When Ships Sailed Up the Gannel
The families who built ships, the merchant who fought the mud, and a working river with very little interest in anyone's timetable.
WRITING
What I’m thinking about while I’m actually making things.
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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.
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 ruined chapel turns up in a property record. Follow it into a village of working clergy, hopeful visitors, buried neighbours and buildings that had to be repaired.
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.
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?
Four Saints at the Crossroads: The Lost Chapel That Linked Piran, Carantoc and Cubert
A farmer’s wife, a sacred stone and four communities meeting inland from the coast: the lost chapel with an unusually practical afterlife.
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.