‘Sketching on the Helford’

Glendurgan

Today I am down in the romantic Helford River Estuary, visiting the National Trust garden of ‘Glendurgan’. After having had our member’s cards examined first to park the car and then at the entry point, we were allowed in. This system was holding up cars to be parked and everything was backing up along the drive, but the NT seems to like doing this sort of thing.
Anyway, once we were in Glendurgan it was, of course, lovely with all the spring flowers out. R greatly enjoyed the maze and ‘prehistoric’ tree ferns. The NT team also had a nice set of bird-spotting cards for children to take with them too. R enjoyed the maze so much that we had to go around it twice.

Sketching

The nice thing about Glendurgan is that you can walk out of the bottom of the gardens down into Durgan village, which is on the shore of the Helford Estuary.

Toll Point

Watercolour washes and pen ~ A4
As it’s low tide we traversed around the rocks of Durgan beach to the quieter Grebe beach. Having our lunch there. This is the view of Toll Point and the river mouth.

Materials Used

These sketches are in an A4, Daler Rowney, Red & Yellow cartridge pad. I used my small Winsor & Newton, watercolour field paint box, with a sable brush, no.6. I also used a black brush pen, waterproof fineliner pen, and a 6B pencil.

Durgan Beach

Brush pen and watercolour wash ~ A4

Helford River

At this point, it is the main river channel, but Helford River is fed by several streams leading into its creeks. The best-known is Frenchman’s Creek, made famous by Daphne du Maurier. Historically the river has been an important highway for local mines, farms and quarries. However, that heavy industry has now mostly disappeared and has been replaced by tourism.
The river is unusual in that it is not wholly managed by a specific port or river authority, but falls under three conservation bodies, Special Area of Conservation, Site of Special Scientific Interest and Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. These environmental groups introduce and recommend safeguards that try to protect the river as we see it today.

Conclusion

A very pleasant way to spend the day, pottering about in Cornwall.