Things to do
What there is beyond the harbour wall, and how far you have to go for it.
People ask me what there is to do here as though the village were a waiting room. There is a garden that was lost for seventy years, a rainforest under a dome in an old clay pit, and a boat across the bay to another harbour town. Start with the walk up to the lighthouse and see how far you get.
On foot from the village
The coast path runs both ways out of Mevagissey: north toward Pentewan, south over Chapel Point toward Gorran Haven. Polkirt Hill is the steep way up and rewards you with the view back over the harbour.
Crabbing inside the inner harbour wall is a reliable family hour, and kits are sold in the village.
Heligan
The Lost Gardens of Heligan are a short drive or a long walk inland — the estate gardens that went to ruin after the First World War and were brought back from a tangle in the 1990s.
The Eden Project
Half an hour away in an old china clay pit: two biomes of plants from across the world, and a zip wire over the top of it.
Across the water
The Fowey ferry runs from the inner harbour in season, and chartered fishing trips go out from the outer wall.
The museum and the aquarium
The Mevagissey Museum sits out on the east arm of the harbour, in an old boat-building shed, and is run by volunteers; entry is free, on donations. It is a good hour out of the rain, and it keeps the village's odder boasts: Mevagissey was among the first places in the country to light its streets by electricity — from a power station on the quay that burned oil pressed from pilchards — and it once printed its own banknotes.
The aquarium, in the old lifeboat station, is free on donations too — small, local tanks of what swims in the bay, from the long-spined sea scorpion to the cuckoo wrasse.
Caerhays Castle
West around the coast, Caerhays is a nineteenth-century castle by John Nash, open to the public in spring when its gardens — famous for magnolias and camellias — are at their best, with the quiet Porthluney beach right below it.
On the water
Beyond the harbour wall there is more than crabbing. You can hire paddleboards at Pentewan, kayak up the Fowey from Golant with a local outfit, or take a chartered fishing trip out of the harbour and barbecue your own mackerel after. East along the coast path, Black Head is a fine headland walk with a good chance of birds of prey.
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.