Cornish cream tea advert provokes outrage from locals after depicting scone with jam on top of cream

'This is cultural vandalism'

(Getty Images/iStockphoto)

An advert for a Mother’s Day cream tea has provoked outrage over its picture of scones.

Cornish National Trust property Lanhydrock House and Garden has angered local residents by posting an image on Facebook of scone with the jam on top of the cream.

The offending picture was used to advertise the property’s Mother’s Day afternoon tea, but it has reinvigorated the enduring debate between Cornwall and Devon over whether cream or jam should be on top.

Some Cornish locals are even threatening to boycott the property, with members of the public criticising the pictures as “unacceptable”, revealing they’re “offended” and arguing the staff “should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“There are some things you don’t do national trust, and putting a picture of a DEVON cream for a CORNISH cream tea event is disgusting,” one person commented on Facebook.

“Shame on you NT,” added another. “This is cultural vandalism. Scone, then strawberry jam then clotted cream. Anything else is not the Cornish way. This message is not tongue in cheek!”

The property has since posted an apology on its Facebook page, explaining that the employee responsible for the blunder had been sent to Devon: “We’d like to sincerely apologise for any offence caused by a recent scone-shot shown on the page.

“The member of staff responsible has been reprimanded and marched back over the Tamar. We’d like to reassure our Cornish community that our catering team would never make such a heinous mistake and that our jam and cream are usually served in little pots so the order of their application is not subject to such appalling error. Rest assured, your mothers are safe here.”

While some people have expressed confusion at what they deem to be an overreaction, The Independent’s Travel Editor Julia Buckley, from Cornwall, says she understands why the post has prompted so much outrage.

“It’s not even that this is an incredibly sensitive topic that the National Trust played badly, it's also an affront to common sense,” she said. “That the cream should top a cream tea is obvious to everyone on the planet except people from Devon.

“To add insult to injury, the follow-up photo they posted showed a scone with sultanas in, which again isn’t the right way to do it. The only way they could have made things worse was to use a picture with hard balled-up Devon cream instead of Cornish cream, which is sloppier and clearly superior.

“I won’t boycott Lanhydrock but I can definitely think of other places I’d rather go for a cream tea. On a serious note, this is about identity and respecting local customs and I am genuinely surprised they made a mistake like this when anyone who’s spent any time in Cornwall would have known it would be like laying out petrol and striking a match.”

Let's not start on the pronunciation of "scone"...