I must declare an interest here, an amount of Causley blood courses through my veins, I have Causley in my genes though sadly not the one for writing thoughtful poetry. My brother and I have wanted to visit Launceston and do this walk for a while and today was the day!
Launceston is a happy old market town with narrow rambling streets, granite paving slabs, loads of independent retail shops, fab charity shops (don't like to name names, but the St Johns Ambulance may not be the cheapest but it has some glorious vintage pieces in it, while the St Lukes Hospice shop and the Rotary Club shop also have bargains). The one thing to note is that although Launceston looks as if it is pedestrianised, it ain't - traffic comes at you from all sides!
To see the actual route of the walk and read excerpts from the poems the places inspired, go to http://www.charlescausleysociety.org/. We found the church to be fabulously ornate on the outside! The statue of Mary Magdalene was covered in stones, so local customs must continue here. Sadly, we missed the zig zag path completely, but thanks to a helpful lady in the tourist information office, we did find the great man's house. The website states that the walk takes an hour. We took less, but we didn't have the poems at hand to read in full. While I was slightly disappointed, thinking that we would have seen more, the walk did highlight some of the lovely and unusual features of the town.
Yes, we liked it, yes we'll be back to do the town trail, visit the newport area, the castle and the priory and check out those charity shops again...
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