A weekend in Mousehole

Mousehole is a village you arrive at on foot. Whatever the satnav says, the lanes below the car parks were laid out for handcarts and donkeys, and the joy of the place is that nothing about it has been widened since. Two nights is just right: long enough for the harbour to change character with the tide three or four times, short enough to leave you wanting the next one. Here’s how we’d spend it in autumn, with the lights of December held back as the reason to return. Our full guide to Mousehole has the history and the practicalities; this is the weekend itself.

Friday: park once, and walk down

Park above the village and leave the car there until Sunday. The North Quay car park has 51 spaces, is open all year and costs £5 a day or £1 for an hour; the Parade car park, a little further out, has around 80 spaces at £2.30 for the first hour and £10.50 for 24 hours. The South Quay car park closes for the winter. From either, it’s a few minutes downhill to the harbour, and the first thing to do is absolutely nothing: sit on the wall, watch the boats settle on the mud if the tide’s out, and decide which of the two pubs and one restaurant you can see from there is yours for the night.

The Ship Inn sits right on the harbour and does everything a harbour pub should. Across the water, 2 Fore Street is the village’s restaurant: a Continental bistro on the harbour front with a secluded garden behind it, serving lunch from 12 to 3 and dinner from 5 to 9, breakfast from about 9, and taking bookings by phone. The crab comes hand-picked and the lemon sole with samphire is the dish everyone talks about; dogs are treated as part of the party. Book it for Saturday night now, and eat at the pub tonight.

Saturday morning: the coast path to Lamorna

Breakfast or a coffee from Hole Foods Deli on the harbour front, then the walk. The coast path west out of Mousehole climbs through the Kemyel Crease nature reserve, an old market garden gone gloriously back to the wild, and along the cliffs to Lamorna Cove, with a return inland through the granite quarries and fields. It’s a moderate-to-strenuous circular of around three hours and the best half-day in this corner of Cornwall; the Merry Maidens stone circle stands in a field beside the Lamorna road if you fancy adding it. Back in the village, the tidal pool inside the harbour wall is the local swimming spot, and in September the water is still around fifteen degrees. The Rock Pool Café, beside the car park and looking straight down on the pool, does crab sandwiches, cakes and a warming hot chocolate for afterwards.

Saturday afternoon: Penlee and Newlyn

Walk the other way, towards Newlyn. It’s only 400 metres to Penlee Point, the old lifeboat station from which the Solomon Browne launched on 19 December 1981 and did not return; the station is kept as a memorial to her eight crew, and every year on that night the village turns its Christmas lights off for an hour between eight and nine. Keep going along the road to Newlyn, still the biggest fishing port in England, where Newlyn Art Gallery shows contemporary work Wednesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm, by donation and free for anyone under 25. Its sister space, The Exchange, is a short walk on in Penzance if the weather turns. Then back for dinner at 2 Fore Street.

Sunday: the Old Coastguard, and the road home

The Old Coastguard is the reason to stay a third night. It’s a family-owned hotel at the Penzance end of the village, open every day, with a dining room, a bar and a terrace above a garden that slopes down to the water, looking across Mount’s Bay to St Michael’s Mount and the Lizard. Dogs, children and walkers in muddy boots are all welcome. Sunday lunch there, then the terrace for as long as the light lasts, is the proper end to a Mousehole weekend. If you can bear to, drive home the long way via Porthcurno and the Minack.

Come back in December

Mousehole’s harbour lights are switched on in mid-December, and Tom Bawcock’s Eve on the 23rd is the village’s very own festival, with stargazy pie in the Ship. Book early, as the cottages go a year ahead. Our Mousehole cottages include Trevene, a stylish three-bedroom character house with sea views, a log burner and, rarest of all here, parking; The Old Watch House, which sleeps eight and takes dogs; and a dozen two-bedroom cottages in the lanes for a couple or a small family. Whichever you choose, you’ll still walk down.