Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall

The Lizard Peninsula feels quite different from other parts of Cornwall. It is wilder, more exotic. Drive along the main road that runs along its spine and you could be forgiven for thinking this was a bleak, lonely place. A flat, inhospitable, wind-whipped heath of untamed prickly gorse.

But at the peninsula’s coastal edges are magnificent vistas of headland and sea, of sweeping, softly-sanded bays, dramatic cliffs, white-foamed waters raging against jagged rocks, and a succession of postcard-pretty villages clinging to steep hills and huddling into tiny coves. Narrow roads with blind bends weave among high hedgerows bright with foxgloves and wild garlic.

This is mainland Britain’s most southerly point, famed for ship-wrecking storms and gales – yet so warmed by the Gulf Stream that exotic, subtropical plants can thrive. It’s the unusual geology that gives the Lizard its distinctive character. The serpentine – a soft stone with veins of green, red or black that polishes to shiny brilliance – is unwelcoming, its quickly-waterlogged soil low in nutrients. But the surrounding schist and gabbro form deep and fertile soils. Each rock type forms a characteristic scenery.

In spring, swathes of bluebells colour the cliffs and fields of daffodils surprise in their serried ranks of sunshine yellow. In summer, myriad wild flowers cling to crevices and golden gorse blazes against the blue of the sky.

Over the aeons, the sea has burrowed into the dark, steep cliffs, carving out arches and caves. Rare heathers cover ancient uplands where giant tracking dishes communicate with unseen satellites in space. The largest helicopter station in Western Europe operates from the top of the peninsula; at its toe, the great Lizard Lighthouse beams out its warnings to shipping.

This is a secretive, compelling landscape, with tales of heroism, moonlit cargoes and hidden treasure. There’s drama here, whichever way you look.

Tales of the river bank

On the Helford River, tiny villages hug the banks of winding, wooded creeks that probe deep fingers into a darkly green landscape. Wading birds pick their way through mud exposed by the ebbing tide; grey herons stand motionless until they spy their prey. Boats bob on quiet waters. Neat houses display gardens bright with flowers and exotic shrubs. Duchy oysters are farmed here.

Iron Age man knew the river, and left the remains of his scattered encampments as proof; two thousand years later, soldiers set out from its secret beaches for clandestine operations in German-occupied Europe. Daphne du Maurier romanticised Frenchman’s Creek for generations of readers.

Today’s walkers explore woods where bluebells bloom beneath sessile oak, hazel and ash. In summer, they take the foot-ferry that links the river’s banks at the picturebook village of Helford and the Ferry Boat Inn at Helford Passage – a tradition that goes back to medieval times. Until the turn of the 20th century, loaded carts joined passengers on the crossing. The horses swam astern at the end of a rope.

Rare plants and sea life

Rare and unusual plants inhabit the Lizard’s heathland and cliff, including the strangely-named fringed rupturewort, spotted catsear, bloody cranesbill and hairy greenweed. The colourful Cornish heath is found only on this peninsula, its habitat the magnesium-rich serpentine rocks which originated from under the earth’s crust about 400 million years ago. In early summer, high cliffs are bright with squill, vetches, ox-eye daisies, green-winged orchids and wild chives. Inland, violets and orchids carpet the heathland, where hen harriers and barn owls swoop for prey. Dragonflies hover over the primitive stoneworts that survive in open pools.

Great black-backed gulls, guillemots, shags and kittiwakes breed on Mullion Island; grey seals breed in the deep caves near Lizard Head. Pods of dolphins and the twin black fins of basking sharks can often be spotted by clifftop walkers.

Exotic gardens

Trebah and Glendurgan, two glorious gardens not half a mile apart, hug steeply-wooded ravines spilling out at secluded beaches. Both were created by the prosperous Fox family of Falmouth. Quakers with a love of gardening, they used their shipping interests to bring species of trees and plants from all over the world to grow in pockets of microclimate that welcome the tender and the exotic.