In Henry III.'s reign Fowey men rescued some of the ships of the men of Rye, and Fowey was therefore honoured by the Cinque Ports "with armes and privileges." In the time of Edward III. Fowey supplied more ships to the King's Navy than any other port in England, which is an amazing fact. At the Siege of Calais there were forty-seven ships from this little place! The men of Fowey were always known as bold sailors, having been brought up upon the water it seemed their natural element. So stung were the French by the wasps issuing from this nest that they made a descent on Fowey in 1457 when Lady Treffry, whose husband was not at home, led the defence and helped to beat back the attackers to their ships.
In later times Fowey earned a base reputation for being the harbour of pirates and eventually was punished by being obliged to transfer its ships to Dartmouth.
Those who like boating and sea-fishing will find plentiful opportunity here to indulge in both.
BODINNICK FERRY, FOWEY
Just opposite Fowey town a deep bite into the land cuts off a projecting tongue, reached from the west by ferry, and the piled houses upon it, falling down their mountain-side, lack something of the beauty they might easily have had in such a situation. But further down, where at Bodinnick ferry passengers are carried to and fro there is much to admire. Bodinnick is an inland village which has fallen by accident upon a seashore, at least that is the impression it gives. The walls are lined with bladder seaweed, the seaweed that goes "pop" to the delight of children. This hangs in black masses above the incoming water, but over it rise woods and trees, and ivy and ferns, and all the paraphernalia of a country lane. The ivy in fact tumbles riotously down on the top of the seaweed! The cottages, maintaining their balance with difficulty on the perilous slope rising from the ferry, are covered with rose bushes. Candytuft and violets come out in their season to creep over the rough stone walls; white pigeons flutter overhead and glimpses of large-leaved plants of a kind more often associated with a tropical climate, peep at one from backyards. There is nothing conventional or suburban about Bodinnick! It takes no trouble to clear away the bits of broken crockery or rusty tins; perhaps it likes the feeling of homeliness they give, and the sleepy cats appear to like it too.
From Fowey there is one road and only one, which leads across the headland westward to Par sands, but there is a choice of two routes by railway, one running along beside the inlet, which is of course the mouth of the River Fowey, and giving lovely views of the wooded reaches about the mouth of its tributary the Lerryn, which, following the custom of rivers in this district, has a considerable inlet to itself. While Penpoll Creek, nearer the sea, affords a comfortable harbourage even in a very high wind. But the one road and the two railways do not sum up all the ways of getting out of Fowey, for you may persuade the burly round-eyed old salt who has spent his life in crossing and recrossing hundreds of times, to put you over at Bodinnick, and then you can wander at your own sweet will by any of the innumerable tracks over the great rectangle bounded on the west and north by Fowey River (which turns at a right angle about Bodmin Road), and on the east by Looe River. This lump of land is cut up and seamed by valleys and broken by hills. On the sea-line, about halfway across, is the tiny fishing village—really a fishing village this time—of Polperro, than which no quainter thing exists in Britain. You drop down, down, down, to Polperro until you can look up and see the cows grazing high overhead as you might in an Alpine valley, and then you plunge into the miniature confused streets of the town, and following them at random may or may not come out at the little port, and walking along the rude jetty see the outer harbour and the small beach. The smell of fish is strong in the air; the fishing-boats lie in neat rows, supported by legs to prevent their heeling over when the tide runs out. The houses cluster on the steep hillside in terraces, and below them a collection of blue-guernseyed stout-booted men, with wholesome sea-tanned faces, lounge about as if they were the idlest set in Christendom, though their work demands the hardest toil and greatest endurance of any calling man can follow.
Polperro is strangely like a little town in Brittany and has something about it also which recalls the inland villages tucked away in the spurs of the Alps or Apennines above the Riviera. It is easy to imagine that anyone having visited it and trying to recall where he had looked upon such a scene, would search his memory for tours abroad and never think of England.