There has been a ferry service at Cremyll between Devon and Cornwall since mediaeval times, and is thought to have been established around 1204. A foot passenger service still operates. The journey takes around 8 minutes and lands at Admiral's Hard in the Stonehouse area of Plymouth.
The Mount Edgcumbe estate was the principal seat of the Edgcumbe family. The house was built between 1547 and 1553 but was badly damaged by German bombs during World War II. In 1958 a restoration process began to return the interiors to an 18th Century style. In 1971 the estate was sold jointly to Plymouth City Council and Cornwall County Council and the grounds were opened to the public as a Country Park in 1988.
The Formal Gardens at Mount Edgcumbe were planted between 1750 and 1920 in English, French and Italian styles. The Orangery in the Italian Garden is thought to date from near the beginning of this period, possibly around 1760. More recently, an American plantation and a New Zealand garden were added, reflecting the family's Commonwealth connections, and a Jubilee commemorative garden was added in 2002.
The name Tamar is documented in the second century and likely to be substantially older. It is thought it might share a common origin with the River Thames and both might stem from an ancient Celtic word meaning "dark". The source of the river is within 4 miles of the North Cornish Coast and the river flows 61 miles south across the peninsula forming the majority of the historic border with Devon. Work is being done by the Environment Agency to improve the water quality of the Tamar and its tributaries by reducing the amount of run-off of phosphate fertilisers into the rivers.
The stretch of the estuary from the confluence of the Lynher and Tamar is known as the Hamoaze. This was recorded in 1558 as ryver of Hamose and is thought originally just referred to a creek that led to the manor of Ham which was located north of where Devonport Dockyard is today. The "ose" part of the name may derive from the Old English word wāse (meaning "mud") which is the origin of the English word "ooze".
The gun battery was originally built in the 18th Century purely for show to greet guests with a 21 gun salute. In the 19th century, it was rebuilt with seven 68-pounder cannons to offer the French navy an entirely different kind of greeting.
The blockhouse was built around 1545 during the reign of Henry VIII to defend the mouth of the Tamar.
The island in the middle of Plymouth Sound was known during the middle ages as St Michael's after the chapel that stood on it, recorded in 1135. After Sir Frances Drake sailed from here in 1577 and circumnavigated the world, it was occasionally referred to as Drake's Island but became principally known as St Nicolas' Island until well into the 19th Century. It is only in comparatively recent times that it has become widely known as Drake's Island. From Elizabethan times, the island was fortified as a defence against the French and Spanish and it still contains derelict military buildings from the Napoleonic era. In 1995 the island was sold by the Crown Estate to a former chairman of Plymouth Argyle with a view to developing it as a tourism destination.
The circular Ionian temple near the lake in the Edgcumbe estate was built around 1755 and is dedicated to the poet John Milton. It contains a plaque inscribed with lines from his poem Paradise Lost.
The ruin on the hill in Mount Edgcumbe Country Park is an artificial ruin built as a folly some time around 1747. Formerly there was an obelisk there which acted as a navigation beacon. The folly still sufficed for this practical purpose but was deemed more aesthetic. It is built from mediaeval stones salvaged from the ruined churches of St George and St Lawrence at Stonehouse.
The fruit of the beech tree is known as "mast" or, less cryptically, "beechnuts" and these are not produced until the tree is 40-60 years old. The small triangular nuts are encased in spiky husks which split and drop from the trees from late August to early October. The kernels of these are edible and are similar to hazelnuts. They were once used as a source of flour, which was ground after the tannins had been leached out by soaking them in water. If you find them too bitter, you might want to try this trick, although toasting them in a hot pan is also a good option.
Compared to many native trees, the beech colonised Great Britain relatively recently, after the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. Beech trees have a shallow root system and are therefore often found in areas where water is plentiful such as near rivers. In the 17th and 18th Centuries, tall, stately beech trees were very fashionable in the estates of wealthy landowners and many mature beech woodlands today are the result of 18th Century parkland landscaping projects.
Honey made with rhododendron pollen can be poisonous to humans, causing severe low blood pressure and low heart rate if enough is eaten. Rhododendron honey is used in Nepal as a hallucinogenic drug.
