Sandymouth lies between two headlands - Steeple Point and Menachurch Point - and is the longest beach in the Bude area, measuring over a mile long at low tide. At low spring tides, it joins with Northcott Mouth and Crooklets Beach to the south, creating an expanse of sand all the way to Bude. The seabed slopes sharply away from the beach, producing strong surf which makes it dangerous for swimming but a popular surfing spot.
Before doing so, you may want to make a short diversion to visit Sandymouth beach: follow the track straight ahead down to the sea, then return to this point to resume the walk.
Whilst much of the rock along the Tintagel and Boscastle coast is slate, the rocks around Bude are sandstones and shales. Where the softer upended rock layers have been eroded by the sea, a series of ridges has been formed such as at the sides of the beaches at Widemouth, Northcott Mouth and Sandymouth, creating many rockpools.
The cliffs here face into the prevailing winds so sea creatures that drift in the wind are sometimes driven ashore on the beaches.
By-the-wind sailors consist of a ring of blue jellyfish-like material around a central plastic-like sail and can sometimes be found blown onto beaches. Like jellyfish, they catch prey using stinging cells (not perceptible by humans although some people can get a rash).
The direction of the sail along the float determines which way they travel. Those with a sail running top-left to bottom-right drift left of the wind, whereas those with top-right to bottom-left drift to the right of the prevailing wind direction.
They are not a single organism, but a whole colony of coral-like polyps that are interconnected with a canal system to distribute the food caught in the tentacles. However each colony is all of a single gender. If that wasn't complicated enough, alternate generations are singular planktonic jellyfish-like creatures that don't even form a by-the-wind sailor, but their offspring do!
This is a nice example of a hanging valley. These are common along the North Cornish coast where there are many small streams meeting the sea.
Hanging valleys are common on the North Cornish coast and are created due to erosion of the relatively hard cliffs by the Atlantic waves being faster than erosion of the valley by a small river. In many cases, this results in a waterfall where the small river meets the sea cliff, though many of these are little more than a trickle in dry weather. When there is a strong onshore gale, the waterfalls sometimes run backwards!
The satellite dishes that you can see ahead are part of the array at GCHQ Bude.
C.S.O.S. Morwenstow is a satellite ground station, comprised of 21 satellite antennas which are thought to span the full range of communication frequencies. It is staffed by GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), the British signals intelligence service, and the United States NSA (National Security Agency). The activities remain classified but it's thought that these relate to the interception and decryption of electronic communications. Prior to the satellite station, the site was the location of RAF Cleave, a World War 2 airfield used by Fighter Command. Some of the concrete foundations of the airfield buildings are visible near the coast path.
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.
Stonechats are robin-sized birds with a black head and orange breast that are common along the Cornish coast all year round.
During the summer months, stonechats eat invertebrates. As temperatures drop and there are not so many of these about, they make do with seeds and fruit such as blackberries. Quite a few die in cold winters but this is offset by their fast breeding rate during the warmer months.
The Ramblers Association and National Farmers Union suggest some "dos and don'ts" for walkers which we've collated with some info from the local Countryside Access Team.
Do
Don't
The wheatear can often be seen on the coast during the summer month as it nests in rock crevices or rabbit burrows but returns to Sub-Saharan Africa every winter.
For a long time, the wheatear was thought to be a member of the thrush family but genetic studies have revealed they are actually members of the (Old World) flycatcher family which also includes stonechats.
The name "wheatear" is a 16th-century linguistic corruption of "white arse", referring to the bird's prominent white rump.
Since modern birds don't have teeth to chew up their food, they swallow stones to do this for them. Gizzard stones have also been found in some dinosaur fossils (some herbivorous dinosaurs also had beak-like mouths) indicating that they used a similar approach.
Duckpool is the next bay north from Sandymouth near Bude. Duckpool is a pebble beach at high tide but as the tide goes out, sand and rock pools are revealed. Strong currents make swimming here unsafe but it's another popular spot for surfers. The beach gets its name from the pool of fresh water, contained behind a natural dam of pebbles and fed by the stream from the Coombe Valley.
The waters around the bay contain submerged rocks and are treacherous for shipping. Numerous ships have been wrecked along this part of the coast, such as the Juantio, a Spanish brig that lost her way and hit the rocks at Duckpool on 15th January 1865, with the loss of one crew member.
