Mousehole

Dylan Thomas married Caitlin Macnamara, from County Clare in Ireland, in nearby Penzance Registry Office in July 1937, against the wishes of his parents. The pair honeymooned in Mousehole, which Thomas described as ‘the loveliest village in England’. Mousehole (pronounced ‘Mowzel’) is indeed the epitome of a Cornish fishing village. Accounts vary as to the derivation of the name of Mousehole, originally the village was named Porth Enys, ‘port of the island’, a reference to St Clement’s Isle, a low, bare reef that faces the village a few hundred yards offshore. Its present name may have been taken from a smugglers’ cave just south of the town. Certainly visited by Phoenician tin merchants in around 500 BC - it is also thought that the village’s name could have been derived from the Phoenician word for ‘watering place’ - Mousehole has a long and sometimes disturbing history. Some 2,000 years after these first known visitors, the Spanish arrived and ransacked the village in 1595, leaving only the former manor house, now known as Squire Keigwin, in Keigwin Street relatively unscathed. The rest of the village and the church in nearby Paul were torched. However, this attack was not totally unexpected by the villagers as they saw it as the fulfilment of a prophecy made by Merlin that can be seen inscribed on Merlin’s Rock, near the quay. The stone bears these words:

‘There shall land on the Rock of Merlin
Those who shall burn Paul,
Penzance and Newlyn.’

The village was rebuilt and went on to become an important pilchard fishing port until the stocks of fish dwindled in the early 20th century. Every year just before Christmas, a Stargazy Pie - a local specialty made with whole fish whose heads stick up through the pastry crust - is made in commemoration of Tom Bawcock, a local fisherman who saved Mousehole from starvation by setting sail in a storm and bringing home a large catch of seven varieties of fish. 

Less fortunate were the eight man crew of the Penlee lifeboat, the Solomon Browne, who were lost in hurricane conditions while attempting to rescue the last four crew members from the coaster Union Star, after it suffered engine failure in December 1981. There were no survivors from the Union Star, in total there were 16 casualties. The Penlee Lifeboat Disaster Memorial commemorates those who lost their lives.

On the cliffs at Raginnis Hill is the Mousehole Wild Bird Hospital & Sanctuary. It became famous following the Torrey Canyon oil tanker disaster off the west Cornish coast in March 1967 when over 8,000 oil-affected birds were treated.

Half a mile inland, at the top of steep Mousehole Hill, the churchyard wall at Paul holds the Dolly Pentreath Memorial. Dolly Pentreath died in 1777, aged 102, and was reputedly the last person to speak the Cornish language, Kernewek.