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HomeSourcestelegraph.co.ukWhy Cornwall is the best place in Britain for a wet holiday

Why Cornwall is the best place in Britain for a wet holiday

From its 147 museums and art galleries to its surfable shores, Cornwall is full of rainy day delights

Damp is a perennial problem for everyone in Cornwall, whether you have a house there and you’re trying to air out your bathroom, or you’re a holidaymaker attempting to dry your socks in a tent while the rain hammers down outside. With squalls and storms and fog and fine Cornish “mizzle” forever blowing in off the sea (and this being a peninsula, you’re never far away from it), the county is just constantly wet. Those visiting Cornwall for the first week of the summer holidays this year can attest to as much: the weather has been less than pleasant since schools broke up.

But then, what’s new? Cornwall has always been one of England’s wettest counties (with 1,241mm of rain per year, it sits behind only Cumbria and Devon). Perhaps this explains why, when summer is a washout, the county has more to offer holidaymakers than its staycation rivals. Chief among its indoor attractions is the Eden Project. Set in a disused china clay quarry outside St Austell, its giant geodesic domes house exotic plants from two different biomes: one simulates a Mediterranean environment, and the other contains the largest indoor rainforest in the world. It’s the ultimate rainy day attraction.

But there’s much more. According to TripAdvisor, Cornwall has 147 museums and art galleries, the fifth most of any English county. They include the Tate in St Ives, the Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, and PK Porthcurno, which details the history of global communications (the building housed one end of the world’s first transatlantic telegraph cable). 

You can learn about Cornwall’s maritime and mining heritage at the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, the Polperro Museum of Smuggling and Fishing, and at Geevor Tin Mine near Land’s End. Where better to escape the wet weather than underground? Then there’s the history of Victorian crime and punishment, told in grisly detail at the award-winning Bodmin Jail attraction (a jaunt on the picturesque Bodmin and Wenford steam railway is a good way to recover afterwards).

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