Smuggling, Portloe, And The South West Coast Path |
The historic fishing village of Portloe was infamous for its smuggling enterprises.
The South West Coast Path wasn't created for hiking; it was built for law enforcement.The Backstory: During the 18th and early 19th centuries, the British government needed money to fund wars — including the one against those pesky tea-dumping Yanks. So a fundraiser called Taxes on Luxury Imports was held and massive taxes were levied on imports such as tea, brandy, and tobacco.
Now, in the minds of many citizens, brandy and tea and silk and tobacco were not luxuries at all. How to get them without paying those added taxes? Enter the local "Free Traders" (smugglers), who would use the rugged, hidden coves of Cornwall and Devon to land illegal goods under the black of night. In many coastal villages, smuggling was the primary economy. The Path is Born: To combat those nefarious tax-dodgers, the Board of Customs needed a way to monitor every inch of the shoreline. First the Revenue Men and later the Coastguard were sent to patrol the shoreline. Officers were required to walk from one watch spot to the next, day and night. Because they needed to look deep down into every hidden cove where contraband might be landed or hidden, officers ended up creating a path that closely hugged the cliff edges, climbing up to the high lookout points along the headlands, then trudging back down into every tiny inlet. This is why the SWCP is often so much more difficult than an inland trail: it doesn't take the easy way around; it stays on the edge so officers could maintain a constant view of the sea. Traipsing the same route every day, the men eventually wore down a narrow continuous trail along coast and cliff edges. The Legacy: Eventually, this ancient path became the South West Coast Path. The entire 630 miles are protected by England's right-of-way laws, which keep historic paths open to the public even when they pass through private property. You can still see some of the Coastguards' old stone stiles, walls, and cottages along the path. |
Portloe, on the southwest coast of Britain, was a famous smuggling port where goods from France or the Channel Isles (especially Guernsey) were shipped. Large "mother ships" would sit offshore Portloe, and small fast rowboats (galleys) would ferry the tubs of brandy and tea to the slipway.
Portloe's geography — a steep-sided valley with a harbor so hidden it's almost invisible from the sea — made it an ideal destination for smuggling.
Small vessels would bring the contraband up onto the landing. The concrete slipway would have been a hive of illegal activity at 2:00 AM, as locals worked in total silence to clear the beach before dawn.
The goods would then be dragged up the slipway and through the village to wherever the hiding spot was. Many of the older cottages close by had unusually large cellars. These were designed with false walls to store hundreds of tubs of spirits until they could be moved inland.
A famous Portloe legend tells of a time when the Revenue Men seized a smuggler’s boat and chained it to the quay. By the next morning, the villagers had dismantled the boat entirely, hiding the pieces in various cottages, and leaving the officers with nothing but a pile of rusty chains. Smugglers were incredibly sophisticated. When a "Revenue Cutter" (a fast government ship) was spotted, they wouldn't just give up: Facing the Wall: When a smuggling gang moved goods through a village at night, they would often command any locals they passed to "face the wall." This was a legal loophole. If the villagers were called to testify in court, they could truthfully swear under oath, "I saw no one." Since "hearing" wasn't considered enough evidence in 18th-century court, the smugglers would go free.
You can see the path on the far right of this photo. We walked this way (west) heading toward the next village, Portscatho, about 6 miles away. In the 1700s, if you were a Revenue Man standing on this cliff, you'd be looking for the flash of a signal lantern from a boat hidden down in that invisible harbor.
Portloe seen behind Bob and Susanne.
Then we walked the path east, heading to the next village, Goran Haven, about 6.5 miles. This is the exact way the Coastguard would walk; it gave them the best views of the coast.
The path climbs up and up to yet another perfect Coastguard vantage point.
And up some more.
The term "the coast is clear" literally comes from smugglers watching for patrolmen to move to the next section of the path. Smuggling didn't stop because people got more honest; it stopped because the British government eventually lowered taxes. Once the profit margin disappeared, the risk of being hanged or transported to Australia wasn't worth it.
The Coastguards eventually traded their muskets for life-saving equipment, and their patrol path slowly turned into the hiking trail we now know as the South West Coast Path. Today we think of brandy as the main contraband, but in the 1700s, Tea was the big money maker. The tax on tea was so high that it was six times more expensive in England than in Europe. |