Constructed in 1812, the stone breakwater stretches for very close to a mile across the centre of Plymouth Sound and was described by Napoleon as "a grand thing" as he passed it on his way to exile on St Helena in 1815. The sea wall is constructed from granite quarried from the Luxulyan Valley near St Austell and is infilled with limestone from the Plymouth area. In total, nearly four million tonnes of rock were used in its construction. The lighthouse was added in 1844, and the fort during the 1860s when France was expanding its navy and the resulting nervousness lead to intensification of defences around major British sea ports.
The walk route is in a small Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty known as the "Rame Head Heritage Coast" that includes Mount Edgcumbe Country Park and Cawsand Bay.
There are 33 regions in England designated Areas Of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) many of which were created at the same time as the National Parks. In fact the AONB status is very similar to that of National Parks.
There is a single Cornwall AONB which was established in 1959 and is itself subdivided into 12 sections. 11 of these are stretches of the coastline and the 12th is Bodmin Moor.
The structure on the corner, known as the Picklecombe Seat is thought to have been built in the 18th Century using materials from the churches of St. George and St. Lawrence at Stonehouse. It is recorded in 1788 as "a gothic alcove built from the materials of an old chapel the inside of which gives a picturesque view of nothing but the sea..."
Bluebells grow on the slope here, indicating the area has been under tree cover for a long time.
According to folklore, it's unlucky to bring bluebells into a house and also unlucky to walk through bluebells as it was thought that the little bells would ring and summon fairies and goblins.
The spore from a fern doesn't grow into a fern. Instead it grows into an organism resembling a liverwort (i.e. a small green blob). Instead of producing spores, these produce eggs and also sperm which they interchange with neighbouring blobs to get a new mix of genes. The fertilised egg grows into a new fern and so this alternating process of ferns and blobs repeats.
Between the two species, some gorse is almost always in flower, hence the old country phrases: "when gorse is out of blossom, kissing's out of fashion" (which is recorded from the mid-19th century) and "when the furze is in bloom, my love's in tune" (which dates from the mid-18th century). Common gorse flowers are bright yellow. Western gorse flowers are very slightly more orange - more like the colour of the "yolk" in a Cadbury's creme egg. Also like creme eggs, gorse flowers are edible but are significantly better for use in salads and to make a tea, beer or wine.
Two species of seahorse live in Plymouth Sound (spiny seahorse and long-snouted seahorse). They hide in the sea grass which they grasp with their tails and live on a diet of shrimps and small crabs (of which they can eat around 30 a day!). Seahorses are famous for the males being the gender to brood the eggs within their bodies until they hatch as baby seahorses. They do this within a pouch, a little bit like that in female marsupials.
Rame gig racing club is based at Cawsand so you may see pilot gigs being rowed in the bay.
The six-oared elm boats known as Pilot Gigs were general-purpose work boats, but one of their uses was to transport the pilot to and from a ship, which resulted in the name. The first boat to meet a ship gained the business of transporting the captain (and thus being paid) and thus a "race" came into being, with different boats competing for business. Today, Gig Racing is of a recreational nature, but the boats are still built to the exact well-documented specification of the originals. Elm wood is highly resistant to water, so much so, that town water mains were made of elm before the widespread availability of iron.
The exposed area of red rock beside Kingsand is the result of a volcanic lava flow around 290 million years ago which formed rocks known as rhyolites. When sea levels were higher, a wave-cut platform was created which was exposed when sea levels fell. This is the largest continuous piece of exposed rhyolite in the UK. The red rock has been used to construct a number of the buildings in Kingsand.
The meadow seems to be a popular grazing spot for rabbits.
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.
Go through the gate and bear right to reach a lane leading up the hill.
The walk continues uphill to the right, but before continuing you may want to explore Kingsand to the left.
Continue to the top of the hill to reach a pair of Public Footpath signs where the tarmac peters out.
The name Kingsand was first used in the mid-16th Century when it was part of Devon and this is reflected in the English rather than Cornish name. The name denotes that the shoreline belonged to the King of England. Also dating from the 16th Century are the remains of the pilchard cellars on the shoreline just beyond Kingsand.
During the 18th Century, there was concern that the docks at Plymouth was very vulnerable to attack by a foreign military power landing on Rame peninsula and then firing shells from the high ground at Maker Heights down onto Plymouth. Therefore a number of defensive positions (known in military jargon as redoubts) were built in the area around Maker Church. Five of these were built on the high ground facing the sea as earthworks in the 1780s. A sixth was built on the lower ground facing the Tamar in the 1800s to defend the creeks.
