The Vicar of Morwenstow's Gothic World

The Gothic landscape of North Cornwall's Morwenstow parish, all gaunt sea cliffs, backed by remote farmland and wonderfully gloomy woods, was the ideal environment for the 19th-century parson-poet the Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker. Hawker was vicar of the parish from 1834 to 1874. He was devoted to his parishioners, most of whom were poor farmers and labourers. He cared also for the victims of shipwrecks on the savage Morwenstow coast. There were few survivors, but Hawker made it his duty to bury the dead. He would search the barely accessible foreshore beneath the cliffs, dressed in sea boots and a fisherman's smock, and salvage the often gruesome remains. Legend says that the vicar often dosed his reluctant helpers with gin to overcome their revulsion and superstition. The graveyard at Morwenstow pays homage to the drowned of numerous wrecks.

Hawker is said to have dosed himself with other substances too. He smoked opium, in keeping with the habits of fashionable Romantic poets such as Coleridge and de Quincy. At the tiny 'Hawker's Hut', a driftwood shack that nestles just below the cliff top near the beginning of this walk, he wrote and meditated, often under the influence. He is said to have dressed as a mermaid on occasions, took his pet pig, Gyp, for long walks, and once excommunicated a cat for catching a mouse on Sunday. And why not?

Take the spirits of Parson Hawker and Gyp the pig with you through this dramatic landscape as you walk from the splendid Church of St Morwenna out to the edge of the great cliffs, to Hawker's Hut. From here the coast path dips into and out of dramatic valleys, often within sight of the slate-grey fins of smooth slabby rock that protrude from the cliff edge. The route leads past the Government's eerie radio tracking station at Cleve where huge satellite receivers cup their ears to the sky.

At Duckpool, the cliffs relent and you turn inland and away from the often boisterous coast to find picturesque thatched cottages beside a placid river ford. Beyond lies the calm of deep woodland. Yet there lingers even here, a sense of Morwenstow's other-worldliness, as the route winds through lonely fields and past handsome old manor houses at Eastaway, Stanbury and Tonacombe to reach Morwenstow's welcoming pub and then Parson Hawker's handsome church once more.

What to look for

Parson Hawker's eccentricity extended to the vicarage he built next to Morwenstow church. The house's chimneys replicate the towers of other North Cornwall churches and the tower of an Oxford college. The kitchen chimney is a replica of the tombstone of Hawker's mother.

While you're there

Morwenstow's Church of St Morwenna is unavoidable and unmissable, from its atmospheric graveyard and splendid Norman doorways to its wonderfully gloomy interior. Even the approach to the lychgate has drama. You tread on visible depressions, bare of pebbles, the graves of unsanctified suicides or criminals. Just inside the gate, on the right is a granite cross with the initials of Hawker's wife. The cross on the left commemorates drowned sailors.

Where to eat and drink

There are no refreshments along the way but the Bush Inn is just along the road from Morwenstow Church. It does bar meals and you can enjoy smoked mackerel or crab salad with your Hick's Special Draught. The delightful Rectory Farm Tearooms & Restaurant is right at the start of the walk and offers morning coffee, lunches, cream teas and evening meals by arrangement.