Search for a lodge near Looe and you will get results scattered across half of Cornwall. The useful question is not which town a park is nearest to. It is what you can reach from it, and how easily you can get there in the first place.
South East Cornwall is a small area that behaves like a much larger one. The Rame Peninsula sits at the mouth of the Tamar with Plymouth on one side and the Cornish coast running west towards Looe on the other, which means a single clifftop position can be genuinely close to two very different worlds. That is the case people rarely make properly, so here it is, town by town.
Start with the peninsula, not the postcode
The Rame Peninsula is a dead end. Nothing passes through it on the way to somewhere else, which is why it stays quiet in a county that does not. Locals have called it Cornwall's forgotten corner for years, mostly with satisfaction.
Whitsand Bay Fort sits on the cliff above the four mile sweep of Whitsand Bay, with the South West Coast Path running straight past the gate. Mount Edgcumbe Country Park and the twin villages of Cawsand and Kingsand are both ten minutes away. You can spend a whole weekend here without starting the car.
Near Plymouth: the ferry changes the maths
Look at a map and Plymouth appears to be a long way round. It is not. The Torpoint Ferry crosses the Tamar in about eight minutes, runs twenty four hours a day on three vessels in rotation, and you stay in the car for the whole crossing. Park gate to the Barbican is around twenty minutes.
That gives you a proper city on tap: the Box, the National Marine Aquarium, the Theatre Royal, the Barbican restaurants and the original gin distillery, plus a mainline station and a hospital. It is also the wet weather answer that most Cornish parks simply do not have. More on lodge ownership from the Plymouth side here.
Near Looe and Polperro: the classic Cornish side
Head west along the coast road and you are into the Cornwall of the postcards. Looe is a working fishing port split in two by an estuary, with seafood straight off the boat. Polperro, five miles further on, bans cars from the lower village, so you walk down through slate cottages to a harbour that has barely changed in a century.
The advantage of buying east of both of them is that you visit on your terms. In August you can go on a Tuesday morning rather than sitting in the queue on a Saturday, then be back on an empty beach by lunchtime.
Near Liskeard and Saltash: how you actually get here
Saltash and Liskeard are the road and rail spine of this corner of Cornwall. The A38 runs from the Tamar Bridge at Saltash out past Liskeard, so if you are driving down from the Midlands or the North you come off the M5, down the A38, and turn south for the coast. Both are around half an hour from the park. [CONFIRM drive times]
By train, Plymouth is the nearest mainline station with direct services to London Paddington, Bristol and Penzance, and Liskeard and Saltash sit on the same line on the Cornish side. Liskeard is also the junction for the Looe Valley branch line, which is one of the prettiest short rail journeys in the country and worth doing once for its own sake.
What the position gives you that a postcode search will not
The reason we labour the geography is that it decides what ownership actually feels like week to week. A lodge deep in west Cornwall means a long drive at both ends of every trip and a real commitment before you set off. A lodge here means you can come down for two nights in November without it feeling like an expedition, and that is what separates the owners who use their lodge from the owners who mean to.
It works the same way for guests if you sublet. Easy access, a city twenty minutes away and beaches that are still walkable in February are what keep the shoulder season selling. We have set out the ownership figures honestly in our guide to whether a holiday lodge is a good investment, including what it costs to run.
From the park gate
- Whitsand Bay beach and the South West Coast Path: on foot
- Cawsand, Kingsand and Mount Edgcumbe: 10 minutes
- Torpoint and the ferry slipway: 15 minutes
- Plymouth city centre via the ferry: 20 minutes
- Saltash and the Tamar Bridge: around 30 minutes [CONFIRM]
- Looe: 35 minutes
- Liskeard: around 35 minutes [CONFIRM]
- The Eden Project: 50 minutes
If you want the longer version of what to do once you are here, we have written up six day trips within an hour of the park.
Find us
Whitsand Bay Fort, Donkey Lane, Whitsand Bay, Torpoint, Cornwall PL10 1JZ
Common questions
Where exactly is Whitsand Bay Fort?
On the clifftop at Donkey Lane, Whitsand Bay, Torpoint, Cornwall PL10 1JZ, on the Rame Peninsula in South East Cornwall. The four mile sweep of Whitsand Bay sits directly below the park, with Plymouth Sound to the east and Looe to the west.
How far is it from Plymouth?
Around twenty minutes using the Torpoint Ferry, which crosses in roughly eight minutes and runs around the clock. The alternative route is over the Tamar Bridge at Saltash and back down the A374, which takes longer but is there when the ferry is out of service.
What is the nearest train station?
Plymouth, on the Cornish Main Line, with direct trains to London Paddington, Bristol and Penzance. Liskeard and Saltash are the closest stations on the Cornish side, and Liskeard is the junction for the Looe Valley branch line.
Is it quieter than the rest of Cornwall?
Yes. Nothing passes through the peninsula on the way to anywhere else, so it never picks up the summer traffic that the A30 and the north coast resorts do. You can usually find an empty stretch of Whitsand Bay even in August.
Ready to see where it sits for yourself? Browse our current lodges for sale, read more about lodge ownership in Cornwall, or book a no obligation park tour.