WINTER
Winter Breaks
Atlantic storms, empty coast paths, and pubs that are properly local again. Cornwall in winter is wildly underrated.
THE COLLECTION
St Ives
Treleigh
Sleeps 12 · 5 Bed · 4 Bath
From £4,535/Week
St Ives
Springfield Villa
Sleeps 6 · 3 Bed · 2 Bath
From £1,430/Week
Mousehole
Trevene
Sleeps 6 · 3 Bed · 2 Bath
From £1,285/Week
Bude
Halekulani
Sleeps 8 · 4 Bed · 3 Bath
From £1,035/Week
Crackington Haven
Trevigue Cottage
Sleeps 6 · 4 Bed · 2 Bath
From £1,358/Week
Crackington Haven
Atlantic Haven
Sleeps 2 · 1 Bed · 1 Bath
From £975/Week
Portreath
Harbour Heights
Sleeps 6 · 3 Bed · 2 Bath
From £1,230/Week
St Ives
Salubrious House
Sleeps 9 · 4 Bed · 3 Bath
From £1,530/Week
Praa Sands
Libertine
Sleeps 8 · 4 Bed · 4 Bath
From £2,180/Week
Falmouth
Waves
Sleeps 9 · 4 Bed · 4 Bath
From £2,035/Week
Padstow
The Grain Store
Sleeps 5 · 3 Bed · 3 Bath
From £1,330/Week
Perranuthnoe
Trekoa
Sleeps 8 · 3 Bed · 3 Bath
From £1,035/Week
St Ives
Sea View House
Sleeps 10 · 5 Bed · 5 Bath
From £1,530/Week
St Ives
Tresillian
Sleeps 12 · 6 Bed · 4 Bath
From £1,530/Week
Padstow
Peacehay Barn
Sleeps 12 · 6 Bed · 5 Bath
From £2,935/Week
Padstow
Kismet
Sleeps 8 · 4 Bed · 4 Bath
From £1,235/Week
Feock
Creek End
Sleeps 10 · 4 Bed · 4 Bath
From £2,235/Week
Bude
Ravenscourt
Sleeps 10 · 5 Bed · 4 Bath
From £2,530/Week
Charlestown
Orchard Cottage
Sleeps 4 · 2 Bed · 2 Bath
From £1,285/Week
Porthtowan
The Beach House
Sleeps 10 · 5 Bed · 4 Bath
From £3,535/Week
Carbis Bay
Tintin Cottage
Sleeps 2 · 1 Bed · 1 Bath
From £505/Week
Carbis Bay
Hummingbird
Sleeps 4 · 2 Bed · 2 Bath
From £1,205/Week
Padstow
Kendra
Sleeps 6 · 3 Bed · 3 Bath
From £1,060/Week
Carbis Bay
Sandpiper
Sleeps 8 · 4 Bed · 3 Bath
From £1,575/Week
Where these cottages are
Winter Breaks across Cornwall
The winter breaks cottages we look after, grouped by where they are
Where these cottages are
Locations approximate — exact addresses provided on booking confirmation.
EDITORIAL
Long walk, long lunch, long bath, fire, repeat.
Cornwall in winter is wildly underrated. The county shrinks back to its winter self — quieter, slower, slightly secretive, run for the locals again. You can walk for an hour on Watergate Bay without seeing another person. The pubs are properly local again; the coast paths are properly empty; St Ives loses two-thirds of its population and finds its bones again. Long walk, long lunch, long bath, fire, repeat.
It is, surprisingly, the mildest winter in the UK. The Gulf Stream wraps the south-west coast in air that rarely drops below freezing — January daytime highs sit around 8°C, snow is virtually unheard of, and the Atlantic holds onto its summer warmth into deep December, dropping only as far as 10°C even at its coldest. You’ll get rain — January is the wettest month — but the storms blow through fast, and the windows between them are some of the brightest, sharpest days of the entire year.
From November through to February, Cornwall is the UK’s best storm-watching county. The big Atlantic swells slam into the granite at Porthleven, Sennen, Cape Cornwall, Botallack and Bedruthan Steps, sometimes with 50-foot waves crashing over the harbour walls. Porthleven’s clock tower is the famous shot — the international-news image of Cornish weather, with waves towering above a Victorian harbour and the church battered by spray. Storm watch from a distance, in the warmth — the Ship Inn at Porthleven, the Headland Hotel at Newquay, the Old Success at Sennen Cove. Or from your own log-burner-warmed sitting room, which is the proper way to do it.
