A-Z Challenge 2018 - British Rivers: 'F' River Fowey

I first went to the Cornish town of Fowey in 2007 just after my elder son moved there to live. 2007 also happened to be the centenary year of the birth of Daphne du Maurier.

Ferryside by the River Fowey

Ferryside was the house where Daphne wrote The Loving Spirit, her first novel. Daphne's son Kit and his family live in Ferryside today. If you look closely at the right corner of the house you should be able to make out the ship figurehead from the Jane Slade which inspired Daphne to write that first book.

Further along the Fowey estuary on the town side you will come to - 

Neptune's Point at Readymoney Cove

Daphne lived at Readymoney - not that big house - back from the beach in 1942 and 1943.

The River Fowey rises on Bodmin Moor and flows to the sea on the south coast.

Sketch map of the rivers of South Cornwall including the River Fowey

Fowey harbour was one of those on the South Coast from which invasion fleets sailed on D-Day 1944. This view looking towards the open sea, with the village of Polruan on the opposite bank, looks much more peaceful.

These days of course, visits to Fowey are made by many cruise ships.

I must say I prefer the cruises on much smaller vessels along the Fowey and from which to admire the town.

Fowey from the river

Photo attribution:

• Sketch map: 15 May 2009, by Andy F - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence.

Cornish Fences - Good Fences 44

My elder son lives in Fowey on the south coast of Cornwall in the south-west of England and I've shown fences from there before.

Mawgan Porth Beach (from a hotel window)

Much older is the view through the window of St Catherine's Castle at Fowey.

The Fowey Estuary 

The author Daphne du Maurier had a long association with the area and in 1929 wrote her first novel, 'The Loving Spirit,' in the house behind the blue fence.

Ferryside

At the right end of the house is the figurehead from the schooner Jane Slade. 

Daphne was inspired to write the book after discovering the wreck of the schooner in Pont Creek. The figurehead was added to the house at a later date.

The Slade family were shipbuilders in the nearby village of Polruan. Their life and history were used by Daphne to create the saga, in The Loving Spirit, of four generations of shipbuilders and mariners in the fictional Cornish village of Plyn.

Daphne du Maurier’s son and his wife live at Ferryside today.

For more fences call in at Good-fences-44.

Scarborough to Ferryside _Sepia Saturday

This week's prompt suggests a number of topics to me, but as I have retired I'll ignore working at heights.

Looking down at harbours is a favourite pastime of mine, so where better to start than in North Yorkshire.

Scarborough Harbour

That shot was taken from way up at the Castle.

At Whitby we were up on the 199 steps to the Abbey.

Whitby Harbour (between the houses and the 'pier'.)

Neither are as exotic as the harbour at Monaco.

Monaco Harbour (from the way up to the Palace)

In our prompt the resting workmen were looking down on a ferry station. From Monaco you can catch boats to Rome, Nice, Barcelona and Corsica but I flew in and out by helicopter.

When in Fowey, Cornwall I have only watched the ferry cross the estuary to Polruan.

Fowey - Polruan Ferry
(Trevor Harris; CC BY-SA 2.0 = Geograph Collection)

In "Vanishing Cornwall" Daphne du Maurier wrote of arriving in a hire car when she was 19 and seeing Fowey harbour for the first time from the Bodinnick side. The car deposited them at the foot of the hill by the ferry (The Bodinnick/Fowey ferry not the one from Polruan). 

'Before climbing the hill to lunch our eyes were caught by a board saying "For Sale" on a gate just above the ferry. Behind the gate was a rough piece of ground and a house by the water's edge, a strange looking house built like a Swiss Chalet.

"Yes," said the ferryman standing near by, "they call it Swiss Cottage." '

Swiss Cottage

The du Mauriers later bought Swiss Cottage and it was there that Daphne wrote her first novel, "The Loving Spirit" which was published in 1929.

Because of its location the du Mauriers renamed the house Ferryside, the name it still bears today.

Ferryside

The road up to Bodinnick is on the left hand side of the photo: that's where the ferry docks.

If you study the next photo taken from a different angle -

you may be able to make out a figure on the right hand corner of the house.

This is the figurehead from the schooner Jane Slade.

Daphne was inspired to write "The Loving Spirit" after discovering the wreck of the schooner in nearby Pont Creek. The figurehead was added to the house at a later date.

The Slade family were shipbuilders in Polruan. Their life and history were used by Daphne to create the saga, in "The Loving Spirit," of four generations if shipbuilders and mariners in the fictional Cornish village of Plyn.

Daphne du Maurier's son and his wife live at Ferryside today.

If you check out the links at Sepia-Saturday-222 you can see where others have been.

Harbour Views - Sepia Saturday

When I saw the prompt for this week I knew immediately some shots I wished to post.

You could argue that my first two pictures are not coastal views, but at least they are from a Yorkshire seaside town.

Scarborough - Peasholm Glen

At least there is writing on the postcard and , I believe Peasholm is a boating lake even if no boats are in sight.

Scarborough Pleasure Park

There are boats galore here, and a water chute - the bank on the right has seats to view acts at the open air theatre opposite. It looks a lot different today I'm told.

Fowey on the south coast of Cornwall is one of my favourite places to visit.

Fowey - viewed from across the Fowey Estuary

And if you look across the estuary in the other direction this is what you see.

Polruan - viewed from Fowey

But I've had to go to Stavanger in Norway for a shot of a ship of any size.

Royal Yacht Britannia - Stavanger 1980s

The Queen and Prince Philip were on board. I was working at Rosenberg Verft at the time.

On that royal note I'll leave you to check out other voyages and tales at Sepia-Saturday-167.

Fowey

A-Z Challenge – ‘F’

I went to Fowey in Cornwall for the first time after my son moved there to live. In May 2007, not only was it my 70^th birthday but it was also the time of the Daphne du Maurier Festival which celebrated the centenary of her birth.

I had read several of her books, including Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, but otherwise was fairly ignorant about her connection with Fowey. I finished up writing an article on her life as an assignment on a creative writing course.

 Ferryside

At Fowey I could see first hand the house Ferryside where Daphne wrote her first novel, The Loving Spirit. Daphne was inspired to write the book after discovering the wreck of the schooner Jane Slade in Pont Creek. The Slade family were shipbuilders in the village of Polruan which lies across the estuary from Fowey. The figurehead from the schooner was added to the house later.

The opening of Rebecca, “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,” is world famous. The fictional Manderley was based on a house near Peterborough and what Daphne called her ‘house of secrets’, Menabilly, the home of the Rashleigh family just outside Fowey. Daphne was to move into Menabilly and wrote many of her books there, but not Rebecca. 

 Menabilly

In 1943 Daphne lived at Readymoney in Fowey after Ferryside had been requisitioned as a naval HQ. The gardens of the cottage at Readymoney Cove are open to the public on occasions. The house carries a plaque recording Daphne’s time there.

Readymoney

St Catherine’s Castle stands on the point to the seaward side of Readymoney Cove and used to guard the entry to the estuary. The Fowey estuary was one of the deepwater harbours from which American troops departed for the D-Day landings in 1944. 

 St Catherine's Castle

Container ships and large cruise ships now visit Fowey and it’s a haven for boating enthusiasts; if you wish you can have a trip in a little steamboat.