Cornish Saints' Way

The Cornish Saints’ Way: Padstow to Fowey – 27 miles, 3 days

This pilgrimage, forming part of the longer Cornish Celtic Way, takes you across Cornwall from the North coast to the South coast, following the probable route of early Christian travellers making their way from Ireland and Wales to Brittany and the European mainland. In 1984, some walkers found a series of forgotten granite stiles, and this discovery led to a route being created that featured ancient footbridges, old tracks and fascinating medieval churches. You will pass through valleys, woodlands, pastures, moors and ancient field systems. The route is also known as the Mariner’s Way, because it would have been used by early Celtic traders and pilgrims crossing the Irish and English channels in flimsy wooden coracles who would have wanted to avoid the dangerous currents, rocks and pirates around Land’s End.

You begin at C15th church of St Petrock, then up onto the St Breock Downs, past a huge standing monolith stone, then C15th church of St Nivet, the geographical centre of Cornwall, in the parish ‘Lanivet’, a word meaning both ‘church site’ and ‘pagan sacred place’. Then up to the Helman Tor nature reserve overlooking the marshy Red Moor, and towards Lanlivery and its medieval St Brevita Church and 12th-century Crown Inn, still the original building, which has since been in continuous use as an Inn. Then to Golant, a riverside village associated with ‘Tales of the Riverbank’ by Kenneth Grahame, and its St Sampson’s Church and Holy Well, the alleged site of the wedding between King Mark and Iseult (who was already fatefully in love with Tristan), and therefore is associated with the birth of the modern myth of romance. From Golant you follow the river to its mouth at Fowey Harbour, from which pilgrims of old would have subsequently embarked on a sea voyage to Brittany and the European mainland.

Highlights

• St Breock Downs Monolith
• Helman Tor Nature Reserve
• 900 year-old pub in Lanlivery, still going…
• Kenneth Grahame’s beloved village of Golant
• Picturesque Fowey Harbour

Holy Places along route listed in our book Britain’s Pilgrim Places: Constantine Bay; Golant.

The Saint’s Way is covered by the OS Explorer sheets 106 and 107 and the Landranger sheets 200 and 204.

Access by rail requires changing at Liskeard for stations to Lostwithiel and Fowey.

Leave the A30 at Bodmin for Padstow.

There are a number of accommodation options along the route including a youth hostel in Golant. An alternative route (covering the last 11 miles) is followed along Cornish Celtic Way through Luxulyan, St Blazey and Tywardreath site of a medieval priory.