The Old Chapel, Burlawn

Walks

Our favourite local walk from the Chapel offers a number of options ...

Walk through the village and down the hill to the ford.  (You can park here, if you don’t want to walk back up the steep hill at the end on your way back.)  At the ford, go left along the forest path until you come to the River Camel.  The path bends left and you follow the river to Polmorlock Bridge.  From the ford to the bridge is about one mile.  Across the bridge is the Camel Trail, an eighteen mile stretch of cycle and foot path.  You are almost in the middle of it.

On the left, you can walk round the water meadow.  The river is very clear here, so you can see trout and other fish in the water.  This also attracts kingfishers, dippers and other birds.  Overhead, you may see a buzzard or a peregrine.  You can do a circular route through the meadow and back along the trail to the bridge to walk back to Burlawn.  For a longer walk you can continue on the trail to Wadebridge.

If you go right from Polmorlock Bridge, you go towards Bodmin. After two miles, you come to the entrance to Camel Valley Vineyard – they make very good English wines, so well worth a detour. A further half mile in this direction is a tea shop which makes a nice break on a warm day.  And another half mile, you come to Boscarne Junction.  From here, steam trains run to Bodmin General – but do check the timetable if you are planning on doing this.