Ford Cottage

Pooh sticks and quiet contemplation

Ford Cottage is a building dating back to the mid-17th century close to Mill House. It seems to have grown out of the Cornish earth that forms its cob walls and, as it name suggests, stands just where the stream slips lightly across the road as it winds its way towards the sea. There was a time when teas were served here to refresh passing travellers. The Cottage has a large, surprisingly high living room with a slate floor and solid fuel stove. It opens onto a large orchard at the back and the stream offers all sorts of possibilities for Pooh sticks, paddling, damming or quiet contemplation from a chair beneath the apple trees.

Your own hamlet

The hamlet of Coombe once belonged in part to the Grenville family of the long-demolished Stowe Barton. Landmark’s presence at Coombe (and only our visitors populate it today) preserves the hamlet and its exceptional setting in a joint scheme with the National Trust, who own most of the surrounding land and coastline (geologically one of the most impressive in Britain). There are long and glorious walks in all directions, and some of North Cornwall’s best surfing beaches are just a short drive away.

All of the properties are available to rent either individually or in any combination and many family groups return year after year.

See all our Landmarks at Coombe

The cross passage ran through the current bathroom. There were once stairs against the back wall of the sitting room. Soon after 1914, a tearoom was run in Ford Cottage, which continued right up to Landmark’s acquisition of the Cottage in 1966.

The first known reference to Coombe is in 1520, but the mile of sheltered valley running inland from Duckpool has been lived in continuously from very early times. A decayed earthwork in Stowe Woods at the head of the valley is an Iron Age fort and the hidden site of the hamlet is typical of ancient habitations in Cornwall. Although the earliest of the existing houses date only from the 17th century, they are likely to stand on older sites. The hamlet lies on the southern edge of the parish of Morwenstow. It was until recently divided between two landowners. The land west of the stream belonged from the 1540s until 1922 to the Duchy of Cornwall, as part of the manor of Eastway. The land east of the stream was originally part of the manor of Northleigh, or Lee, which until the Elizabethan period was owned by the Coplestone family, but soon afterwards passed to the Grenvilles of Stowe on the hillside above. It remained part of the Stowe estate until 1949.

Coombe is listed as one of the ‘principal villages’ of the parish of Morwenstow by Daniel Lysons in Magna Britannia Vol. III, published in 1814. This makes it sound quite big and indeed it was once much larger; in the middle of the 19th century there were between 12 and 15 households here, but by 1891 these had shrunk to just three. By the beginning of the 20th century Coombe had become a favourite stopping place for walkers, gaining a mention in most Cornish guidebooks from the 1890s onwards. Official recognition of its landscape came in 1930 when the Council for the Protection of Rural England recommended that the whole of Coombe Valley, along with the coastal path, should be preserved as a place of outstanding natural beauty. It was another 30 years before this hope was realised, but in 1960 the National Trust acquired the first of several holdings, on the south side of the valley. Between 1966 and 1969 the hamlet itself was bought by the Landmark Trust, as part of a joint scheme with the National Trust, to preserve it and its exceptional setting.

Ford Cottage

Ford Cottage, or the Tea Rooms as it was in 1966, had been re-thatched by Mr Parker, the wide door filled in and most of the windows renewed then or a year  or two earlier - one window had been washed out in the flood of 1958, leaving a  gaping hole.  

Although the Tea Rooms were much loved, to make money they would  have had to attract more business, and it was doubtful that this would be to Coombe's long-term benefit. The general feeling was that it was now time for the building to become a cottage again. This was done 1968-9. Some repairs were needed to the walls, after  which they were limewashed like the Mill House, with care being taken not to damage the Japonica.  

The haphazard arrangement of windows and doors in the front was preserved: while there was a temptation to simplify, the character of the building, as evolved over time, would have been lost. Inside, a new kitchen was made at one end of the tea-room, roughly occupying the position of the original hall-cum-kitchen; and the main living  room was given a lower ceiling.  

New bedrooms and bathrooms were fitted into other end, but keeping the old workshop windows where they survived. No amount of work can defend against the forces of nature, however. The occasional tendency to flood remains:  in 1993, new electrics and decorations were needed after a thorough soaking, thankfully a less serious one than in 1958. New drains have been dug round the building, which we hope will divert the water in future, but it may be another 25 years before they are tested.