Hawkers Hut - Morwenstow
A little further along the coast from Hartland Quay and just over the Devon border into Cornwall, a narrow road cuts through the fields heading seawards to the village of Morwenstow. Here we found a wonderful old pub, church and vicarage, the former home of Robert Stephen Hawker. The pastor famously appointed himself as the guardian of those drowned along the Hartland coast; a place where wrecks once fetched up so regularly that the majority of local fences were made and repaired from ships timbers.
When Hawker arrived in Morwenstow, he supposedly found himself with a run-down church in a place where smuggling was considered a profession and wrecking a personal right. He successfully set out to change the way of the local people, encouraging them to guide ships to safety instead of luring them onto the rocks to loot.
Around 1844 Hawker took it upon himself to build a lookout hut on the cliff tops, made entirely from shipwrecked wood salvaged from the beaches below. Here he would sit during storms to scour the grey waters for ships in distress. In 1842 a ship called the Caledonia was lost on the rocks at Morwenstow. Hawker buried the bodies of the dead and helped the lone survivor recover. He also retrieved the Caledonia’s figurehead, placing it in the church yard to mark the graves of the captain and crew. After parking up in the village car park, we walked down towards the cliffs via the church, passing a replica of the figurehead that still marks the victim’s graves. It portrays a Scottish girl armed with a cutlass, painted all over in stark white, as though wrapped protectively in a sheet. Venturing inside the old Norman church, we found the original ship’s talisman displayed as part of a memorial. For some 162 years she stood in the churchyard until finally succumbing to the harsh Atlantic conditions, taken away for renovation in 2004. Now back at the church, she echoes the fate of the Caledonia and serves out her years as a land-bound memorial.
About one mile from Morwenstow Church, across the fields and via a gentle cliff top walk to the left, we came across the National Trust marker for Hawker’s Hut, the smallest property the Trust owns. Turning off the main path, a short flight of steps cuts down the side of the cliff leading to a little ledge occupied by the cabin. Built into the hillside and partially camouflaged with a turf roof, it is a simple rectangular bunker-like structure, with slate floors and timber seating. Sitting inside, the stable door protects you from the weather, while the upper hatch opens out to a great wall of water where all land is lost to the horizon. It doesn’t so much look out to sea as the sea looks into it. I found it incredible to think that the ramshackle but sturdy shelter was pieced together from the decorative cabin panelling, hull ribs and rusted pins of ships lost to the sea. Of course, there have been many repairs over the years, but the idea that parts of it have been cast ashore from tragic wrecks, dragged up the cliffside and nailed together by Hawker make it a truly compelling place to hide out in.
For many years Hawker continued his duty of helping ships in distress and recovering corpses from the tide. However, the hut wasn’t only a place for him to wait for ships on the horizon. Retreating away from society and immersing himself in a wild environment was an important part of Hawker’s life. I have read that in 1864 he wrote the following extract in a letter:
‘Very many years ago, before I married, I lived for several months in a kind of hut upon the seashore, with a man who was a kind of half-fisherman half-wrecker; and his house was chiefly wooden, and I went there to study by myself, and what with the situation, the novelty, and the various incidents of the day and the night, I do not think I was ever happier or more occupied with interest than there.’
These remote, rustic shacks to which Hawker fled, were valued as places of solitude and inspiration, making great play of their isolation. On fine days he would sit in his hut composing poetry or indulging his opium habit. Like his friends Alfred Tennyson and Charles Kingsley, Hawker was a poet inspired by the rugged coast here. It was from the hut that he wrote his most famous piece 'Song of the Western Men', now known as the Cornish national anthem. Both Tennyson and Kingsley visited Hawker in his hut, and you can easily picture them debating over a shared pipe while looking out to sea.
Hawker is also known for his many eccentricities. He talked to birds, kept a pet pig as well as a domesticated stag, with cats and dogs frequently forming part of his congregation. Even as a vicar, supposedly the only black item of clothing he wore were his socks. His favoured outfit was a dark pink coat over a blue fisherman’s jersey and yellow poncho, completed with a pink hat and pair of long fisherman’s boots. He is even said to have dressed as a mermaid on occasion, with a wig made from seaweed!
A true eccentric, hermit, poet, hero and social reformer - all in one! What a legacy to leave behind in Morwenstow. Looking out from Hawker’s Hut, it was easy to imagine ships coming to grief here as the waves build and break over the submerged rocks below. It was also easy to see why the hut would be a perfect writer’s retreat, sealed off from the world like a ship in a bottle. In a rough tribute to Hawker, the interior of the hut is now covered with the initials of passing walkers carved into its timbers. We were lucky enough to have the place to ourselves. Alone and undisturbed, we sat and read through the little book of visitor entries of those that have passed by. If you venture here, bring a bottle of wine or flask of something a little warmer and try and time it with the sunset. Facing directly west, this shrine to the solace that Hawker found on the wild and rocky coast, is the perfect spot to watch the sun sink into the sea.