Self Guided Walking Holidays in
South West England and Wales
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Lanivet
Near enough the mid-way point on The Saints Way, Lanivet is the largest habitation you will find along the whole Eastern leg route to Fowey. The village has basic facilities, including a handy shop, pub, church and cafe and is a pleasant enough stop on the route to the south coast. The Lanivet Inn is over 200 years old and must be the only one in the UK to have a Panda on its inn sign - a proud point for the small village. On the edge of the village, at St Benets Abbey, bamboo was farmed and harvested here before the Second World War and sent to London Zoo to feed the first ever Giant Panda's!
The fine Church is well worth a look, with plenty of Celtic Crosses and carved tombstones, including a rather mysterious ‘Man with a Tail’, said to be on a stone marking the very centre of the Kingdom of Cornwall and a rare hogs backed tomb claimed to be of Viking age.
There are a couple of pleasant B&B's in the village that we use for walkers, along with the option to upgrade to the atmospheric 15 century buildings at St Benets Abbey, which sit in very attractive grounds on the village edge. The impressive clock tower can still be seen in amongst more stone crosses in the undergrowth. Built in 1411, this was an Abbey of the Benedictine order said to have been subordinate to Monte Cassino in Italy and operated as an early medieval hospital for travellers. They picked a tranquil spot, and as it has a tea garden these days you can visit whether you chose to stay there or not. Thomas Hardy penned a poem to the location,"Near Lanivet," when came in 1872, to visit the parental home of his wife to be Emma Gifford.
Evening meals are available at The Lanivet Inn (no bamboo on the menu these days though), and at The Welcome Stranger cafe / restaurant which, whilst doubling as the village fish and chip shop, also does a range of food and wine.