This part of Cornwall is much quieter and more secluded than Newquay, Padstow, Falmouth, Penzance. Our land is on the gentle green, hilly and wooded south coast – and just a couple of miles away in one direction is the village of Seaton / Downderry, splendid for holidaymakers and (occasionally) surfers, and the other way is Looe, a proper working fishing village with a couple of good beaches as well. We have no other centres of population near us. So this is what's going to wake you up in the morning!
Above is a satellite shot of our land, which stretches across from side to side, and from the lane down to the seashore. The coach house is inside our own nature reserve, on hills overlooking Looe Bay, with breathtaking sea and coastal views - like this. On a clear day you can even see the Lizard peninsula, 40 miles away!
Weather ... or not
Whatever the weather is here, we get a lot of it! For a more accurate forecast than many, try the amazing magicseaweed.com and tides4fishing.com.
Wildlife
In our 70 acres (29 ha) and half-mile of coastline, we've created our very own private nature reserve, the Caradon Coastal Reserve. If you're in this area and are interested, you'd be welcome to explore it on foot, but because the coast path through our land is currently closed and you'd need to access it via our garden, please contact me by phone or email first (see Contact page). (NB since the closure of the path through our land in 2014 I've been campaigning for its reopening, and now it appears that by spring 2024 this may actually happen! If so, and if you're a pretty intrepid walker, you'll then be able to walk the restored path 24/7.)
We’re members of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, and we manage the land to encourage wildlife as much as possible; the land is home to some very rare species of butterflies (pearl-bordered fritillaries and dingy skippers) and bats, as well as slow-worms, voles, shrews, squirrels, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes ... even deer, which can be glimpsed if you’re quiet (and lucky)! Birdlife here includes the (now rare) thrushes, bullfinches, owls, mallards (see photos here and in the Gallery), woodpeckers, pheasants taking refuge from a nearby shoot - and perhaps, one day, Cornish choughs.
(There is one form of wildlife, however, that's not so welcome: ticks. They're found throughout the UK, and some of them carry Lyme disease. This means that almost anywhere you go in the countryside - even in city parks - you're at risk. So in the coach house we provide tick removal tools and practical information.)
Over the years we've won a range of awards from Cornwall Tourism and from the Cornwall Wildlife Trust.
Then in 2023 we won Gold in South West Tourism's Better Environment awards.
 we're coming in!.jpg)
 flypast.jpg)
The full length of our shoreline borders one of the UK’s Marine Conservation Zones, set up to help conserve marine wildlife and fish stocks. So beneath the waves is a wide (and increasing) range of sealife getting on with its business just as nature intended - including seahorses, sea bass, pink sea fans, cuttlefish, basking sharks ... In the bay and around the island you can often see seals; and dolphins have appeared more than once.
At night? For starters, there are the lights of Looe, 4 miles away, twinkling across the water (see photo on More Info > Things To do page), the lights of fishing boats and the loom of the Eddystone lighthouse 12 miles away. Looking up … whatever we get, we get a lot of it here. Clouds? Yes! - but on a clear night the stars spangle the sky in their thousands.
History
The Coach House may well have origins dating back over 1,000 years; its basic layout and proportions are almost identical to those of a known Anglo-Saxon building near Great Hound Tor on Dartmoor. In more recent times, it was used as the coach house (that is, where the coachman lived, along with the coach and horses) for our grandiose – but now ruined – country house 50 yards further down the hill.