The year in Mevagissey
Mevagissey keeps a calendar older than any printed one: the tide, the fishing season, and the saint's day the village never let go of. Almost nothing here runs to a fixed date you can trust a year out — the ferry waits on the weather, the fish keep their own time, and the festival hangs on the week St Peter's day falls in. So this is the shape of the year, not a diary. Come in late June for the noise, in autumn for the fishing and the light, in winter for an empty harbour and a choir — and check the links before you travel.
One note on the tides, all year
The biggest tides — the spring tides — come around the new and full moon, roughly twice a month, in every season. They give the lowest low water (best for the beaches and the rock-pools) and the highest high; a spring high with a storm behind it is when the harbour has been known to flood.
Tide timesHeligan comes into colour
From late MarchThe Lost Gardens of Heligan, a short way inland, open their spring with the great early magnolias, then the camellias and rhododendrons of Flora's Green — the first real colour of the Cornish year.
The car park half empty and the big trees already out; spring here runs a few weeks ahead of most of England.
The ferry wakes up
Usually from about the start of MayThe Mevagissey–Fowey passenger ferry starts its season — usually May to early October, weather permitting; it does not sail in bad weather. The exact start-up moves with the spring weather.
The first crossings of the year, the village dropping away behind you from the water.
The pots go back out
As the water warms, spring onwardCrab and lobster potting runs through the warmer half of the year; egg-carrying 'berried' females go back over the side.
The working boats out at first light and the pots stacked on the quay by afternoon.
Spring was the mending season — nets, pots and paint, the boats made ready while the weather still had its teeth in. Nobody was idle. There was just no money in the water yet, so you made do on what the winter had left you, and waited.
Mevagissey Feast Week
The week around St Peter's day, late JuneThe village's own week, kept since the 1750s (St Peter is the fishermen's saint; the village took him as patron then). It usually opens with Fish Sunday — local food cooked on the harbour and an auction of the catch — with the Tosher's Race, a fishing-boat race round the bay; a children's crabbing competition mid-week; and through the week bands, choirs, hymn-singing through the streets, a flora dance, a raft race in the harbour and an RNLI display. The final Saturday usually brings a village fete, the Carnival parade, and a firework finale over the harbour. It is community-funded, so confirm the programme is running before you build a trip around it.
The whole village turned out, the boats dressed, the quay too full to walk — and then the sky over the harbour going up in colour.
We kept St Peter because he was ours — the fisherman's saint. The feast was his day, and if the pilchards happened to be in, better still: we'd eat for once on what we'd otherwise have sold.
The male voice choir on the quay
Evenings through AugustMevagissey Male Choir (formed in 1974, forty-odd singers) gives free evening concerts on the quayside across August.
The harbour going quiet to listen, the sound coming back off the water and the houses behind.
Mackerel, and boats out of the harbour
SummerMackerel run close inshore in summer; you can take a self-drive or a mackerel trip from the harbour, and crab for an hour off the inner wall with a line and a bucket.
Four fish on a line at once on a good evening, and a row of anglers all bent over the wall together.
The sardines begin
The season opens around JulyThe Cornish sardine (the grown pilchard) season gets going in summer and builds toward autumn; Mevagissey is one of the main ring-net ports, working Mevagissey Bay.
The ring-net boats slipping out in the evening with the gulls already on them.
Summer was everyone's work, children and all — someone had to carry the fish, mind the little ones and keep the pot on the fire. I don't believe I sat down between May and September, and I'd not have known what to do with myself if I had.
The sardine season at its best
Autumn into early winterCornish sardines are at their peak in autumn and early winter; this is the back end the fishing year has always leaned on, the ring-net boats out of Mevagissey Bay most nights the weather allows.
The catch coming in after dark and the softer autumn light on an emptier quay.
The Sea Shanty Festival
Usually mid-OctoberA weekend of shanty crews singing around the harbour and the pubs. The dates are set each year, so check before travelling.
The last big weekend before the village folds up for winter, every pub loud with it.
The ferry's last crossings
The season closes around the start of OctoberThe Fowey ferry runs its final sailings; after this, crossing the bay waits for next May.
An empty slip and the bay to itself again.
Autumn was when the year was made, or it wasn't. A good run of fish in the back end carried you through to spring; a bad one, and you found out what the winter was really for.
The Christmas lights on the harbour
Usually late November / early DecemberThe village switches on its Christmas lights with a gathering on the harbour — carols, mulled wine, and Santa arriving by boat. It is a community event; confirm the date through village and parish channels each year.
The one evening the dark months fill the quay again, and a boat coming in lit up.
Carols and the choir
DecemberMevagissey Male Choir sings through Advent — carol evenings and pub sing-songs around the parish.
The sound of it down a cold street before you reach the door.
Eden in winter, half an hour away
Roughly late October – early JanuaryThe Eden Project runs its ice rink and 'Christmas at Eden' light trail through the winter; its summer Eden Sessions concerts are the other end of its year.
Skating under the biomes with the clay-pit dark all around.
The quiet months, and the weather
November – FebruaryThis is the low, quiet season: short days, Atlantic storms, many places closed or on winter hours, and the spring-tide flood risk at its sharpest when a storm meets a high. It is also when the village is most itself.
An empty harbour, the boats hauled up, and the sea doing the talking.
Winter was the long wait. We mended what others threw out and ate well on what they wouldn't — and there was always singing, because it cost nothing and kept the dark off.
A self-catering cottage in St Austell Bay with sea views, a large garden and parking, close to the beach and the coast path. Book direct with the owner.
Book direct with the ownerMevagissey Harbour — a guide to the village, the bay and the people who worked it.