Grenville battery and the adjacent Maker battery were constructed in the late 1880s to defend the western approaches to Plymouth Sound from a potential French invasion. Redoubt 4 was used as a starting point for the Grenville battery which had already been rebuilt in stone in 1790. The original 12.5 inch muzzle-loading guns from the 1880s were upgraded in the early 1900s to 6 inch breach-loading guns so the remains today are a mixture from the two periods. The emplacements of the older guns can be identified by their toothed tracks.
In the 18th Century, a track for a horse and carriage was constructed from Mount Edgcumbe House around the coast to Maker Church. This was completed by 1788 and known originally as "The Terrace". In the 19th Century it was extended to Kingsand and Cawsand and by 1823 it reached to Penlee Point. It became known as the Earl's Drive.
The area behind the walls to the right was the Hawkins battery. On the coastal slope beyond this was the Raleigh Battery. Both were constructed in the 1890s. The Rayleigh battery was used until 1910 and is now derelict and overgrown. Some time between 1910 and 1915, the Hawkins Battery was upgraded with new guns and was used for defence throughout the First World War and during the Second World War by barrage balloon personnel. Both are now on private land.
Picklecombe Fort was one of the forts commissioned in the mid-19th century by Lord Palmerston sometimes known as the Palmerston Follies. The site chosen was near an earlier battery which had been constructed at the start of the 19th century, consisting of an earth embankment. This is where Plymouth Sound is split by the breakwater, forcing approaching ships to pass closer to the coast.
Picklecombe Fort was built between 1864 and 1871 and armed with over forty guns to defend Plymouth Sound from the French Navy. However the fort was never used in military action and eventually fell into disrepair. In the early 1970s it was renovated for residential use.
Until 2005 it was thought that grasses evolved around 10 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct, based on the earliest fossil of a grass-like plant. Consequently the BBC went to great effort to find filming locations with no grass for its ground-breaking computer animation series "Walking with Dinosaurs". Since then, fragments of a grass plant related to rice and bamboo have been found in fossilised dinosaur dung. Also the fossil remains of a rodent-like creature which appears to have grass-eating adaptations suggests that grasses could have been around as far back as 120 million years ago.
Due to the steep slopes in the Rame area, the land was ploughed with horse-drawn ploughs with just a single furrow that could be reversed. The models of plough used were presumably named from a slightly bawdy folk interpretation of the word "ploughing" as they included "Cock Up" and "Climax".
The stones of sloes (and plums, cherries and peaches) contain the compound amygdalin which is metabolised into hydrogen cyanide. Therefore breaking the stones is best avoided when using them in cooking, gin etc.
Blackthorn is a spiny type of plum which is more broadly a member of the rose family. It is native to the UK and common on old farmland where blackthorn trees were planted as hedges to keep out cattle. It is still common in Cornish hedgerows today and also common on the coast as it's tolerant to salt.
The red soil results from the weathering of sandstones which contain rust-coloured iron compounds formed from chemical reactions of the iron with water and air. Similar orange-red iron compounds are responsible for the Red Rivers in Cornwall where dissolved iron from the mines enters the river water. Iron is the 4th most common element in Earth's crust after oxygen, silicon, and aluminium. The reason that there wasn't an Aluminium Age rather than the Iron Age is that aluminium is really difficult to separate from the oxygen that also makes up the aluminium compounds in rocks. Iron is still pretty challenging to reduce to its metallic form from its ore which is why copper and tin were used before this in the Bronze Age.
In AD 705 the parish of Maker was given in an act of diplomacy by the King of Cornwall to Sherborne Abbey to give the Saxons control of the Tamar mouth, and it remained part of Devon until 1844. The parish church was first mentioned in 1121 and there were a number of churches on the site dating back to mediaeval times. The current building mostly dates from the 15th Century, built of local red sandstone in a Perpendicular style. It was extensively restored in the 1870s. The Norman font was brought from St Merryn near Padstow. Due to its prominent position, the church has been used as a landmark by nautical navigators and the tower was used as an Admiralty signal station in the 18th Century.
In 1515, King Henry VIII granted Sir Piers Edgcumbe permission to keep a herd of deer in the park on the Edgcumbe estate. The deer roaming the park today are direct descendants of those Tudor deer.
Some estimates suggest the UK has up to half of the world's total bluebell population; nowhere else in the world do they grow in such abundance. However, the poor bluebell faces a number of threats including climate change and hybridisation from garden plants. In the past, there has also been large-scale unsustainable removal of bulbs for sale although it is now a criminal offence to remove the bulbs of wild bluebells with a fine up to £5,000 per bulb!
