Roche Rock Natural Rock Feature View all content for Roche Rock

Roche rock has been on the list for ages, and seeing as my new year resolution was to not make the list longer but to actually start getting to some of the top numbers on the list, hence my trip down to Cornwall with the kids. This place looked great for a number of reasons, like Carl before me I love rocky outcrops, scrambling round, up and over, and in some cases under, it satisfies some need in me, like a childhood rediscovered. I also like old churches, chapels and such, so to find an old chapel perched precariously a top a mini mountain, with more atmosphere than you can shake a barometer at, I was quite literally all over it. Phillippa elected to stay at the hotel and watch some silly movie, so Eric and me took the fifteen minute drive from St Austell up to Roche. We parked on a housing estate just to the north of the rock, barely a five minute walk and we'd passed the less than helpful information board and were making our tentative way up the rocks furthest east. From here you get the best view of the chapel and its little path up to it. We scampered up said path and was confronted by a blank rock face with metal ladders secured into the granite, we ascended into the chapel, a little bit of Gods house, a shed really, it's tiny inside, no weddings here, just contemplation. Inside the chapel are more ladders stuck into the rock, here and there are carved steps, worn smooth with the feet of serious worshipers and the curious traveler alike, not to mention our more distant ancestors. Up the second ladders and your right up on top of the rock, I can well imagine some hermit like robed character sitting up here to serenely enjoy a sunrise or the full fury of a thunder storm, a bit like me actually, a bit. We gingerly descend the makeshift staircase and scramble around on to the next rocky outcrop, from here we can see the full moon rising out of the eyesore clay pit quarry place to our east. we go further round on the rocks until I can get the chapel rock and the moon into the same shot. Tremendous. Doesn't Roche mean rock ? it surely must, so that makes this place called Rock rock, like the river Avon means river river, daft aren't we. Can fully recommend a visit to Roche rock.

Posted by postman 24th August 2013ce

Comments (1)
And Bryn Hill. Great notes.	Posted by thesweetcheat 25th August 2013ce
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