​Lanivet

Near enough the mid-way point on The Saints Way, Lanivet is the largest habitation you will find along the whole Eastern leg route to Fowey.  The village has basic facilities, including a handy shop, pub, church and cafe and is a pleasant enough stop on the route to the south coast. The Lanivet Inn is over 200 years old and must be the only one in the UK to have a Panda on its inn sign - a proud point for the small village. On the edge of the village, at St Benets Abbey, bamboo was farmed and harvested here before the Second World War and sent to London Zoo to feed the first ever Giant Panda's in the UK!

The fine Church is well worth a look, with plenty of Celtic Crosses and carved tombstones, including a rather mysterious ‘Man with a Tail’, said to be on a stone marking the very centre of the Kingdom of Cornwall, and a rare hogs backed tomb claimed to be of Viking age.

For walkers staying here we use the atmospheric 15 century buildings at St Benet’s Abbey, which sit in very attractive grounds on the village edge. The impressive clock tower can still be seen in amongst more stone crosses in the undergrowth. Built in 1411, this was an Abbey of the Benedictine order, said to have been subordinate to Monte Cassino in Italy and which operated as an early medieval hospital for travellers.  They picked a tranquil spot,  and as it has a tea garden these days you can visit whether you chose to stay there or not. Thomas Hardy penned a poem to the location, "Near Lanivet," when he visited the parental home of his wife to be Emma Gifford in 1872.

Evening meals are available at The Lanivet Inn (no bamboo on the menu these days though), and at The Welcome Stranger cafe / restaurant which, whilst doubling as the village fish and chip shop, also does a range of food and wine.