Boscastle

Boscastle's Elizabethan quay sits at the head of a winding inlet in an amphitheatre of cliffs on the north Cornwall coast, for most of the 19th century the only harbour along 40 miles of that coast, busy with trade until the railway reached Camelford in 1893. Flash floods in 2004 washed 100 cars out to sea, and the rebuilding kept the village's character. The National Trust owns much of the land around the harbour and runs the shop, cafe and second-hand bookshop on the quay. A cliff path climbs to Willapark, where a white former folly serves as a Coastwatch lookout, and inland the Forrabury Stitches are one of England's best surviving medieval strip-field systems still farmed. The Trust's Boscastle and Valency Valley walk, four moderate miles from the village car park, follows the wooded river Thomas Hardy explored while courting his first wife, and dogs are welcome under close control on the cliffs and through the farmland. Reviewers linger by the stream and on the rocks at the harbour mouth and climb to the lookout. Tips from visitors: the roads in are narrow, and the only parking is the pay-and-display village car park, which charges members too.