Holywell Bay unsurprisingly gets its name from a holy well, but there are 2 rival holy wells contending for this! The first is in the valley at Trevornick (near the 18th hole of Holywell Golf Course). The second, and more likely the original, is a freshwater spring in a sea cave at the north end of the beach. In Cornish, the name is Porth Elyn, meaning "cove of the clear stream" which could either be a reference to the spring in the cave, or simply the stream running across the beach which runs some distance over the sand dunes before reaching the beach.
The pair of rocks off Penhale Point at Holywell Bay are owned by the National Trust and are known either as Carter's or Gull Rocks. It has been reported that some locals refer to them as "Fishtail Rocks", which nicely describes their shape.
At low tide, if you walk to the north end of Holywell beach (along Kelsey Head), you can find a sea cave containing a freshwater spring. Calcium carbonate dissolved in the springwater has created a spectacular series of natural basins fed by the well. The source of the calcium carbonate was originally thought to be the fragments of shell in the sand dunes as there are few sedimentary rocks in this part of Cornwall. However, there are thin bands of limestone in this particular area and current thinking is that the source may be one of these, but it is not known for certain.
If the tide is fully out, you may wish to visit the holy well in the cave further along the beach at this point of the walk before following the path into the dunes.
The holy well in the cave on Holywell beach was documented in Victorian times by Polwhele in the "History of Cornwall":
In this parish ( St Cuthbert ) is that famous and well-known spring of water, called Holy Well, so named, the inhabitants say, for that the virtues of this water were first discovered on All Hallow's Day. The same stands in a dark cavern of the sea cliff rocks, beneath full sea-mark on spring tides. The virtues of the waters are, if taken inward, a notable vomit, or as a purgent. If applied outward, it presently strikes in, or dries up, all itch, scurf, dandriff, and such-like distempers in men or women. Numbers of persons in summer season frequent this place and waters from countries far distant. It is a petrifying well.
The shipwreck visible at low tide on Holywell beach is generally thought to be the remains of the SS. Francia, a 700 ton steam-powered Argentinean coaster. It was wrecked in 1917 shortly after setting out from Newquay with a cargo of coal. However, some reports state that the Francia sank 4 miles offshore, so exactly what happened is a bit of a mystery.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
Look out for Fulmars which nest along the cliff faces. You'll often see them soaring over the tops of the cliffs as they circle in to land.
The fulmar is a grey and white bird related to an Albatross although it can be mistaken at a distance for a gull. Close up, the beak is the giveaway: the fulmar has a tube on its beak which is visible as a black bar across the beak at a distance. The tube is a gland for excreting salt from the seawater that they drink. As a defence mechanism, the fulmar regurgitates foul smelling oil from its stomach - the name comes from the Old Norse for "foul" (full) and "gull" (mar). The oil disrupts the waterproofing of predatory birds' feathers in a similar way to a crude-oil spill, so they avoid preying on fulmars.
Also on the offchance that you see any black birds with red legs...
After several decades of extinction, a pair of choughs settled in 2001 on the Lizard Peninsula. Since then, the birds have successfully bred and been joined by a few more incoming birds, and the population has steadily grown and spread further across Cornwall. Each Cornish chough is fitted with one leg ring in the colours of St Piran's flag and two other colours on the opposite leg to identify them.
Although the principal populations are around Lands End and The Lizard, choughs are now becoming more common on the north coast around the Newquay beaches.
If you think you've seen a chough, take a photo if possible and email choughs@cbwps.org.uk to report the sighting. This will help the "Chough Watch" team keep track of the growing population.
At the end of Kelsey Head, between Holywell Bay and Porth Joke, is an L-shaped bank which is thought to be the remains of a hill fort from the Iron Age. It's possible that it was abandoned before it was completed as the ramparts are much more developed at one end than the other.
Seals are easily disturbed by the presence of humans (and dogs) and this is can be the difference between life and death for seals in several different ways. Perhaps the most obvious is that a panicking seal is liable to injure itself rushing for the water. When breeding, even mild disturbance can lead to mothers abandoning their pups which then starve to death. More subtly, disturbance also causes seals to burn up their precious energy reserves. Even in a "good" year, 75% of young seals can end up dying due to insufficient energy reserves (95% in a very bad year!). If a seal looks at you, this should ring alarm bells as it means you're too close. To watch seals responsibly, it's important to keep your distance (at least 100m), avoid being conspicuous (e.g. on the skyline) and minimise noise.
