The Day of Saints - Day 2, Setting Out

A few months ago, my wife and I finished walking, in short stages, around the Cornish coastline. It was with a strange serendipity that our final leg was in to Morwenstow. As we were crossing the fields on the last half mile we passed Hawker's Hut, the National Trust's smallest built property, and where Revd Robert Hawker, vicar of the parish, would sit and think and compose his poems. Though not previously considered, it struck me then that this would be just the place to begin my exploration around Cornwall, and my attempt at setting some of it down in poetry. Hence, today after some general preparation and planning I drove across to the little car park next to the parish church there, co-dedicated to St Morwenna and St John the Baptist and set off for the hut.

Revd Robert Hawker's self-built cliff-top hut.

This morning before I set off I happened to read an interesting paragraph on sanctuary in a book on contemporary monasticism. It seems very apt to quote;

"God gives you the plan and he shows you how to build it. No one can do it for you; each sanctuary is part of the same divine plan and yet each is different, personal to the one who dwells in it. It is unique because the sanctuary-dweller is also the sanctuary-builder." (Finding Sanctuary -Monastic Steps for Everyday Life , Jamison, C. OSB W&N 2006, p.29)

I'm not sure quite what this says about Hawker, though the hut does ooze uniqueness and eccentricity (Jamison is writing about the interior life, of course).

The walls inside are covered with years of carved in graffiti which only adds to the character of the place. I sat there and began to write some lines using one of Hawker's own poems about a nearby ancient well ('The Well of St John' from Cornish Ballads) as a starting point. More of that when it is finished.

Graffiti carved on the inner walls of Hawker's Hut

After acting as an impromptu guide to some puzzled ramblers wondering what the place was, (I felt well armed to 'share' adding in what I was doing there) I moved off to look out to sea and the cliffs, and look for inspiration or traces of St Morwenna in the landscape. There was precious little to find, but the jade sea, blue sky and stiff breeze made even carry my heavy camera gear up and down the coast path a pleasure.

Rocky scarification on the shoreline below Hawker's Hut

More from Morwenstow tomorrow.