The church and holy well in St Clether are dedicated to Saint Cleder (or Clederus), one of the twenty-four children of Brychan. The church is of Norman origin, with a 15th century tower and (apart from the tower) was rebuilt in 1865.
Brychan was a legendary Celtic king (originally born in Ireland) who ruled over Breconshire in South Wales and was viewed as the father of the Celtic saints.
Most of his children were reported to have evangelised Cornwall and North Devon, with many of the churches dedicated to them. Consequently, many of the place names in North Cornwall (St Teath, St Mabyn, St Endellion, St Minver, St Clether, Egloshayle, Egloskerry, Advent, Morwenstow, Lelant etc) are associated with the names of his children.
The marshy fields to the left provide a good habitat for dragonflies and damselflies.
Dragonflies are named after the way they hunt, as both the larvae and adults are carnivorous predators. Mosquitoes form a large part of their diet both for adults and particularly for the larvae (nymphs). One dragonfly can eat tens of mosquitoes in a day and an average of over 100 per day has been recorded for the nymphs of some species. It is thought that this is an important factor in keeping the mosquito population under control. Dragonfly nymphs have a massive lower jaw to engulf their prey (a bit like an Angler Fish) and are also able to propel themselves by shooting a jet of water out of their anus.
Christianity in Roman Britain began in the 4th or 5th century AD. However there were no known cities west of Exeter, so the spread into Cornwall is likely to have been very limited. The majority of Cornwall is likely to have remained Pagan until "The Age of Saints" - the late 5th or early 6th century - when the Irish missionaries including St Piran and St Petroc settled in Cornwall.
It is reputed that St Cleder built his hermitage by a spring in the Inny valley, and erected the 4th century granite altar which can still be seen there; the altar is certainly over 1000 years old. The chapel was originally the village church until the Normans built one, on the site of the present church, in the 12th Century. In the 15th Century, the chapel and well were altered so that the water from the holy well ran through the chapel (past the relics of St Cleder behind the altar) and into the well at the front of the chapel where it would be collected by pilgrims. The flow past the relics was thought to increase the healing power of the water. By the end of the 19th century, the chapel was in ruins, with only the altar and some walling remaining, but was rebuilt around 1900.
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.
The thistle is oldest recorded National Flower. The association with Scotland dates back to the 13th century. The origin is said to be from when barefooted Vikings attempted to creep up on a party of sleeping Scottish warriors, only to indicate their presence in a stream of Nordic expletives!
"Holy wells" were created because the Christian church was unhappy with the people continuing their old Pagan ways and worshipping sacred springs. In the 10th Century, the church issued a cannon (law) to outlaw such practices. This didn't work, so they issued another one in the 11th Century, and again in the 12th Century. Even despite the church going to the lengths of building a chapel over the top of some springs to obliterate them, the people still hung onto their sacred springs. The church finally settled on a compromise and rebranded the springs as (Christian) Holy Wells, so the old practices could continue behind a Christian façade.
The lane leading off to the left from the crossroads leads to Trefranck farm.
Trefranck, meaning "homestead of the French man", has been farmed by the Venning family for over 300 years. The first Vennings recorded anywhere in Cornwall were John and Mary, who were married in Altarnun church in 1629, when Charles I was still on the throne. The name Venning is probably derived from the Cornish ven, meaning low marshy land. There are farms named Treven and Trevenn either side of St Clether. Trefranck Bungalow (now Forget-me-not cottage) was built in 1916 for Venning's grandparents, and was said to be the first house in St Clether with a bathroom. Trefranck is still a traditional beef and sheep farm, but has also diversified into a wind farm and holiday cottages.
The building opposite the church is the old vicarage.
The vicarage is an early 17th century building, extended to the rear of the left side in the mid-17th century to give it an L-shape. Thomas Hardy's poem "The Face at the Casement" is about William Henry Serjeant, who was dying in this house. The vicarage is now a private dwelling.
The settlement of Tremeer was first recorded in 1270 as Tremur. It is the Cornish for "large farm". The word for "large", meor, crops up in quite a few place names such as Porthmeor beach at St Ives.