The Cornwall Seal Group Research Trust gather information about the numbers of seals in each location to study migration behaviour. Each seal has a unique pattern of spots which is like a fingerprint, allowing individuals to be identified so photos are also very useful.
If you see one or more seals, take a photo if possible but never approach the seals to take a photo - use a zoom from a clifftop. Send the location, date, number of seals and photos if you have them to sightings@cornwallsealgroup.co.uk.
The sandy cove known both as Porth Joke and Polly Joke belongs to the National Trust and is completely uncommercialised except for the occasional cow wandering on the beach. The confusion about the name arises because it was originally known as Pol Lejouack (the old Cornish words for "Jackdaw Cove") and sounds a bit like "Polly Joke". Porth (beach or port) and Pol (cove or harbour) were used fairly interchangeably, which possibly gave rise to the two competing names.
The beach is backed by sand dunes so there is a beach at all states of the tide, but significantly larger when the tide goes out as the top of the cove is quite narrow.
Because bluebells spread very slowly, they're considered to be an indicator of ancient woodland sites. In areas where trees are not very old, the fact there are bluebells around can indicate that there has been a wood on a site for a very long time. Even if there are no trees there at all, bluebells tell us that there was woodland there some time in the past. The bluebells along the coast are a relic of the gnarled oak woodland that used to grow here before it was cleared for grazing. There is still a patch of the ancient oak woodland left along the coast at Dizzard.
According to Winston Graham, Nampara Cove in the Poldark novels was based on a composite of Porth Joke and a small cove on the west side of Crantock beach (possibly the one just below the Bowgie Inn between Vugga Cove and Piper's Hole).
The headland is known as West Pentire.
The name "Pentire" is common on the coast for the simple reason that it means "headland": in Cornish pen means head or top and tir means land. Some Anglicised names such as "Pentire Point" (i.e. Headland Point) are somewhat tautological.
West Pentire headland, between Porth Joke and Crantock beach, is a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its wildflowers and rare plants. The south-facing (Polly Joke) side of the headland is a particularly good area for sun-loving wildflowers. In spring, tiny blue squill flowers and then pink thrift flowers can be seen here.
The beach ahead is Crantock Beach and the headland opposite is East Pentire, along which the River Gannel flows.
Crantock beach is a dune-backed beach south of Newquay across which the River Gannel runs. Due to the strong currents associated with the tidal river, the northern area of the beach is not recommended for swimming. The best place to swim is towards the southern side, backed by the cliffs of West Pentire.
From West Pentire, there are steps from the coast path leading down to the inlet near the Bowgie Inn and another path leading down at Vugga Cove. However, there is no way up from the cliffs around Piper's Hole at the back of the beach so care should be taken not to be trapped in the inlets here by a rising tide. Currents along the cliffs also sometimes create depressions in the sand which fill up with water as the tide comes in forming deep pools which can result in unwary people being marooned on sandbars.
In summer, there is a ferry service across the river to the Fern Pit Café opposite, and Fistral Beach is just the other side of the headland.
The settlement of Crantock dates back to AD 460, when a group of Irish or possibly Welsh hermits founded a chapel there. The parish was once known as Langurroc, which translates as "The Dwelling of Monks". The chapel of Langurroc was said to have been covered up in a sandstorm, and may lie beneath the sand dunes behind Crantock Beach. The village church is dedicated to St Carantoc - said to be one of the founders of the village. In its heyday, when the River Gannel was navigable, Crantock was a river port.
The deep gully on the west side of Crantock Beach is known as Piper's Hole. Within this, inside the first cave on the right is a flat surface with carvings which include a female figure, a horse and a few lines of verse.
This has given rise to romantic stories that the poem and drawings were carved by an an artist after his lover got cut off by the tide on her horse and both were washed out to sea. However the horse was added around 40 years later and its tail wasn't added until 2011!
The original carving made of the female figure was made by London artist Joseph Prater who often visited relatives in Crantock and made the carving on one of his visits, probably in the early 1900s. The identity of the woman is not known. The horse was carved in the 1940s by James Dyer of Crantock but for some reason this didn't include a tail. The carving was tidied up by an artist commissioned by the Parish Council in 2011, removing some graffiti, re-carving the poem and adding the missing tail.
