Sailing oyster boats lead Cornwall’s most popular walks this week

Out on the water below the Roseland, a fleet of oyster boats is still working under sail, the only fishery in Europe that does the whole job that way. The footpath that runs along that stretch of water has turned out to be the most walked route in Cornwall this week.

iWalk Cornwall has shared its most-walked routes for the week. The five take in the Roseland peninsula, the creeks above Truro, ancient woodland near Camborne, a wooded corner of the Helford, and the waterfalls and rock carvings behind Tintagel.

Every route here comes from the iWalk Cornwall app, which we rate highly. This is not a paid partnership, we just think it is the best way to walk Cornwall. Each walk carries hand-written directions, GPS guidance that tracks your progress and warns you when you stray, and a pile of local history and wildlife notes for the ground under your feet. Distances and grades are a guide rather than a promise, and the practical notes below come from iWalk Cornwall’s own route pages.

1. St Just-in-Roseland to St Mawes

• Location: St Just-in-Roseland to St Mawes, on the Roseland peninsula
• Parking: at the start point near St Just-in-Roseland church, which the app directs you to by satnav (confirm car park and postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: yes, with a note on the stiles. Four wooden stiles come towards the end of the route. Medium dogs can squeeze under them, larger dogs may need a hand over. Summers beach has seasonal dog restrictions
• Café: yes, plus two pubs on or near the route, The Rising Sun Hotel and The Victory Inn
• iWalk Cornwall Route: St Just-in-Roseland to St Mawes
• Distance: 6.1 miles / 9.8 km
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Highlights: St Just church in its subtropical gardens, views over Carrick Roads and the Percuil River, the Tudor castle at St Mawes, Summers beach

Walk Description: The longest route on this week’s list, and the one with the most going on. It starts at the church at St Just-in-Roseland, which sits in subtropical gardens running down to the creek, then works its way along Carrick Roads to St Mawes and its Tudor castle. Carrick Roads is where Europe’s only fishery working entirely under sail still catches oysters by traditional methods, which is a large part of why the stocks are still there. One thing to know before you go. The footpath along the Percuil River after direction 26 is closed at the moment because of a landslip, and iWalk suggests Polvarth Road as a way round it, with a footpath from Percuil View rejoining the route at direction 29. Most coastal walks in Cornwall run close to unfenced cliffs, and this is one of them.

2. St Clement and Malpas

• Location: St Clement and Malpas, on the creeks just outside Truro
• Parking: at the start point the app directs you to by satnav (confirm car park and postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: yes. All the stiles have dog gates. There are three fields on the route that are sometimes used for grazing cattle. The first flight of steps down to Sunny Corner is steel mesh and some dogs struggle with the gaps, though there is a second, solid flight down to the quay a little further along the road
• Café: yes, and a pub on the route, The Heron Inn at Malpas
• iWalk Cornwall Route: St Clement and Malpas
• Distance: 3.8 miles / 6.1 km
• Difficulty: Easy-moderate
• Highlights: views across the creeks and over Truro, wading birds including curlews, a mediaeval church with a Celtic stone inscribed in Ogham, a holy well

Walk Description: A short circuit around the meeting point of the Truro and Tresillian rivers, ground that was once guarded by Moresk castle. Later it was working water, where timber for the mines was unloaded and floated up to Truro in rafts. The church at St Clement holds a Celtic stone carved in Ogham, the early Irish script of notches and lines, and there is a holy well nearby. Some of the paths are narrow and laced with tree roots, and iWalk suggests boots in the drier months and wellies in winter, when it gets properly muddy.