The holly tree on the left just before the junction has a nice example of some non-spiky holly leaves as well as the usual spiky ones.
Anyone who has sat on a holly leaf will know how prickly they can be but the leaves particularly on larger holly bushes often vary considerably with less spiky leaves nearer the top.
Holly is able to vary its leaf shape in response to its environment through a chemical process known as DNA methylation which can be used to switch genes on and off. If its leaves are eaten by grazing animals or trampled by walkers, the holly will crank up the methylation level to produce really spiky leaves on these stems. Conversely on the stems where the leaves are able to grow old in peace, the holly will produce versions that are flatter and therefore more efficient at catching the light. An individual leaf can last up to five years.
The settlement of Coombe was recorded in 1439 as Combe and as Coombe in 1520. The name is from the Old English word for valley: cumb.
Most houses in the hamlet of Coombe are owned by the Landmark Trust, a charity which rescues buildings of historic or architectural importance, and makes them available to the public as holiday accommodation.
At the start of the footpath, the derelict buildings you can see through the trees to your right, are part of Coombe Mill.
Coombe Mill is situated next to the hamlet of Coombe beside the footpath leading up the valley. The disused four-level complex is a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the five species of bat that now inhabit the mill's buildings. It is one of the largest breeding sites for lesser horseshoe bats in England.
The woodland to the north (your left) of the river is known as Lee Wood after Lee Barton at the top of the hill. To the south of the river, the woodland is known as Stowe Wood and was once part of the estate of Stowe Manor.
The paths through Lee Wood and Stowe Woods, adjacent to the hamlet of Coombe, were laid in 1970 by the Forestry Commission as part of the Coombe Valley Nature Trail, when many of the conifer plantations were created. Coombe is a Cornish word for "valley", so "Coombe Valley" is another of the tautologies which have arisen from appending an English word to an already fully descriptive Cornish name.
About half-way to the bridge, a small path leads off the the left to an area overlooking the stream with some rope swings.
On top of the elevated area to the left, beneath the trees, is a circular earth embankment which is thought to be the remains of an Iron Age settlement. The elevated position and nearby stream were probably factors in selecting the location.
In spring and early summer, woodland here is carpeted in wild garlic.
Unlike their more versatile narrow-leaved cousins the three-cornered leeks, ramsons grow mainly in shady places such as woodland. Their broad leaves are solar panels that have evolved to capture the weak winter light early in the year before the trees are in leaf. They are an indicator that woodland is ancient and has provided a shady environment over a long period to colonise.
It is fairly well-known that conifer plantations support less biodiversity than native broadleaf woods but there are a number of different reasons for this. One is that many of the conifer species are introduced from abroad and the insects that normally accompany them in their native habitat are not present. Another factor is the commercial nature of plantations: some insect species which would live on the trees cause damage to the tree growth and are actively removed as pests. Similarly, plants that compete with the newly-planted trees are removed to allow the commercial crop to succeed. Also the harvesting process means that dead trees do not fall to the forest floor and provide the rotting wood that a range of insects and fungi require.
The brick wall on your right is a surviving part of the original 17th Century Stowe Barton mansion.
Stowe Barton manor, situated on the edge of the Coombe Valley, was a country house, built in 1679 for the first Earl of Bath, John Grenville. It was demolished, a mere 60 years later, by the Earl's daughter. When John Grenville died in 1701, the house passed to one of his daughters who had married and moved away. Faced with the expense of maintaining a house which was no longer the main residence, the daughter had the house demolished in 1739, with many of its internal fittings ending up in other country houses in Cornwall and Devon.
An earlier Tudor mansion on the site was itself demolished to make way for the 17th century house. The current farmhouse is largely 19th century but its position and T-shape plan suggest it may originally have been built from part of the stable block belonging to the 17th century house.
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.
Swallows have evolved a long slender body and pointed wings that makes their flight more than twice as efficient as other birds of a similar size. In flight, swallows can reach 35 mph which is particularly impressive given they weigh only 20 grams.
Meat sold as lamb comes from sheep of around 1 year of age. Mutton is from a sheep typically of around 2-3 years of age and is much darker red in colour. Due to more muscle and fat, the flavour of mutton is stronger and the meat is tougher so it typically slow-cooked.