The Bowgie Inn is a public house located in the hamlet of West Pentire, slightly west of Crantock and south of Newquay. Bowgie is a Cornish word meaning cow shed. The building that is now the pub was indeed a cowshed for the nearby farm until the 1950s and there are pictures in the pub of the building before it was converted. It was originally built in the 18th Century and the cob walls are nearly a metre thick. They act as a storage heater, keeping the cows (and today's non-bovine occupants) warm during cold nights.
A settlement at West Pentire is recorded as far back as 1202. Initially it as just known as "pentire". Mentions of it being subdivided into East and West were recorded later in the 13th Century. The farmhouse includes the base of a mediaeval cross and boundaries of some of the fields are also thought to be based on the system of strip fields used during mediaeval times.
In June you may wish to take a short diversion to see the poppies by following the path to the right. The fields alongside the track have a spectacular display of poppies and corn marigolds. These have been featured in articles such as "The 21 most colourful places in the world". Return to the car park here to continue the walk.
The fields on West Pentire are owned by the National Trust and managed as a nature reserve. From late May to July, there are carpets of red poppies and yellow corn marigolds with over 150 other wildflower species also recorded. The seeds have survived here in the soil from a time before intensive farming with herbicides. Each year, fields are cultivated in a cycle as the plants rely on soil disturbance for their seeds to germinate.
The National Trust request that people stay on the paths to take photos and avoid walking into the flowers as they are quite fragile and don't recover well from trampling.
Damselflies are predators similar to dragonflies but are easily distinguishable by the way their wings fold back parallel to the body when at rest whereas the dragonflies' wings are fixed at a right angle to the body. The Damselfly has a much smaller body than a dragonfly which means it has less stamina for flight. Nevertheless, it can hover, in a stationary position, long enough to pluck spiders from their webs.
Extracts from ivy were used in herbal remedies and still form the basis of some modern-day cough medicines. It is said to have both antibacterial and antiviral properties. A study for English Heritage also found that roadside ivy absorbed particulates from the atmosphere which may lead to its use in improving air quality.
A project to analyse blackberries picked from busy urban roadsides vs quiet rural lanes found that there was a slightly elevated level of lead in the blackberries from busy roadsides which is thought to have accumulated in the soil when leaded fuel was in common use. Surprisingly, commercial blackberries from supermarkets also showed higher levels of lead than the wild blackberries from rural lanes.
As well as through pollen being transferred by insects from other plants, if there are not many insects around (e.g. in cold or wet weather), bramble flowers are able to produce seeds without being fertilised (the flower is able to use its own pollen).
The yellow water iris (also known as yellow flag) is a native plant but can become invasive and have a negative effect on biodiversity due to its ability to out-compete many other water plants. It is thought by some to be the original plant on which the "fleur-de-lis" heraldic symbol is based.
If heavy metals are present in the soil, the plant is quite effective at absorbing these. This together with its aptitude for growing in pools of shallow water makes it potentially useful for detoxifying mine drainage.
In marshes, micro-organisms thrive in the wet mud and use up the supply of oxygen. To survive being partially buried in mud with low oxygen levels, many marsh plants have therefore evolved snorkels: air channels in the stem which allow oxygen to reach the base of the plant. This is why the leaves of reeds feel spongy.
Kestrels can often be seen on the dunes of Cubert Common.
The size of the kestrel population is very dependent on the vole population. The mortality of young kestrels is high. Around 60-70% don't survive their first year and the main cause of this is starvation.
Grasshoppers and crickets look fairly similar. The main visual difference is that crickets tend to have long antennae and grasshoppers have shorter ones. However, only grasshoppers are active during the day so these are ones you are likely to encounter when walking.
Most of the major dunes on the North Cornish coastline are thought to have formed from around 5,000 years ago when sea levels finally stopped rising after the glacial ice from the last Ice Age had finished melting.
