The fall through the rock
Eighteen metres of water threading a round hole it has bored in the slate before it fills the basin called the Kieve.
Charlie Marshall — CC BY 2.0 · Charlie Marshall — CC BY 2.0 · Nilfanion — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Nilfanion — CC BY-SA 4.0
The water here does not simply fall; it goes through the rock. The little River Trevillet drops about eighteen metres in all, punching on the way through a round hole it has bored in the slate, and settles in the deep basin the Cornish call a kieve, under a canopy of trees. This is St Nectan's Kieve, one of Cornwall's most photographed natural sights, and unusually for a famous waterfall it looks in real life much as it does online. That is rarer than it should be. Getting there is half the point. You leave the car at an independent pay-and-display on the B3263 at Trethevy (£3 for the day, cash or card) and walk roughly a mile along a path that follows the river up a narrow, lushly overgrown valley the owners like to call temperate rainforest. It is a pleasant, mostly easy half hour, but there are natural and man-made steps, mud, tree roots and loose stones, and the owners are blunt that the walk suits neither pushchairs nor wheelchairs. Waterproof boots are a necessity rather than a nicety: to see the fall properly you have to walk in the stream itself. The woodland is free. You pay only at the admissions point near the top of the glen: £11 for adults and £6 for children aged 5 to 15 in 2026, under-5s free, one carer free with a supported visitor, bought on the day with no advance booking. Around the fall you will see coloured ribbons knotted to branches and little cairns of stacked pebbles. The hermit St Nectan is said to have prayed in a cell above the water some fifteen centuries ago, and people have treated the spot as sacred ever since; the ribbons and stones themselves are a modern custom, better observed than joined. The glen opens daily through the year and always at 09:00. Closing is 18:30 from 1 July to 7 September, 17:00 from February to the end of November, and 16:00 through December and January, with last entry half an hour before closing in every season. The waterfall is at its most dramatic after rain, when the path is also at its muddiest. The Tree of Life Café by the admissions point does tea, cakes and light lunches, and has the toilets. Tintagel Castle is under ten minutes' drive away, so the two make a natural single day; count on about 45 minutes from Newquay and an hour and a quarter from Truro.
Eighteen metres of water threading a round hole it has bored in the slate before it fills the basin called the Kieve.
A free mile of riverside path up a narrow green valley the owners call temperate rainforest, about half an hour each way.
Knotted ribbons and stacked pebbles left at a spot revered ever since the hermit St Nectan is said to have prayed above it.
Trethevy, Tintagel PL34 0BE
The free walk is lovely but shows you nothing of the fall; the whole point is past the admissions point. If you have come as far as the café, pay. If steps and wet ground are a problem, or you are pushing a buggy, skip it altogether and spend the time at nearby Tintagel Castle instead.
From about six or seven, yes, as long as they do not mind getting wet: the path is easy enough, but reaching the fall means walking in the stream, so bring wellingtons. Toddlers in buggies, no; the owners say the woodland walk suits neither pushchairs nor wheelchairs, and carrying a child down and up wet steps is not a good idea.