The actual village of Nancepean, set in a hollow about a quarter of a
mile from the sea, consisted of a smithy, a grocer's shop, a parish hall
and some two dozen white cottages with steep thatched roofs lying in
their own gardens on either side of the unfrequented road that branched
from the main road to follow the line of the coast. Where this road made
the turn south a track strewn with grey shingle ran down between the
cliffs, at this point not much more than grassy hummocks, to Nancepean
beach which extended northward in a wide curve until it disappeared two
miles away in the wooded heights above the Rose Pool. The metalled coast
road continued past the Hanover Inn, an isolated house standing at the
head of a small cove, to make the long ascent of Pendhu Cliff three
hundred and fifty feet high, from the brow of which it descended between
banks of fern past St. Tugdual's Church to the sands of Church Cove,
whence it emerged to climb in a steep zigzag the next headland, beyond
which it turned inland again to Lanyon and rejoined the main road to
Rose Head. The church itself had no architectural distinction; but the
solitary position, the churchyard walls sometimes washed by high spring
tides, the squat tower built into the rounded grassy cliff that
protected it from the direct attack of the sea, and its impressive
antiquity combined to give it more than the finest architecture could
give.
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