The land use here includes arable crops such as barley.
Barley was one of the first domesticated crops and has been dated back over 10,000 years. Consequently beer made from barley is likely to have been one of the first alcoholic drinks consumed by the Neolithic tribes.
Crows are quite common on the farmland here.
Crows have a vocabulary of different calls with specific meanings and these can be varied to convey emotion like a human tone of voice.
The sounds that crows make have also been found to vary with location rather like regional accents in humans. When a crow moves into a new area, it mimics the calls of the most dominant flock members to fit in with its peer group.
A few different factors all combine to vary the colour of the sea:
A glass in your hand might lure you into thinking otherwise, but pure water is faintly blue. The main wavelengths that the chemical bonds in water absorb are either in the infra-red or ultra-violet, and not in the visible spectrum, which is why a glass of pure water does not look coloured. However one fairly obscure harmonic of the vibrations in the water molecule corresponds to the wavelength of red light and so water very weakly absorbs the red from white light, giving it a very slightly blue tinge. If there is enough water, both the blue tinge and reflection of blue light by any suspended particles make it look blue.
Another factor is that the surface of the ocean acts as a mirror and reflects the colour of the sky and this is why it may appear grey under a cloudy sky. Under a blue sky, this intensifies the blueness.
In shallow water, the sand which is golden in Cornwall due to fragments of seashell, reflects yellow light and this combines with the blue from seawater to generate colours from green to turquoise. The ocean also sometimes appears green due to the presence of planktonic plant life.
The Cornish language has a word glas (often appearing in place names as "glaze") which is the Swiss Army Knife of sea colour descriptions. It means blue, or green, or grey.
Some of the tourism literature used to say that the green colour of the sea in Cornwall was due to copper dissolved in the water. This is total nonsense. In order to be visible, the concentration of copper salts have to be incredibly high which would never happen with an entire Atlantic Ocean to dilute it. The highest copper levels are found in estuaries fed by rivers into which mines drain. Here there is at most in the order of a few micrograms per litre and this is carefully monitored by the Environment Agency.
The small ridges in steeply-sloping fields are known as terracettes and are caused by soil creep and their formation is accelerated by animals using them as tracks.
When the soil gets wet, it expands and particles are lifted up at right angles to the slope. When the soil dries out, it contracts, but the particles fall vertically under gravity, landing a millimetre further downhill from where they started. Over a long period of time, the soil gradually creeps downhill.
Once domesticated sheep had become woolly, individuals with white fleeces were selected for breeding as this was the easiest colour to dye. This was made easier by the genes giving rise to a white fleece being dominant. The recessive genes still do sometimes come together to produce a black lamb in an otherwise white flock. The expression "black sheep of the family" arises from this and its negative connotation was based on the economic undesirability of their fleeces.
At the end of the most distant headland is the island of Tintagel Castle. The nearer headland, about half-way along the coastline, is Cambeak at Crackington Haven.
Flower scents are volatile organic compounds which drift though the air and has evolved as an advertisement to pollinating insects that nectar is available. Squeezing the flowers releases these compounds onto the surface where they can evaporate and therefore intensifies the smell. Similarly the warming effect of sunlight helps the compounds to evaporate faster and so the smell is more intense on sunny days.
Gorse is a legume, related to peas and like other members of the pea family it's able to get its nitrogen from the air. It's also tolerant to heavy metals in the soil and to salt. This makes it able to grow in Cornwall's harshest environments: moorland, coast and mine waste tips.
There are remains of a shipwreck on the left side of Sandymouth.
The shipwreck that can be seen at low tide at Northcott Mouth at the northern end near Menachurch Point is of the SS Belém. The ship ran aground on the 20th November 1917 and 33 men were rescued. The Belém was a steam-powered cargo ship, originally built in Germany in 1890, and had recently been bought by a Portuguese freight company. The visible remains include the propeller shaft and the boilers. Another section of the propeller shaft was used as the support for the barrel on Barrel Rock, on the end of Bude Breakwater.
The Landmark Trust was founded in the 1960s to rescue buildings of historic interest by making them available as holiday lets to fund the restoration work. The first properties six properties were made available for rental in 1967 and in 2018, the 200th was completed. The history of each property is researched in detail and an album including photos of the restoration is included in each property.