The Birdsfoot Trefoil has yellow flowers tinged with red that look like little slippers and appear in small clusters. They are followed by seed pods that look distinctly like bird's feet or claws. Common names referring to the flowers include "Butter and Eggs", "Eggs and Bacon" and "Hen and Chickens", and to the seed pods, the delightful "Granny's Toenails".
It is a member of the pea family and is poisonous to humans (containing glycosides of cyanide) but not to grazing animals and can be grown as a fodder plant. It is the larval food plant of many butterflies and moths including the common blue and silver-studded blue, and an important nectar plant for many bumblebee species.
Although the fronds of bracken die back each year, the black underground roots are perennial and spread extensively, sending up fronds at intervals. The root system of one bracken plant can stretch up to a quarter of a mile across making bracken one of the largest plants in the world.
A waterfall lies just south-east of St Clether, along the footpath from Tremeer. Hidden by trees and reached by crossing a footbridge, it is particularly photogenic on sunny days, when sunlight dapples the water through the trees.
The River Inny is a tributary of the Tamar and is approximately 20 miles long, supporting populations of trout, salmon and sea trout as well as otters and kingfishers. The name of the river was recorded in the 1600s as Heanye and may be from the Cornish word enys - for island. Penpont Water is its main tributary and has a status of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Area of Great Scientific Value and Area of Great Historical Value. The source of the Inny is very close to the Davidstow Cheese factory, from a spring in the field opposite Pendragon House.
Salmon spawn in winter in the tributary streams of rivers, where the gravel is suitable. The young fish (known as "parr") grow by feeding on aquatic insects for one to three years. They then undergo a physiological preadaptation to life in seawater known as "smolting". In spring, large numbers of "smolts" swim downriver and migrate to the rich feeding grounds of the Norwegian Sea where they feed on fish such as herring and sandeels.
Salmon exhibit a remarkable homing instinct, locating their river of origin using the earth's magnetic field and smell which includes pheromones released by other salmon in the river. Some salmon reach maturity after only one year at sea; these are known as "grise" and return in summer, weighing between 1 and 4kg. Larger fish, that take two or more years at sea to mature, usually return considerably earlier in the year.
Salmon cease to feed on entering freshwater and having spawned, the fish (referred to as "kelts") are susceptible to disease and predators. However some do survive to repeat their epic journey again and there are records of some salmon spawning three times.
The barn contains a large elder tree, and there are more elder trees in the hedgerows of the fields.
Elder trees were associated with witchcraft which may have arisen because their berries were used in medicines. Consequently there were many superstitions about cutting down or burning elder trees.
Elder be ye Lady's tree, burn it not or cursed ye'll be.
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
Gorse is present as two species along the Atlantic coast and size is the easiest way to tell them apart: Common Gorse bushes are up to 10ft tall whereas Western Gorse is more of a mat - less than 1ft tall. Common Gorse flowers in spring whereas Western Gorse flowers in late summer - early autumn.
Gorse flower wine can be made using 5 litres of gorse flowers stripped from the stems and simmering these in 5 litres of boiling water. Once the flowers are removed, 1.3kg of sugar should be dissolved in the hot water and allowed to cool to room temperature. Then add 500g of chopped raisins and juice and zest of 2 lemons and ferment with white wine yeast and yeast nutrient. Although flowers are present year-round, they are best picked in spring (April and May) when they are most profuse and fragrant.
Before the Industrial Revolution, gorse was valued as a fuel for bread ovens and kilns as it burns rapidly, very hot and with little ash. It was in such demand that there were quite strict rules about how much gorse could be cut on common land.
In more recent times, due to reliance on fossil fuels, this is now out of balance and gorse has increased in rural areas which have been abandoned agriculturally.
The large building with the tall chimney close to the A39 at Davidstow is the cheese factory, more formally known as Davidstow Creamery. Davidstow Creamery is famous for producing both Davidstow Cheddar (using water from Davidstow holy well) and the ironically named Cathedral City cheeses (Davidstow Moor having neither a cathedral nor anything resembling a city).
