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Information for Visitors and Tourists

Veryan is a wonderful place to visit in its own right but is also an ideal base for exploring Cornwall as a whole.   It is probably best known to the casual visitor for its five 'round' houses, built by Parson Trist in the years between 1815 and 1818 (Two of these are shown on the Home page).   They were built by the Revd Trist, who was a major landowner in the parish, as lodges for his estate.   The estimated cost in 1810, when the design was published as cottages for labourers, was £42.   Local industries included the burning of lime-stone in kilns at Portloe, Pendower beach and Veryan.   Ochre was discovered in Veryan in the late 1800s but was mined for only a short time as it was uneconomic.

The Roseland Visitor Centre at St Mawes has a wealth of local knowledge for the benefit of visitors;  places to stay such as B & Bs, hotels, guest houses, caravan and camping sites.   Activities such as carnival dates, fetes, regattas, club fund raising activities.  Shops;  clothes, shoes, gifts, galleries, food, video hire, etc.

For details check the Visitor Centre web-site:  www.roselandinfo.com

Food and Accommodation

There are a number of hotels, inns, restaurants and bed and breakfast establishments within the parish. For further information, click here to see the listings on our local business information page.

Local Attractions in the Parish

• Carne Beach - a good, clean, safe sandy beach, with a National Trust car-park.
• Carne Beacon - one of the largest Bronze Age burial mounds in Britain, the highest point in the parish at 370 feet above sea level, 125 feet in diameter and 30 feet high.
• Pendower Beach - a good, clean, safe sandy beach, with a National Trust car park.
• Nare Head - road access, a car park and an easy walk to the top, a haunt of the Peregrine falcon and magnificent coastal views.
• Portloe Harbour - a picturesque, tiny coastal village and harbour, still used by some small working boats.
• East & West Portholland beaches (stoney) and beautiful scenery. 
• Gull Rock,together with its outliers, known as the Whelps.    Best seen from Nare Head, a bird sanctuary and part of the parish.
• Veryan Round Houses - five unusual cob (mud) round houses built in the 1820s, 2 at each end of the village and one in the middle.

• South West Coastal Path - a highly attractive section of the South West Coastal Path runs through the parish littoral.

• Trist House Gardens, Veryan - Trist House was the penultimate parish vicarage and was sold by the Church during the late 1980s.   When the present owners took over in 1994 the gardens were overgrown and abandoned to nature.   Set on a hillside and now, after a huge amount of work, surrounded by formal lawns and herbaceous beds around the old house, the five acres of garden spreads out into woodland, sloping down to a little lake and the great rockery, built in the 1840s of huge blocks of quartz-veined rock.   There are two Italian terraces, a croquet lawn, a bluebell wood and a number of themed walks - a 150 foot rose pergola, a hydrangea walk, a magnolia and azalea walk and a small canal leading into a pond.   From the daffodils and tulips in spring, through summer perennials to the hydrangeas in autumn, the Trist House gardens are always full of colour.   The gardens are open every day from 10.00am - 5.30pm until September 15th, there are plants for sale and cream teas are served in the courtyard, shaded by a giant magnolia.   01872 501422 and www.tristhouse.co.uk

 For other ideas, click here to see the listings on our local business information page.

Elsewhere in Cornwall

The Roseland Peninsula

Because the Roseland peninsula is surrounded on three sides by water it has a unique character, a green and pleasant rural area speckled with small and pretty villages and hamlets, in the past traditionally the home of farmers and fishermen and the odd smuggler.   Now it has become popular for its quiet and relaxed atmosphere and is a particular magnet for sailors and walkers - the coastal path around the peninsula provides an unparalleled experience for ramblers.   The main villages are St Mawes, Portscatho, Veryan and Tregony.

Slightly Further Afield  

Undoubtedly the best known is The Eden Project, just outside St Austell and only about 17 miles from Veryan, and now being extended.   Closer to home are The Lost Gardens of Heligan, beautifully restored by the same individual, Tim Smit, who is also the driving force behind the Eden Project.

The impressive new Maritime Museum is in Falmouth,a ferry ride from St Mawes, housing a wide variety of marine artefacts and a tower overlooking the harbour with an underwater viewing room into the (somewhat muddy) harbour. For more information, see the official museum website, or alternatively look here.

For Sailors

The beautiful Fal estuary, said to be the third largest natural deep-water harbour in the world, is only a few short miles  from Veryan, lapping the western side of the Roseland peninsula.   On entering the estuary (the Carrick Roads), turn to starboard (right) for St Mawes and the Percuil river, which is a safe and picturesque haven for yachts and presents a busy and fascinating sight during the sailing season.   The St Mawes Sailing Club has an extensive membership, both local and from other parts of the country, with an attractive and welcoming club-house looking out over St Mawes harbour.  For details of facilities offered, including its excellent and popular training courses for children,  see the club web-site.