10 BEST PLACES TO STAY IN CORNWALL

Malcolm Herring bought Blue Hayes Hotel in the year 2000. It was by then a rather rundown B&B on the North Cornish seacoast overlooking St Ives Bay. Malcolm had made his money in IT and wanted very much to move to Cornwall where he could trace his ancestors back to 1580.

Blue Hayes had been built as a private home in the 1920s. The prominent Oxford surgeon, Professor Samuel Whitnall wanted a home by the sea for himself, his wife and their children. They moved in with several staff, including a chauffeur, and the Whitnall children befriended the local farmer whose fields ran below their house. Given the lack of telephones in rural Cornwall in the 1920s cook used to run the Union Jack up the flagpole when they were required home for lunch!

It's believed that Mrs Whitnall named the house Blue Hayes because of the fields of blue poppies she often she saw on the journey down to Cornwall. Hayes comes an Old English word for a field or enclosure.

The Whitnall family moved to Bristol in 1935, and the house had several owners after that.  In 1965 it was turned into an unremarkable hotel – also called Blue Hayes - and so it remained until Malcolm bought it for himself and his family. He wrestled with whether to keep the house entirely for himself or maintain it as a private hotel but after three years of expensive refurbishment, Malcolm opened this upmarket six-bedroom hotel. He admits it would have been cheaper to demolish the old Blue Hayes and build anew but he wanted to retain that link with the past.

Because this hotel is built on a steep slope facing the sea it is three floors down from the car park and lobby to the dining room.  Bedrooms lie off to either side of the staircase, each of them highly individual in shape and layout although cream carpets and blue drapes run throughout the hotel.

There is a bar and dining room on the lowest floor with a terrace that has views of St Ives half a mile away. Below the terrace there is a huge Monterey Pine growing across the lawn. It was actually felled during a storm in 1971 but managed to stay rooted, and now affords great climbing opportunities for Malcolm’s grandchildren when they come to stay. 

Blue Hayes is open from the end of March to the end of October every year. After that the beautiful pale carpets need cleaning for the next season. The hotel only serves breakfasts and supper as Malcolm claims there are so many great places to get lunch around the harbour of St Ives.

On Newquay’s Headland stands what looks like a turreted Edwardian railway hotel – but without its railway (there never was a train connection out as far as The Headland). With its terracotta ornamentation and flocks of starlings sweeping dramatically round a mansard roofline the hotel looks like a film set - and indeed it was used as such in Nicolas Roeg's 1990 film The Witches.  Other visitors of note have included the future kings Edward VIII and George VI when they were at naval college in Dartmouth and Clark Gable who in 1951 filmed the Cold War romance Never Let Me Go in Newquay

This century The Headland decided to expand but rather than spoil the historic lines of its old hotel or build a modern block nearby, the owners commissioned 40 self-catering cottages that would be grouped together between the hotel and the old lifeboat station.

At first glimpse Headland Cottages looks like a traditional Cornish village at the foot of the hotel.  All the buildings have slate roofs and pebble-dash exterior walls painted in a range of pastels, and they’re accessed along a winding narrow street as would be the case in a genuine Cornish village. No two cottages are the same. Some accommodate just two people. Others can run to six. Most are two-storey, with the living room on the first floor for a possible sea view as all have a small balcony or terrace. The decoration inside is as luxurious as the exteriors are spartan, modern four-poster beds, big colourful comfy sofas and a well-equipped self-catering kitchen. There are even flame-effect gas fires if you want to feel cosy in the evenings.

The sea in this part of Cornwall is so lovely you do want it visible from your cottage so check when booking that you have ‘sea view’ as part of your deal, not “sea glimpse”, “coastal glimpse" or “village view”.

And if you don’t want to cook but just want a cottage for the extra space, meals can be taken in the Headland Hotel which offers three dining options: the Deck at the nearby Aqua Club, the terrace to the side of the main hotel, and the Samphire restaurant which is a beautiful, old fashioned place for fine dining.

The Deck is good for poolside food and it has great views over the ocean. There is also a circular lounge inside for colder days. The food is a happy fusion of Cornish and the Mediterranean and three meals a day are served. Also available are sandwiches and all day snacks like spicy flatbreads, locally sourced cured meat antipasti and crispy seasonal salads.

While staying in the cottages, make sure you walk out to the very end of the headland to the coastguard’s old hut which resembles a small white temple. You can also walk into Newquay’s old harbour past the medieval Huer’s Hut where a "huer" was stationed day and night to look out for shoals of pilchards coming into the bay.  His job was to raise a hue and cry so that fishermen could harvest the waters off Newquay. Significantly nine of the Headland Cottages are named Huers – numbers one to nine.

Halfway between Truro and Newquay, in the rural village of Mitchell, there stands an old coaching inn. It has a formal frontage with a white, neo-classical portico mounted on to a much older building. It is unclear quite how old The Plume of Feathers, but its well (that used to supply the whole village of Mitchell) is known to be 450 years old. Today it still supplies the carafes of water that you’ll find on your table at mealtimes.