The Rising Sun Inn, just outside Altarnun, is a 16th Century Inn built originally as a farmhouse. The pub serves local food and real ales from the award-winning Penpont Brewery in Altarnun which uses springwater drawn from the moor. There are two open fires in winter.
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.
Mosses are close relatives of the first plants to colonise the land 500 million years ago. They descended originally from freshwater algae but evolved an outer coating that protected them from the temperature changes and UV radiation that made life on the land more of a challenge than in the water. There are now estimated to be over 10,000 species of moss.
Yellow archangel is a native plant and member of the dead nettle family (and it's also known as the Golden Dead Nettle). The flowers are pale yellow, hence the first part of the name. The second part of the name (including the angelic association) is because it looks quite like a nettle but doesn't sting.
Since the 1970s, a variegated garden variety of yellow archangel (sometimes known as "aluminium plant" due to silvery metallic areas on its leaves) has escaped into the wild where it is spreading rapidly, particularly in the Southwest. It can propagate from a small piece of creeping stem and also produces several hundred seeds. Once established, it forms dense carpets in shady areas which exclude other plants. It has been deemed so invasive that it is now illegal to introduced it into the wild.
The settlement of Trecollas was first recorded in 1350 as Curcalwys. The name contains the Cornish word cruc meaning barrow or hillock.
Despite how tough mature dock plants are, at the seedling stage docks are very poor competitors with other plants such as grass. On grazing land, farmers can use docks as a warning sign that there have been bare patches of earth. This could have been caused by livestock damage or uneven spreading of manure which has killed patches of grass by blocking sunlight.
One of the nutrients that plants need are nitrates in order to make amino acids for building proteins. Plants in the pea family (also known as legumes) are able to manufacture their own nitrates from nitrogen in the atmosphere. The nitrates are later released into the soil when the leaves die and rot. The overall process of turning atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates in the soil is known as "nitrogen fixing" and this makes legumes useful in crop rotations to replenish nitrogen removed by other crops without resorting to chemical fertilisers. As well as peas and beans, clovers and vetches are also members of this family.
The large house at the bottom of the valley is Basil Manor.
Basil Manor is thought to be originally early 16th Century, with some remodelling in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It was restored and rebuilt between 1870 and 1880. The house now belongs to the Peredur Trust (for children with special needs).
The road bridge near Basil Manor is over a mill leat, which was used to drive a water wheel to power all the barn machinery via a long above-ground drive shaft. Such shafts were notoriously dangerous for ladies wearing long dresses, which could trail and catch in the rotating shaft. The ruin of the mill is just upstream from the bridge, and the mill leat is now used to generate hydro-electric power.
The large house on the left as you approach the junction is the Old School.
The Old School in St Clether was built in the late 19th century in response to a government initiative which brought about compulsory education for children up to the age of 12. It was owned by the church and after it closed as a school in 1949, it was used as a village hall. It was sold in the 1970s to raise money for church repairs and is now a private residence.
Wetlands act as sponges, storing and gradually releasing water which helps to prevent floods and buffer river levels during dry periods. Sediment and nutrients washed off the land by rainwater are absorbed by the wetland plants, feeding the wetland ecosystem but also filtering and cleaning the water before it enters rivers.
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.
The pieces of ribbon tied to a tree beside the well may initially appear to be New Age pollution but are in fact a Celtic tradition dating back to pre-Christian times. For example, Christ's Well at Mentieth was described in 1618 as "all tapestried about with old rags".
It was thought that an ailment could be cured by dipping a piece of fabric in the well and hanging it on a sacred tree beside the well. As the fabric rotted away, the illness was supposed to disappear. The wells were known as cloughtie wells based on clout - the archaic word for item of clothing - as in the saying "never cast a clout till May is out". Documented examples of cloughtie wells include the holy wells at Sancreed and Madron. This can also be seen at other holy wells such as St Clether, but how much of this is modern emulation and whether a suitable sacred tree species grew beside these wells in Celtic times is not known.
Unfortunately most modern ribbons are made of polyester which does not rot and remains in the environment a long time where it can be hazardous to wildlife. If you are planning to tie a ribbon, make sure it's a natural fibre or rayon (aka Viscose) which is plant cellulose and can be broken down by micro-organisms.
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