Due to the cartographers of the Victorian gentry not understanding the meaning of the Cornish place names, a number of place names we have today in Cornwall have become tautological, translating to things like "cove beach" or "valley valley".
Another good example of confusion between English and Cornish names is Higher Predannack Wollas (Predannack Wollas means Lower Predannack).
Watermills were first documented in the first century BC and the technology spread quickly across the Roman Empire with commercial mills being used in Roman Britain. By the time of the Domesday survey in the 11th Century, there were more than 6,000 watermills in England. During Norman times, the feudal system lead to a greater proliferation of mills with each manor being self-sufficient with its own mill.
The simplest design for a waterwheel is known as an undershot wheel where the paddles are simply dipped into flowing water. This works well in large rivers where there is a strong current.
However, in hilly areas with smaller streams (such as Cornwall), the overshot design is more common where the water is delivered via a man-made channel (leat) to the top of the wheel where it flows into buckets on the wheel, turning the wheel through the weight of the water. An overshot design also allowed the mill to be located slightly further away from the main river which had obvious advantages during floods.
Overshot wheels can achieve higher efficiencies than undershot wheels and can operate using a smaller volume of water which explains why they were generally preferred, particularly in steep-sided Cornish valleys.
A 2004 Civil Engineering publication concluded that high energy conversion efficiencies (of around 85-90%) were possible from overshot waterwheels and that if these can be manufactured cheaply, they could provide an environmentally sound means of small-scale electricity production.
The word "mill" is from the Old English word mylen which is similar to the Cornish melyn appearing in place names like Portmellon. By mediaeval times the "n" had been lost so the Middle English word was mille although the "n" survives in the surname Milner (but nothing to do with "milliner" the gist of which was "fancy chap from Milan selling fashionable items").
The origin of "mill" can be traced back further to a Latin word mola (which also gave rise to molars in dentistry) and further still to a word in the Proto-Indo-European language spoken during in Neolithic times which meant to crush or grind.
Honeycomb Worm reefs are fascinating structures, built out of sand on the lower shore. The large golden hummocks have an intricate honeycomb structure up to several metres across and a metre deep. Filter-feeding worms, about 3-4cm long, live in tubes, fanning out plankton from the passing water and capturing particles of shell and rock to build their tubes. Each worm can live for 3-5 years, although the overall reefs last much longer. Although quite brittle, the reefs provide a habitat for a number of other species including anemones, barnacles, limpets, winkles, whelks, mussels and crabs.
The worms need hard rock to build on, and sand to build with, so their requirements are very specific: there must be enough wave action to bring a supply of sand to the rocky areas, but not so much that the worms are blasted off the rocks. The formation of reefs is assisted by a clever biological mechanism. Honeycomb worm larvae drift around in seawater and could settle anywhere to grow into adults. However, the presence of existing worm colonies, or their dead remains, strongly stimulates any passing larvae to settle out at that location, helping to ensure that the reef continues to grow.
Foxgloves have a life cycle which spans two years. The seeds germinate in spring and during their first year they produce a "rosette" of large, velvety green leaves with toothed edges. These are particularly noticeable from October onwards once other vegetation has died back. The leafy foxglove plants remain dormant throughout the winter, ready for a quick start in the spring.
In spring, whilst foxgloves seeds are germinating, the established foxglove plants from the previous year start producing their characteristic flower spike. Once these have been fertilised and the seeds have been produced then the plant dies. One foxglove plant can produce over 2 million seeds.
Foxgloves are reliant on bumblebees for pollination and bumblebees are much more active when the weather is good. Partly, as an insurance policy against bad weather, foxgloves have evolved to stagger their flowering over several weeks, starting with the flowers at the base of the stalk and working up to the top, where the higher flowers protrude over other vegetation that has grown up in that time.
The male and female parts of a foxglove flower mature at different times to help avoid self-fertilisation. This also ties in with the flowers maturing at the bottom of the spike first as pollinators often start at the lowest flower and then work upwards. They land on the mature female flowers first with a cargo of pollen from another plant, and then leave via the mature male flowers with a new load of pollen.
Although nearly all foxgloves are purple, a fairly rare white form does occur and an even more rare pink form sometimes occurs along with this.
