St Nectan’s Glen beauty spot, upgrades tech – Case Study
St Nectan’s Glen, an award-winning site, approached an award-winning supplier. They needed full support for their system, updates to the latest software versions, extra features, and modern hardware.
St Nectan’s Glen, A Place of Natural Beauty and Celebration
St Nectan’s Glen, near Tintagel in Cornwall, is nestled in a tranquil woodland valley along the Trevillet river. Renowned for its dramatic 60-foot waterfall, surrounded by lush temperate rainforest, moss, and ferns, the area is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to its biological importance by Natural England. The site is rich in legend and spirituality and has been revered as a sacred place by visitors for centuries, who leave ribbons, stones, totems, and prayers. Offering the perfect location for walks, reflection and exploring nature. St Nectan’s Glen’s values are: “We are committed to preserving nature, protecting wildlife, and fostering connection. Through education, sustainability, and conservation, we create a sanctuary where people and nature coexist in harmony, ensuring its beauty and biodiversity endure for generations”.
At the heart of this enchanting Glen is the Tree of Life Café, a Gold Award winner at the Cornwall Tourism Awards. Open daily, the café offers homemade dishes, fresh cakes, and locally roasted coffee, all made with Cornish produce whenever possible. The café is also open for evening events, such as their Candlelit Suppers between October and March.
An ice cream parlour on the café lawn features Cornish ice creams and milkshakes, while Bacon Tim’s provides a variety of sweet and savoury takeaway treats. The Hermitage building, believed to have belonged to the sixth-century Saint Nectan, is full of unique and magical treasures.
St Nectan’s Glen is a distinctive venue, hosting weddings and civil ceremonies in a range of locations on site, including the Waterfall itself, a beautiful Arbor on the Café Lawn, Riverside Pergola, or the private Zen Garden. Retreats offer experiences such as cold-water therapy, sound baths, or yoga. The on-site accommodation is split between The Retreat and St Cledar buildings, and combined, sleep up to 15 guests. This also includes access to the yoga/meditation studio, with its own private treatment room.
The wonderful team at St Nectan’s Glen will always make sure you have a magical and meaningful experience during your time there, and the woodland walks, café, and wedding venues create a sanctuary where natural beauty, history, events and celebrations meet in the heart of Cornwall.
In a beautiful location with many routes and sights, an interactive map in their app enhances the customer experience at St Nectan’s Glen.
Follow the team in this video as they map routes and points of interest, and test walking directions on the new interactive map at this beautiful site.
Outgrowing a previous supplier
St Nectan’s Glen approached us seeking improved support and reliability. The tills were running out of date software, missing out on the significant new functionality ICRTouch has developed in the past 7 years. Interfaces were cluttered with old and duplicate buttons, making the system confusing for staff to use. The hardware needed renewing, and we had concerns of an imminent major failure which may have disrupted their ability to trade.
Another major visitor attraction we supply was already using the ICRTouch Ticketing solution, for which we had won the ICRTouch iTouchie award for ‘Ticketing Install of the Year’ in 2023. When implementing this within the St Nectan’s Glen app, we also added the brand-new interactive site map functionality, which was in development at the time of our initial meetings, St Nectan’s Glen being the first live site outside of ICRTouch’s own beta sites- the only one delivered with all mapping and artwork delivered through an Authorised Reseller.
The result is a modern and reliable system, complete with round-the-clock monitoring, support, and the peace of mind of managed backups, a disaster recovery plan and our team are on hand whenever they might need us, not just when there is something to sell.
We recommended replacement of all of their existing point of sale hardware and an upgrade to the current version of ICRTouch software which was familiar to them for back-office processes, with a complete interface overhaul on their till systems, a cleanup of all programming removing obsolete data, reorganising and structuring their product programming while retaining stock data at all sites and migrating their loyalty functionality to the cloud, reliably hosted and maintained by ICRTouch. We also developed bespoke modules to simplify sales processes and efficiency and visibility of required data at the tills.
The app development is complete, matching St Nectan’s Glen’s branding and tone, and it is now available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
This app is packed with features to enhance the visitor experience at the Glen. Visitors can buy tickets in advance and easily retrieve them for scanning. They can also access an interactive map for walking routes and use it to navigate to points of interest around the site.
Additionally, visitors can renew their memberships linked to their accounts directly through the app, and push notifications keep users informed about events and activities.
