St Austell

St Austell is the nearest major town to PENHAVEN TOURING PARK, and only 3 miles from the campsite. Here you will find all the usual amenities including shops, restaurants, cinema, and an excellent sports centre with indoor swimming pool, sauna, badminton, squash and tennis. The town also boasts a golf course.

Historically, St Austell was the centre of the china clay industry, and the story of this unique Cornish product is told at Wheal Martyn China Clay Heritage Centre, just outside the town. At the moment, you can surf to their site www.whealmartyn.ecc.com, and in the near future you should be able to cycle from PENHAVEN to visit it. The spoil heaps from the mining are now the centre of an innovative millenium project to create a thriving nature reserve from wasteland. The Eden Project involves building several glass 'biospheres' which will house different ecosystems and habitats from around the world.

Also linked to the china clay industry, and St Austell's shipping past, is the historic village of Charlestown. Here, you can literally walk back in time, down Georgian streets to the harbour, where tall ships still moor. In fact the whole village is a conservation area, and so unspoilt that it has been the location for many period television dramas and films, (including the BBCs 'A Respectable Trade', and 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'). The village and harbour's maritime history is preserved and recounted in the Shipwreck, Rescue, and Heritage Centre.