Twenty years ago the pub was bought at auction by Jackie Fair of Crowndell Consulting Ltd, the company that owns Lewinnick Lodge on Cornwall’s North Atlantic coast. Since then, The Plume has steadily built accommodation up the hill behind it. With a growing reputation for its food, the pub eventually added 20 rooms in what has become known informally as its ‘village’. The village lies behind an vine-clad arch and consists of what look like restored barns and agricultural buildings. One is even called The Hen House. Some have full-length French windows and views, others are cosy with small windows and no views, as would be the case in genuine old farming buildings. All have very modern bathrooms, comfortable sofas and desks.

The real joy of The Plume of Feathers, however, is its food which is supervised by Head Chef Andrew Dudley.

Dining is both in the oldest part of the pub or in its new, airy and bright conservatory. All the old pub rooms have been knocked together, making a free-flowing dining area that surrounds most sides of the bar. It's a common way of maximising space these days, but the low ceiling beams are authentically old as indeed is that water well which is to be found just behind reception. Today it only supplies water to the pub but do ask to be shown it. There is a glass cover so no danger of children falling in!

Breakfast at The Plume of Feathers has no truck with the ‘All You Can Eat- but probably shouldn’t’ buffet. Everything is chosen from the menu which has a succinct range of very well prepared dishes. Food remains the number one priority at The Plume of Feathers and there is an ambitious blend of international dishes on the menu.

[A small word of warning:  there are three Cornish pubs that go by the name Plume of Feathers. Make sure you programme the correct one into your GPS.]

St Michael’s Resort is a 92-bedroom hotel with an impressive health club and spa. It sits just across the road from Falmouth’s ‘Gylly’ Beach, real - name Gyllynguase (Cornish for a shallow inlet).

This former 1920s guest house has been owned for over 20 years by developer Nigel Carpenter. When Carpenter bought the original St Michael’s Hotel in 2001, he called it ‘’a Fawlty Towers’-style property in dire need of a makeover”. Fifty million pounds later he has completely turned around the business. Nowadays St Michael’s is a modern hotel that also runs half the apartments in The Liner, the luxury block next door, whose four bedroom, sea-view penthouse retails at £4,000 a week in peak season.

Currently the resort is undergoing a £100,000 refurbishment for its health club and gym which is the best equipped in Falmouth, if not in all Cornwall. The club has recruited 2,000 local members and offers more than 100 classes a week, all of which are open to hotel guests. There are two large indoor pools, one in the spa and the other in the health club.  The hotel is also planning a number of “spa suites”, two-bedroom cabins that will be built on the lawn below the spa itself.

At the bottom of that same lawn stands the hotel’s outdoor bar. During the summer it is available during cinema evenings with barbeque food and fizz available to purchase.

Meals are served in the Brasserie on the Bay that strives to offer food made from locally-sourced ingredients, and in the more relaxed Garden Room, which has a Mediterranean flavour and its own pizza oven.

The hotel describes the style of its bedrooms as “relaxed luxury”. The colour scheme is coastal classic – a lot of white and sea blue with headboards made of old distressed wood.

Inland from Padstow and tucked away down an unpaved lane in the north Cornish hamlet of Tregonetha, stands a cluster of old farm buildings. One of these, a freestanding barn, has been turned into a five-times award-winning, luxury cottage. In this year’s Cornwall Tourism Awards, Old Barn at Tregonetha picked up Silver for Best Self-Catering Property 2022.

Owners Stephen and Allen continually invest in the property. This year a “nature pond” has been created in the south-facing gardens so that young guests can enjoy its profusion of tadpoles, newts, frogs and small fish. 

Up to five people can be accommodated here in three bedrooms. Old Barn has an electric Aga that wonderfully warms up the beautiful kitchen that Stephen has installed. This is a state-of-the-art country kitchen with drawers and cupboards ready-supplied with spices and condiments, two wine-cooling fridges, two (small) dishwashers and every kind of pot, bowl, and implement you could possibly wish for. The nearby farm, Trewenna Barn kindly provides a starter pack of its own “Elemental” gin for guests, while Stephen himself provides a hamper of exceptional Cornish delicacies such as Boddington Berry jams, Cornish clotted cream, scones (of course), shortbread baked in Redruth and Old Barn’s own handmade chocolate.

The cottage has a delightful living room on its first floor where there is a wood-burning stove, tv and dvd player, plus a baby grand piano (surely a combination unique in UK hospitality). The carpentry throughout is a beautifully finished and the well-chosen artwork is understated and local. This is a place to come back to after a hard day’s sight-seeing, or a cosy spot to hide yourself away completely for a few days in front of that wood-burning stove, reading books and watching dvds.

This November Stephen and Allen are installing a smart TV that will stream Netflix and Amazon Prime however they will retain the Blu-Ray DVD player so guests can bring their own favourites.

While staying at Old Barn be sure to visit the neighbouring farm to purchase their Elemental Cornish Gin. Stephen and Allen’s guests are always offered a discount.