It is a famed beginning to a classic novel: “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me.”
Last fall, I went looking for the “secretive and silent” Manderley mansion described in Daphne du Maurier’s eerie 1938 best seller, “Rebecca,” but the way was also barred to me: The darkly Gothic house is a fiction.
But it was the scenery and history of Cornwall, a county in southern England, that inspired “Rebecca” and many of du Maurier’s other works, including “The Birds,” “Jamaica Inn” and “The House on the Strand.”
In her 1989 book, “Enchanted Cornwall: Her Pictorial Memoir,” the London-born du Maurier wrote that Cornwall was where “I found myself both as a writer and as a person.”
Having enjoyed many of the film adaptations of her works, I decided to reread several of her novels then go in search of sites that still spoke of du Maurier. A friend and I based ourselves in a rental property in Fowey (pronounced FOY), where the writer lived for decades and where fishing and smuggling once were the leading industries. Today it’s a hilly harbor town of pastel cottages, cafes, shops and hotels offering Cornish cream teas.
Cornwall is a tourist magnet for people seeking sandy beaches, hiking trails and surfing waves alongside a dose of arts venues such as the Tate St. Ives. But visitors to Fowey come not only for the town’s scenic location along a deep estuary that feeds into the English Channel, but also for its Du Maurier Fowey Literary Festival in May, and its royal sailing regatta in August.
For our off-season visit, we took a four-hour train ride from London Paddington station to Par, followed by a 20-minute bus ride into Fowey, arriving in the midafternoon, just in time for tea.
‘Piping-Hot’ Scones and Scary Birds
Even the scones have a du Maurier link. The unnamed, haunted narrator in “Rebecca” recalls “the laying of the tea” at half-past 4 at Manderley: “Those dripping crumpets, I can see them now. Tiny crisp wedges of toast, and piping-hot, floury scones.”
For us, at the cozy Brown Sugar Cafe in the center of town, it meant 8.5 pounds (about $11) for an enamel teapot of Earl Grey; two fluffy scones served with strawberry jam and clotted cream, and a free lesson in Cornish etiquette. A British couple at the next table explained that unlike in neighboring Devon, in Cornwall one puts the jam on the scone first, followed by the cream. So we followed suit.
Afterward we scanned the shelves at Shrew Books, with its extensive collection of paperback du Maurier titles, and bought a £2 postcard at the Pebble & Salt gift shop showing du Maurier in 1931 rowing a boat in front of Ferryside, the home where she wrote her first book, “The Loving Spirit.”
Strolling along the waterfront toward a setting sun, we passed signs for boat trips and Fowey’s somewhat startling homage to du Maurier — a galvanized steel statue of a hulking bird with a dagger-shaped bill, called “Rook With A Book,” by the father-and-son sculptors Gary and Thomas Thrussell. The rook’s talons grip a carved copy of her suspenseful short story “The Birds.” Du Maurier set the terrified family in rural Cornwall after seeing a farmer on a tractor with sea gulls circling overhead and wondered what would happen if they attacked him. (When Alfred Hitchcock directed the 1963 film, he switched its location to Northern California.)
The Hall Walk
The Hall Walk is a nearly four-mile, up-and-down route said to be one of du Maurier’s favorites for dog-walking. It seemed a must. We hired a guide, Lucy Daniel, paying £70.49 for two, including two short ferry rides and a small discount for arriving in Fowey by public transport.
We met Ms. Daniel near the car ferry that would take us across the estuary to Bodinnick village, giving us a clear view of Ferryside, a white gabled, waterfront house with bright blue shutters that is still owned by du Maurier’s family.
The dirt trail, starting behind the house, wended mostly though wooded areas dotted with wildflowers. We soon reached a pillar that serves as a memorial to local men who died in World War II. Later, Ms. Daniel pointed out a granite obelisk known as the Q Memorial, commemorating Arthur Quiller-Couch, the author and scholar who was a friend and mentor to du Maurier. The views over the distant hills of the estuary and across to Fowey were long and lovely.
At what seemed like the halfway point, we trod downhill to the hamlet of Pont Pill, at the edge of a creek. I wanted to see the Anglican Church of St. Wyllow in Lanteglos where du Maurier and her husband, Maj. Frederick “Tommy” Browning, were married.
The church, with parts dating to the late-14th century, features a 70-foot-tall square tower, a cemetery with lichen-covered tombstones and, inside, stone arches, carved wooden pews and stained-glass windows behind a simple altar. (Du Maurier herself was cremated and her ashes scattered into the Cornish waters.)
Du Maurier quoted the officiant on her wedding day as saying, “You will embark on a fair sea, and at times there will be fair weather and foul. Never lose courage. Safe harbor awaits you both in the end.”
Under our own fair-weather skies, the path sloped downhill through the edges of another village, Polruan, then onto a dock to catch a different ferry back to Fowey.
‘House of Secrets’
The next day we walked to the Harbor Hotel Fowey for a full afternoon tea service (£25 per person), sitting at a window table with panoramic views across to Polruan.
Our triple-tiered display included scones with their de rigueur clotted cream and jam; truffled chicken and smoked salmon sandwiches; carrot cake and other sweets; all washed down with tea and a glass of Moët & Chandon Champagne for an extra £13.
I hoped it counted as brain food: That evening we would commune with the locals at the Safe Harbour Inn’s pub quiz over a pint of Cornish pale ale.
While many du Maurier sites are reachable by foot, on our final day in Fowey, a friend offered to drive us to places that figure in “Jamaica Inn” and “The House on the Strand.”
First we drove to the entrance of a road marked “strictly private.” We went no farther. This was the Menabilly estate, where du Maurier lived from 1943 to 1969. One of the inspirations for Manderley, she described it as “The house of secrets. The house of stories.” (Visitors can’t stay at the Menabilly house, but they can rent cottages on its grounds.)
We drove on to another gate, the entrance to a private house called Kilmarth, where du Maurier later lived, inspiring her to write “The House on the Strand,” in which the narrator, Dick Young, is persuaded to test a drug that transports him to the 14th century.
Our final stop was on the inland Bodmin Moor, the setting for “Jamaica Inn,” du Maurier’s 1936 novel about shipwreckers that was made into a 1939 movie by Hitchcock and a 2014 BBC series, starring Jessica Brown Findlay of “Downton Abbey” fame.
Today’s Jamaica Inn, a former 18th-century coaching inn turned pirate-themed pub and hotel, hosts murder mystery events and what it calls “paranormal investigations.”
In peak season, it may be impossible to miss the busy parking lot and the kitschy sign of a sinking ship and an eye-patched pirate with a parrot on his shoulder. You’ll be forgiven for hesitating. But the Smuggling Museum and its du Maurier room were worth the £3.95 admission.
Here are photos of the writer sitting on rocks by the water; with her children in front of Menabilly; tending a fireplace inside the house. There is also a version of her writing room with a mahogany desk and a box of Canadian du Maurier cigarettes, a brand named after her father, the actor Gerald du Maurier.
Du Maurier died in 1989 at age 81, having written in her diary that “The real me is at Fowey, not London where everyone fusses.”
“Here was the freedom I desired, long-sought for, not yet known,” she wrote. “Freedom to write, to walk, to wander, freedom to climb hills, to pull a boat, to be alone.”
And what of Manderley? The narrator in “Rebecca” says: “We would not talk of Manderley, I would not tell my dream. For Manderley was ours no longer. Manderley was no more.”
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Susanne Fowler is a former editor in the London and Paris offices of The New York Times.
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