Fungus is the Latin word for mushroom but is derived from the ancient Greek word for sponge since this is what they were thought to resemble. Biologically, this isn't so far off either as fungi are more closely-related to animals than plants.
To support their massive weight, trees produce a biochemical compound called lignin which has a cross-linked polymer structure that makes it very rigid. Because it's so tough, most fungi and bacteria are unable to break it down. The main fungus that has worked out a way to do it is known as white rot.
Plymouth grew from the mediaeval waterside village of Sutton to a port town by Tudor times and continued to grow throughout the Industrial Revolution. The three neighbouring towns of Stonehouse, Devonport and Plymouth were formally combined as the city of Plymouth in 1914. The city expanded further in the 1960s after post-war rebuilding of the bombed-out centre and incorporated Plympton and Plymstock. In the 2011 census, it was the 30th largest urban area in the UK.
On returning with huge amounts of treasure from his circumnavigation voyage, Drake was paid £20,000 plus personal gifts and also received a 4700% return on the money he had invested in the voyage. Overnight be became one of the wealthiest men in England and invested some of this in property in Plymouth (and possibly also Saltash).
In 1919, Oscar Hartzell, son of a farmer in Iowa, contacted many Americans in the mid-west who had the surname Drake. He claimed that he was a distant relative of Sir Francis Drake and had discovered that the estate had never been paid to his heirs, that it had gathered interest for the last 300 years, included the whole city of Plymouth, and that it was now worth $100 billion. Hartzell invited investment in his campaign to sue the British government and assured everyone a return of $500 for every dollar they invested. Approximately 70,000-100,000 Americans sponsored him - some with all the money they had. Meanwhile Hartzell had moved to London and was living an opulent lifestyle whilst claiming he was negotiating with the authorities. This continued until authorities seized assets of some of Hartzell's agents' and they revealed the scam. Hartzell was not convicted until a copy of Drake's will was brought to his fraud trial in 1933, and he died in a prison hospital ten years later. Many of his victims believed in him to the end of their own lives.
The bridge to the right with the pineapple carvings leads to the house and surrounding formal gardens.
The obelisk on the hill behind Cremyll is made of Portland stone. It was originally situated in the location of the "ruin" (folly) in Mount Edgcumbe Park. The obelisk in its original position had collapsed by the time the folly was erected in 1747. Some sources say the obelisk was re-erected in 1770 but shipping maps from 1768 show the obelisk in its new position. There is a story that the obelisk was reconstructed in memory of Countess Edgcumbe's pet pig named Cupid which is recorded as dying in 1768.
The Edgcumbe Arms dates from the 18th Century but the original building was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1995.
During late winter or early spring, if you encounter a patch of plants with white bell-shaped flowers, smelling strongly of onions, and with long, narrow leaves then they are likely to be three-cornered leeks. Once you're familiar with their narrow, ridged leaves, you'll be able to spot these emerging from late October onwards.
The plants get their name due to their triangular flower stems. As the name also suggests, they are members of the onion family and have a small bulb. In fact, in New Zealand they are known as "onion weed". They are also known as "snowbell" due to their white bluebell-like flowers.
Three-cornered leeks are native to the Mediterranean and are first recorded as being introduced to the UK in 1759. By Victorian times, they had become well-established in the wild. They thrive in the moist, mild climate in Cornwall and are salt-tolerant so will grow almost anywhere, even on the coast.
The plant spreads to form dense colonies, crowding-out native species. The onion-flavoured seeds are very attractive to ants who carry them quite large distances and forget some of them, allowing the plant to colonise new areas. In fact three-cornered leeks are so invasive that they are illegal to plant in the wild.
All parts of the plant are edible by humans and the flavour of the leaves is relatively mild so they can be used in recipes in place of spring onions or chives. They are at their best for culinary use from November to April. By mid-May, they have flowered and the leaves are starting to die back.
The long leaves can be mistaken for bluebells or daffodils which are both poisonous but do not smell of onions. However, fingers that have previously picked 3-cornered leeks also smell of onions and so mistakes have been made this way.
All plants in the onion family including three-cornered leeks are poisonous to dogs. Keep dogs away from the plant and wash their paws if they come into contact with it.