3. Giant’s Quoit and Pendarves Wood

• Location: Carwynnen and Treslothan, near Camborne, west Cornwall
• Parking: at the start point the app directs you to by satnav (confirm car park and postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: yes, with conditions. Cornwall Wildlife Trust asks that dogs are kept under effective control in Pendarves Wood Nature Reserve, and a short lead works best for keeping them on the paths and out of the undergrowth, where the wild garlic is poisonous to dogs. There are four wooden stiles. Most medium dogs can squeeze under three of them and large dogs may need lifting through. The fourth sits on top of a stone coffin stile with less room underneath
• Café: none listed on the route
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Giant’s Quoit and Pendarves Wood
• Distance: 4.4 miles / 7 km
• Difficulty: Easy-moderate
• Highlights: Carwynnen Quoit, also known as the Giant’s Quoit, bluebells in Stennack woods, Treslothan church and its Victorian mausoleum, bluebells and rhododendrons in Pendarves Woods in early spring

Walk Description: This one starts in a tiny village the Victorians designed, runs through ancient woodland that was once part of the Pendarves Estate, and finishes at a prehistoric tomb that has fallen down twice over the centuries and is standing again today. Two things to watch. You have to duck under a wooden pole about three feet off the ground on the way out of the fields, and the stream crossing into Pendarves Wood is a line of uneven stepping stones with nothing to hold onto. A walking pole helps with the balance, and the stream is usually shallow enough to wade in wellies instead.

4. Constantine to Scott’s Quay

• Location: Constantine, above the Helford River, near Falmouth and Helston
• Parking: at the start point in Constantine the app directs you to by satnav (confirm car park and postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: yes, and the easiest of the five on that front. Both stiles on the route can be bypassed through a gate or a gap
• Café: none listed, but there is a pub on the route, The Cornish Arms
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Constantine to Scott’s Quay
• Distance: 4.1 miles / 6.6 km
• Difficulty: Easy
• Highlights: bluebells and celandines in Bosahen Woods in spring, views over Polwheveral Creek, wildlife in the woods and on the creeks, the 15th century church at Constantine

Walk Description: The gentlest walk on the list and the only one graded Easy. It loops out of Constantine, drops through Bosahen Woods and comes out on the creek off the Helford. It is quiet ground now, all trees and water and birds, but in Victorian times this was a working corner with quarrying and mining going on around it. Nature has taken the lot back. Go in spring and the woods run with bluebells and celandines.

5. Bossiney, St Nectan’s Glen and Rocky Valley

• Location: Bossiney, near Tintagel, north Cornwall
• Parking: at the start point near Bossiney that the app directs you to by satnav (confirm car park and postcode)
• Dog-Friendly: yes. Dogs are allowed at Bossiney Haven all year. The one to plan for is the stile at direction 5, which is stone footholds up a five foot wall and difficult for most dogs. There is a gateway joining the same two fields about 50 metres to the right
• Café: yes, the café and toilets at St Nectan’s Glen can be reached without paying the waterfall admission
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Bossiney, St Nectan’s Glen and Rocky Valley
• Distance: 3.9 miles / 6.2 km
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Highlights: the woodland walk through St Nectan’s Glen, the waterfall at St Nectan’s Kieve, the labyrinth carvings in the ancient woods of Rocky Valley, ruined mills, coastal views over Willapark and Darvis’s Point, the sandy coves at Benoath Cove and Bossiney Haven

Walk Description: The most atmospheric route of the five. It threads the woods of St Nectan’s Glen, past the waterfall at the Kieve, then down through the canyons of Rocky Valley where two labyrinth patterns are cut into the rock beside the ruins of old mills. The last stretch runs along the coast above Benoath Cove and Bossiney Haven. The waterfall carries an admission fee, though the café and toilets do not. Note that the path down to Bossiney Haven beach is currently closed, which does not affect the route itself, only the optional detour to the sand. Parts of the coast path here run close to unfenced cliff edges.

Plan your walk

The reason we keep pointing people at iWalk Cornwall is that it takes the stress out of the bit that usually goes wrong. Every route has hand-written directions that are kept up to date, GPS guidance that beeps when the next instruction is due and warns you if you wander off route, and a map showing where you are and which way you are facing. Once a walk is downloaded it works offline, with no phone signal needed, which matters more than you would think in a wooded valley or out on the coast path.

To say it again plainly, this is not a paid partnership. The app itself is free from the App Store and Google Play, and you buy only the individual walks you want. The full set now runs to 314 routes across the county, which is a lot of Cornwall left to get through.