle That Isn’t — and the Ancient Circle That Is
St Newlyn East’s Preaching Pit looks ancient. Hay Close really is. Their different histories reveal how the same landscape kept finding new reasons to gather people together.
Porth Island Before Newquay: Furnaces, Roundhouses and a Chieftain’s Grave
Porth Island held a defended settlement and an ironworking industry long before Newquay grew around it. Later storytellers supplied a Danish chieftain.
Seven Bridges, the Smugglers’ Den and the Railway in the Valley
A pub with a tunnel story sits beside a landscape of old mineral routes. The interesting part is working out which connections belong together.
Watergate Bay: The Hotel Waiting for a Railway That Never Came
Watergate Bay’s hotel was built for an expected railway arrival. The railway failed to turn up; the building found several other futures.
The Mine Beneath Mount Wise: Putting Newquay’s Lead and Silver Back on the Map
A shaft, a count house, miners’ homes and an adit towards Towan: the industrial hillside hidden inside modern Newquay.
The Railway to Holywell Bay That Never Was
Holywell Bay could have had a railway, pier and harbour. The parliamentary record reveals a serious Victorian proposal—and a coastline that escaped a very different future.
I Went Looking for Cornwall's Smugglers' Tunnels
I remembered a smugglers’ tunnel under a Cornish pub. The records confirmed the building, not the smuggling—and that became the more interesting story.