The word "tee" is from the Scottish Gaelic word taigh meaning "house" and is related to the coloured circles known as a house in the sport of curling. Teeing off was originally done within a circle of one gold club length from the hole. A mound of sand would be placed somewhere within this circle and the ball rested on top. In 1892, an Englishman patented a rubber-topped wooden peg which was sold as the "Perfectum". In 1899 an American dentist designed "an improved golf tee" consisting of a wooden cone containing a rubber sleeve to hold the ball but this didn't seem to catch on. Peg-based tees were adopted widely by the 1920s.
It is thought that the holy well in the valley was built in the 15th Century to commemorate St Cubertus. By the end of the 19th Century it had become dilapidated and it was restored in 1936 by the Newquay Old Cornwall society using the original stones.
To reach the holy well from the blue sign for the golf course in the dunes, follow the path along the fence of the golf course, then take the path to the right.
Before Christianity, the Pagan Celtic people of Cornwall worshipped wonders of the natural world. Where clean, drinkable water welled up from the ground in a spring, this was seen as pretty awesome. The sites were seen as portals to another world, and is why fairies are often associated with springs. Where the springwater dissolved minerals, for specific conditions (e.g. deficiency in a mineral) or where the minerals present had antibacterial/fungal properties, the water appeared to have healing powers.
One of the plants that grows in the dunes is Sea Holly
Sea holly has a number of adaptations to survive in arid sand dunes. Its waxy leaves minimise water loss, the pale colour reflects sunlight and the root system can extend downwards for two metres to find less salty water. In dry conditions, the level of chlorophyll is reduced and so the bluer the plant becomes.
Since water drains away quickly through the sand, marram grass has evolved a number of strategies to capture and retain water including its waxy, curled leaves which contain hairs inside to minimise evaporation caused by moving air. Its roots form a fibrous mat which traps water but also plays a vital role in stabilising the dunes by stopping the sand blowing away. During the 17th Century, large amounts of marram grass were harvested for thatch and this destabilised the dunes so much that farms, estates and even entire villages were buried.
The sand dunes provide a good habitat for adders, which bask in the sun in warm weather.
On warm days from late April, you may be lucky enough to witness the "dance of the adders" (a pair of adders wrestling). This was once thought to be a mating display, but is actually a larger male attempting to drive away a smaller one.
The sandy soil along the coast is able to support plants more commonly seen on chalk downs such as cowslips, due to the sand being comprised of small fragments of shell (calcium carbonate). The majority of the soil in North Cornwall is acidic, particularly towards Bodmin Moor, so sand from the beaches was used extensively to improve the soil fertility for farming.
Several beaches in Cornwall have a large rockpool known locally as the "Horse Pool": at Trebarwith Strand it's the large pool ahead of the entrance onto the beach and at Holywell Bay it's in front of the cave just before the Holy Well cave. Treyarnon and Porthcothan also have pools known by this name. The name stems from when working horses were given a wash off and cool down on hot days. In the case of Trebarwith Strand, many of the horses were involved in hauling slate from nearby quarries or sand from the beach.
Rabbits were originally from the Iberian peninsula and were brought to Britain by the Normans and kept in captivity as a source of meat and fur. Although grass is their principal natural food, rabbits are able to survive on virtually any vegetable matter and with relatively few predators, those that escaped multiplied into a sizeable wild population.
During mediaeval times, rabbit was decreed by Pope Gregory I as "not meat" so it could be eaten during Lent. This accelerated the spread of rabbits through European monasteries in the middle ages. In fact, there are no barriers in the world's major religions to eating rabbit which is also considered both halal and kosher. From Elizabethan times, rabbit farming became common practice in Britain and it was not until the 1950s (when rabbits were associated with myxomatosis) that its popularity as a food declined sharply.
Rabbits have a number of wild predators including foxes, polecats and stoats. Buzzards and weasels will also take young ones. Domestic cats are also capable of tackling a full-grown rabbit. Rabbits have evolved to be able to detect predators early and then run very fast. The location of their eyes on the sides of the their head gives them almost 360 degree vision and they can also can turn their ears 180 degrees to pinpoint the location of a sound.
If a rabbit is placed on its back and its legs are stroked, it appears to go into a relaxed trance and many owners of pet rabbits thought this was a cute thing to do that was enjoyable for the rabbit. It's now understood that this reaction, known as "tonic immobility", occurs when the rabbit is extremely stressed because it thinks it is about to be eaten by a predator! It is effectively a "playing dead" reaction to lull a predator into a false sense of security so the rabbit can make a sudden escape when the predator isn't paying attention.