Installation in a Cornish Rainforest
After onboarding, St Nectan’s Glen now benefits from our support package. We adopt a proactive support and maintenance approach, including process monitoring with automatic recovery of all deployed software, automated patch management, and monitoring of TouchPoint HealthCheck data and log files for conditional ticketing or maintenance. Encrypted backups of all local data and replacement equipment can be quickly provisioned if required. Automated services can’t cover every eventuality; in these cases, our support team can assist, usually remotely, who also provide out-of-hours support when required.
Initially, one till was installed running the new system, allowing the St Nectan’s Glen team to test the bespoke developments, familiarise themselves with the new sales process, and suggest any changes to the programming before going live. This project involved bespoke UI/UX and scripting work to add the additional functionality required for customer and stock operations, while also making the system more intuitive and easier to use. This included displaying extra required information to staff during transactions and a custom search functionality to help find gemstones and crystals on the system where there are more similar items in differing sizes or shapes that are too small to label and scan. At Cornish EPOS & IT Services Ltd, we are well-equipped for in-house development like this, covering everything from software to graphic design.
After any requested changes were made, we moved on to the first phase of installation. We installed five Oxhoo EVOQ tills, each equipped with customer-facing displays featuring branded artwork created by our in-house graphic designer. Alongside these tills, we installed premium scanners that can easily read QR codes on screens, even in bright ambient lighting. This is essential when scanning customer devices for ticket redemption and loyalty functions. Dojo card machines were integrated with the system, automatically sending the transaction amount to the card machines, reducing miskeys and allowing for easier reconciliation.
We also introduced Ticketing. This allows visitors to buy tickets online for the waterfall walk by scanning QR codes on info boards around the site, or by purchasing them from any till, including in the Tintagel Shop. These tickets can be verified by a member of staff at the entrance to the waterfall walk via a device running the ‘Ticket Scanning’ app during peak times to speed up entry, or at the till.
The logistics for this install involved loading our tools and the new equipment into St Nectan’s Glen’s Land Rover to transport them to the Glens’ tucked-away location, which was inaccessible for our vans. While staying organised is key to making sure we have the necessary equipment for each install, we have plenty of experience with these harder-to-access locations. We work regularly with sites across the Isles of Scilly and the Scottish Highlands, often needing to think creatively to solve any problems with getting kit on site.
TouchPoint
Five tills running ICRTouch’s TouchPoint, including customer facing displays, working with the ICRTouch product ecosystem.
ICRTouch’s flagship till software TouchPoint is reliable, intuitive, and customisable.
5 Oxhoo EVOQ tills running ICRTouch’s TouchPoint software
M-Apping the Glen
Phase two focused on improving visitors’ experiences when exploring the site. We discussed areas to include on the interactive map, concentrating on specific points of interest that visitors would like to see, need help navigating to, or want more information about. Together with Matt, the Assistant Manager, we walked the site to gather insights into St Nectan’s Glen’s history and its future.
We mapped over five miles of walking paths on the site to prepare draft artwork and ensure route accuracy. A collaborative meeting was held to review the direction of the map design and to confirm the final points of interest, along with their descriptions. The team wanted the artwork to include additional details, such as foliage and benches, within the beautiful, lush surroundings of the site. Once the routes were verified on multiple devices, the final artwork for the map was created by our in-house graphic designer, and photographs of key points of interest were taken.
The ICRTouch interactive map can be easily updated via TouchOffice Web, allowing for the addition of routes or points of interest for events, managing closures for maintenance, or implementing seasonal updates. It provides a convenient way to offer visitors extra information about different areas. Sending app notifications and promotions, or viewing Ticketing details and reports to plan for expected visitor numbers, can also be managed through TouchOffice Web.
Vibrant Future
What’s next for St Nectan’s Glen? Currently, they are finalists in the Cornwall Tourism Awards (2025) for Café/Tearoom of the Year, Small Visitor Attraction of the Year, and Wedding Venue of the Year. We wish them all the best for the finalist awards ceremony in November; their recognition in multiple categories highlights the quality of the diverse experiences they provide at this magical site.
As technology continues to evolve, we believe that new features and enhancements could lead to even more efficient processes and better visitor engagement at St Nectan’s Glen.
Thank you!
A big thank you to St Nectan’s Glen for their help ferrying equipment and spending time walking us around the beautiful site and showing us the magic and history of the Glen. It is always a pleasure to work with the team who make us feel like part of the St Nectan’s Glen family.
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