As well as attracting insects, the brightly coloured foxglove flowers serve as a warning for animals that the plants contain toxins. All parts of the plant can cause a range of ill-effects in humans from nausea to heart and kidney problems which can be fatal.
The common name "foxglove" dates back many hundreds of years but the origin is unknown. The "gloves" almost certainly refers to the shape of the flowers, and the Latin name Digitalis (finger-like) is along similar lines. The curious part is the "fox" and many different suggestions have been made as to where it came from. It is possible that it is a corruption of another word. One suggestion is "folks" which was once used to mean "fairies".
Rockpool fishing is quite a popular childhood pass-time as a number of species can be lured out from hiding places by a limpet tied on a piece of cotton (leave a trailing end as if anything swallows the limpet, very gently pulling both ends of the cotton will cause it to release the cotton-tied limpet from its gullet). If you are intending to put the creatures into a bucket: ensure it is large, filled with fresh seawater and kept in the shade; ideally place in a couple of rocks for the creatures to hide under; do not leave them in there more than a couple of hours or they will exhaust their oxygen supply; ensure you release them into one of the rockpools from which you caught them, preferably a large one (carefully removing any rocks from your bucket first to avoid squashing them). Species you're likely to encounter are:
Rhododendron is a member of the Ericaceae family to which heathers also belong and like its cousins, it is tolerant of acid soils. The word rhododendron is from the Ancient Greek for "rose tree" due to their spectacular flowers. As a result of these, rhododendrons have been popular ornamental plants for over two centuries and the species that we now call the common rhododendron was introduced in 1763. The plants thrive in the UK climate and were once native but were wiped out by the last Ice Age. Being a vigorous plant, common rhododendron was often used as a root stock onto which more fragile but exotically-coloured hybrids were grafted.
Azalea is a name given to a sub-group of rhododendron species which typically form a bush rather than a large tree. There is no clear biological distinction but most azalea species are deciduous (whereas rhododendrons are evergreen) and azaleas often have smaller leaves, funnel-shaped flowers and are more tolerant of sunny locations than rhododendrons.
Rhododendrons are so successful in Britain that they have become an invasive species, crowding out other flora in the Atlantic oak woodlands. They are able to spread very quickly both through suckering along the ground and by abundant seed production. Many of the root stocks of ornamental specimens have suckered off some new common rhododendrons which have then out-competed the ornamental tree and killed it off!
Conservation organisations now classify the rhododendron explosion as a severe problem and various strategies have been explored to attempt to stop the spread. So far, the most effective method seems to be injecting herbicide into individual plants which is both more precise and effective than blanket cutting or spraying.
A problem with rhododendrons is that they kill bees. Rhododendron nectar is highly toxic to honeybees, killing them within hours. Some other bee species such as mining bees are also adversely affected. Bumblebees seem to be unaffected though.
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.
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.
Male damselflies have two sets of genitalia. At the start of mating a packet of sperm (spermatophore) is transferred outside of the male's body between the two and then passed on to the female who uses it to fertilise her eggs as she lays them. Female damselflies lay their eggs inside vegetation. For some species this is in water plants and the female can swim underwater for half an hour before returning to the surface to breathe. Males often guard the egg laying female to prevent a rival male from sneaking in and replacing the spermatophore with his own.
Damselfly eggs hatch not into damselflies but water-living nymphs which look a bit like a dull-coloured damselfly with a 3-forked tail instead of wings. The tail is actually a set of gills used to breath underwater. When the larva is fully developed, it climbs out of the water on a stem or rock. Its skin then splits open and a damselfly emerges with wings which need to be inflated and dry before it can fly.
You may remember from school geography lessons that the faster-flowing water around the outside of the bend causes a meander in a river to slowly grow as the outside edge is eroded and sediment is deposited on the inside by slower-moving water. At this point, your school geography teacher probably got excited about ox-bow lakes and never got around to explaining exactly why the water flows faster on the outside in the first place. So that you don't go to your grave feeling short-changed, an attempt at an explanation follows...
Flowing water piles into the outside of the bend and creates a higher pressure there. Close to the riverbed, water is moving very slowly so the high pressure pushes water across the bottom from the outside to the inside. This drags the faster-moving water across the top of the river to the outside to take its place. This spiralling current both erodes the outside edge with faster-moving water and also transports the sediment back across the bottom to the inside
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