There is a Winston Graham memorial bench at Perranporth. Winston Graham is the author of the popular Poldark TV series in the 1970s, which is still being re-run on the television today on some channels. Set in Cornwall, it was a TV series following a detective as he solved crimes around the county. The new Poldark TV series is being broadcast from March 2015, with a new cast.
Having first moved to Perranporth in his late teens, in 1925, with his parents, in the 1940s Winston Graham rented a bungalow on the cliffs at Perran Sands – the bungalow’s no longer there, but a memorial seat has been erected on the coastal footpath between Newquay and Perranporth, overlooking Perranporth beach. Winston Graham lived in Perranporth from 1925 to 1959.
How to Find Winston Graham’s Bench at Perranporth Sand Dunes
Leaving Perranporth beach on the South West Coast Path, the bench is located on the headland near Cotty’s Point. If you’ve a good Ordnance Survey map, it’s on square SW7555.
Winston Graham Memorial Seat, Perranporth
The memorial bench can be easily overlooked, it’s in a slight hollow and is a simple marble bench, often amongst the grass and flowers if the grass hasn’t been cut lately.
On the front is carved “Poldark Author” and on the rear the carving says “Winston Graham (1910-2003).
There’s also a metal plaque on one end that says:
This seat is in memory of Winston Graham, President of the museum 1985 – 2003. It is at the site of the chalet ‘Lech Garrygy’ where he spent happy times and where he wrote the novel ‘Demelza’.
As a novelist, Winston Graham was not above having an air of mystery about his age. The inscription on this stone, like many of his obituaries, states he was born in 1910 but he was actually born in 1908.
ERECTED BY THE MUSEUM WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF PERRANZABULOE PARISH COUNCIL AND PERRANPORTH GOLF CLUB.
In their later years Winston Graham and his wife Jean, along with their children and grandchildren would holiday in Newquay and stay at the Crantock Bay Hotel in West Pentire.
Winston Graham Genealogy
Full Name: Winston Mawdsley Graham
Date of Birth: 30 June 1908, at Victoria Park, Manchester
Married: September 1939 to Jean Williamson, who died in December 1992.
Children: Two, Andrew and Rosamund.
Death: 10 July 2003, at home in Buxted, East Sussex, aged 95.
Website: http://www.winstongraham.org/
remwbay poldark tv
Image: phillip halling