For walkers, the South West Coast Path is at its quietest of the year and at its most dramatic — Lizard Point to Kynance Cove in a gale is one of the great walks of Britain. For wild swimmers, the new culture of harbour saunas has taken over half the Cornish coast — Mousehole, Penzance, Falmouth, St Agnes, Polzeath and Bude all now have a wood-fired sauna right by the water. For dog owners, every Cornish beach is dog-friendly from 1 October through to early May — the run of the sand, all of it, all yours.
The cottages themselves are the other half of a Cornish winter. Most of our winter properties have working log burners or open fires; many have hot tubs; the best of them face the weather rather than hide from it. Big windows, granite walls, deep sofas, a good kitchen, somewhere to leave wet boots and a wet dog. The collection below shows what’s currently bookable for the winter window — every cottage personally vetted, every one chosen for what it does in November as much as what it does in August.
Good to know
Questions
The things people ask before they book
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Quieter, milder and more dramatic than people expect. The summer crowds are long gone, harbour towns return to local pace, restaurants and pubs are bookable without three weeks' notice, and the coast path has the feel of a private trail. The Atlantic puts on its biggest show of the year — winter storms are world-class viewing if approached respectfully — and the weather between storms is reliably bright, sharp and beautiful. Long walks, long pub lunches, long baths.
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Yes — and barely ever. The Gulf Stream gives Cornwall the mildest winter climate in the UK; January, the coldest month, averages around 8°C daytime and 4°C overnight, and temperatures rarely drop below freezing along the coast. Snow is virtually unheard of in coastal Cornwall — most years see none at all, and the high moors (Bodmin) get only an occasional dusting. The trade-off is rain — winter is the wettest season, with around 110mm a month — but waterproofs and a coast path that's been chewed by mud since Victorian times will sort that.
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Porthleven on the south coast is the headline — the clock tower above the harbour with waves crashing over it is one of the most photographed images in British weather coverage. The north coast delivers most of the wild stuff: Sennen Cove, Cape Cornwall, Botallack, Land's End, Bedruthan Steps, Tintagel, Boscastle. Portreath's Monkey Hut on the harbour wall is a famous frame. Always storm-watch from a safe distance — never on the harbour itself, never on the beach. The best vantage points are elevated paths, harbour-side pubs, and your own sitting-room window if the cottage is right.
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More than you'd expect. The Eden Project, Tate St Ives, Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Garden, the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, Truro Cathedral and most National Trust gardens stay open all year. Big food towns — Padstow, Falmouth, St Ives, Porthleven, Mousehole, Fowey — keep their main restaurants and pubs running year-round; the smaller seasonal cafés on remote coves close from late October to Easter. Surf schools and coasteering operators run weather-dependent winter sessions. The Eden Project ice rink runs through to early January. Some attractions close mid-January to mid-February for refurbishment — worth checking before you travel.
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Absolutely — winter is arguably the path's best season. The summer crowds are gone, the light is at its most dramatic, and the cliffs and granite look their boldest under a winter sky. Mud is the main hazard; proper boots, gaiters if you have them, and waterproofs are the kit. Daylight is short (sunrise around 8.15am, sunset around 4.30pm at midwinter, eight daylight hours), so plan walks tight to the shorter window and check tide times for any beach sections. The Lizard, Sennen-to-Land's-End, Zennor-to-St Ives and the north-coast stretches around Tintagel and Boscastle are spectacular in a gale.
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Both, and both have a strong local following. The sea sits at around 10°C through the winter — bracing rather than dangerous if you keep dips short and know your limits. Cornwall's wood-fired harbour saunas are now ubiquitous — Mousehole, Penzance, Falmouth, St Agnes, Polzeath, Bude all have one operating beside the water, designed specifically for the swim-sauna-swim cycle. The Jubilee Pool in Penzance has a geothermally heated section that stays at 35°C year-round. For surfers, winter delivers the biggest swells of the year and the emptiest line-ups; a 5/4mm wetsuit is the minimum, with boots, gloves and hood.
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Every beach in Cornwall is dog-friendly from 1 October through to early May (or end of June on standard beaches). All the summer Public Space Protection Orders — Fistral, Polzeath, Porthmeor, Sennen, Watergate, Crantock — drop away for the off-season. Winter is genuinely the best time of year in Cornwall with a dog, and our Dog Friendly collection heavily overlaps with the winter cottages.
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Substantially cheaper outside the Christmas and New Year windows — typically 40–60% below July and August peak. Late January through mid-February is the genuine bargain window across the collection; mid-November and early December are similar. The exceptions are the Christmas week (24–30 December) and New Year (30 December–2 January), both of which book up early at full peak-ish pricing. For weekly stays in February or November, expect to find cottages from £400–£900 that would be £1,500+ in summer.
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