Until 1844, the border between Celtic Cornwall and Saxon Devon lay between Cawsand and Kingsand, defined by a small stream. On Garrett Street, just before you reach the Halfway House Inn, there is a house with a marker indicating where the border used to be.
The fifth of the Maker Redoubts (defensive positions) was built in 1783 in order to defend the previous four built on Maker Heights. It was rebuilt in stone in 1790 and is now inaccessible on private land but can be seen from the road.
Due to their proximity to Plymouth, Cawsand and Kingsand were the centre for the largest smuggling trade in Cornwall which lasted from Tudor times until the 19th Century. The huge navy presence in Plymouth made it too dangerous for smugglers to land goods directly in the port, but ironically the sailors from those vessels provided the largest market known for smuggled spirits. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, it was estimated that 17,000 casks of brandy were being smuggled into Cawsand Bay each year by a fleet of over 50 smuggling vessels.
The word "battery" was originally used for coordinated artillery (from old French meaning "to beat"). Later this became used more widely for any group of similar things (e.g. a battery of tests). This general use was applied to a series of electrochemical cells and so something for dealing with pirate ships has ended up in smartphones.
Crocosmia (also known as Montbretia) is a garden plant in the iris family with bright orange flowers in summer. It has South African origins and was bred in France in 1879 as a garden plant hybridised from two wild plants, then introduced into the UK in the 1880s.
The name Montbretia is after "Coquebert de Montbret" - a French botanist who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt in 1798 but died there at the age of 20. The Latin name Crocosmia has Greek origins, meaning "saffron scent". This is based on the the smell of the dried leaves. The crocuses which produce saffron are also members of the iris family.
Crocosmia was first recorded in the wild in 1911 and since then has spread, particularly along the west coast of Britain. It is extremely invasive and classified as a "Critical Risk" by Plantlife. In western Ireland the spread is even more extreme, with miles of roadside verges obliterated of any other plants. It is now a criminal offence to cause it to grow in the wild.
Biologically, there is no clear distinction between ducks, geese and swans (geese and swans are one lanky subfamily of ducks). Dark-coloured ducks get the equivalent of "grey hairs" with age - their feathers gradually turn white.
The species of duck that you're most likely to encounter is the mallard. Mature males have striking iridescent green heads and dark bodies whilst females look totally different - a brown and white pattern which offers much better camouflage. However, both have a common feature that is unique to mallards - an iridescent blue patch on their wings.
In situations where ducks need to watch out for predators, they can sleep one half of their brain at a time, keeping one eye open for danger. In safer circumstances, ducks will sleep fully.
Male ducks (drakes) have a penis which falls off every autumn and regrows the following spring. The length each year depends on the amount of competition for females and varies up to a maximum of the duck's whole body length.
Ducks can change gender. This happens for about 1 duck in 10,000 and more commonly from female to male than the other way around. It seems to occur in a flock of ducks where there is a significant gender imbalance where it gives the duck that changes a competitive advantage. It's likely that the female to male direction is a bigger evolutionary win because one male can fertilise multiple females.
Feeding bread to ducks is quite bad for them although not feeding ducks anything at all is potentially worse as many have now become reliant on being fed. White bread lacks many of the nutrients that ducks need but ducks will gorge on it to the point of ignoring other foods, effectively becoming junk food addicts. The problem is that by filling up on just this, they can become malnourished, deformed and even die. Some healthier things to feed ducks are leftover peas, sweetcorn, seeds, rice and salad.
There are four country parks in Cornwall, managed by Cornwall Council:
Camellias are bushes with thick, glossy leaves (but usually a little shorter than rhododendron leaves). As their similar appearance suggests, they are fairly close cousins of rhododendrons but not as closely related to rhododendrons as heathers are (which appearance doesn't suggest!). They flower in the winter, typically between December and the end of March.
Camellias are native to eastern and southern Asia. The first camellia grown in England was in 1739. Many varieties now popular in Britain as ornamental garden plants are from species collected during plant hunting expeditions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were regarded as the ultimate luxury flower in Victorian times.
Tea is made from the leaves of one species of camellia which has been bred for many years to hone qualities considered desirable for tea. However, the leaves of many other camellias can be used to produce a similar beverage and tea from another camellia species is popular in some parts of Japan.
The seeds of camellia plants contain oils. In East Asia this is used by hundreds of millions of people as a cooking oil. In Japan it's used for hair care. It's also used to clean and protect the knife blades.
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