Due to their warm fur, rabbits are able to feed all year round, switching to woody foods such as bark and twigs when green vegetation isn't available. They don't hibernate and the reason they aren't seen as often in the winter is just that they are most active at dawn and dusk when people tend not to be out walking.
Rabbit teeth continue to grow throughout their lives as an evolutionary adaptation to eating grass which contains abrasive silica. Consequently pet rabbits fed a diet with insufficient hay often get problems with overgrown teeth. However, cut grass from a mower should not be fed to rabbits as it ferments more quickly than fresh grass (impact and heat from the blades causes bruising and wilting which releases the carbohydrates) which results in bloated bunnies.
The first record of slang word "bunny" being applied to rabbits is from the late 17th Century. Prior to this it was in use as a term of endearment, recorded in a 1606 love letter as "my honey, my bunny...". The origin of this pet name is thought to be a dialect word "bun" which was a general term for small furry creatures which did include rabbits but also applied to squirrels. The use of the word "rabbit" for chattering is from the Cockney rhyming slang for "talk" (rabbit and pork).
Since rabbits' unfussy diet includes pretty much anything grown by farmers, in the 1950s, the disease myxomatosis was deliberately spread in the UK to curb rabbit numbers. Over 99% were wiped-out and they almost became extinct. The few survivors that were genetically more resistant to the disease multiplied and so the survival rate has now increased to around 35%. Escaped pet rabbits inoculated with a live virus have the potential to transfer the vaccine into the wild population which may further increase resistance. Consequently the peak rabbit population gradually recovered to around half the size of the UK human population.
By 2013, rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus type 2 (RHDV2) had crossed to the UK from continental Europe and began spreading through the wild population. By 2018, nearly half the UK rabbit population had disappeared. In their native region on the Iberian peninsula, rabbits are now an endangered species and there is concern that the UK population decline will continue. Whilst a high density of rabbits can be a pest to farmers, in many areas the rabbit population has already fallen well below the level where this is significant.
The close grazing from rabbits in wilderness environments is valuable for biodiversity, allowing rare wildflowers to compete with grass and insect species to thrive. The crash in the rabbit population due to myxomatosis is thought to have been a contributing factor to the large blue butterfly going extinct in Britain in the 1970s. The recent decline from RHDV2 is therefore worrying conservationists. Consequently, some landowners are now giving rabbits a helping hand by creating "rabbit hotels" - areas of brushwood above warrens that provide extra cover and safety for rabbits.
Thrift is a tough evergreen plant which grows on sea cliffs and consequently it's the county flower of the Scilly Isles. To survive in this environment it needs to be able to withstand drought and salt-laden winds. Its long, thin leaves and hairy flower stems have evolved to minimise water loss.
The name "thrift" has been suggested to arise from the plant's tufted leaves being economical with water in the windy locations where it is found. It's common all along the Cornish coast and in April-June produces pale pink flowers, hence its other common name: "Sea Pink". The plant grows in dense circular mats which together with its covering of pink flowers gives rise to another less common name: "Ladies' Cushions".
Thrift is tolerant of metals such as lead and particularly copper in soil so it is able to colonise coastal mine tips. It has been suggested that the heavy metal tolerance may be partly down to not transporting much dissolved metal up the shoot of the plant (since thrift grows in a desiccating salty environment, there is less water to transport it than in many other plants). However thrift also has mechanisms to sequester metals and excrete them through its roots and leaves.
Thrift is known as a "hyperaccumulator" of copper: it can concentrate copper by over 1000 times more than other neighbouring plants. This makes it potentially useful to clean up contaminated land but this be done over many years. In principle it's even possible to mine for minerals by concentrating them in plants and then extracting them (known as "phytomining"). It's currently far from economical to do so for copper but for rarer high-value metals it may become economical, possibly in conjunction with chemical soil additives to increase bio-availability.
There is a sandy beach in the middle section of Holywell Bay at all states of the tide which can be accessed at several points along its length from the dunes. The area of beach to the left of the stream gets cut off when the tide comes in. On the far right-hand side of the beach, the holy well is in a cave that can only be reached at the lowest point of the tide and this area of the beach also gets cut off as the tide comes in.
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