The settlement now known as St Mawgan, is first recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086. The village was then known as Lanherne, and the river valley is still known as "The Vale of Lanherne". The Lan part probably refers to the church; no-one is quite sure of the origin of the herne part. After the Norman Conquest, the village was "rebranded", being recorded as Villa Sancti Malgani in 1206, which evolved into the modern day St Mawgan.
Wild garlic can be preserved as a frozen paste for use as a cooking ingredient throughout the year. Simply whizz up roughly chopped leaves in a food processor with enough olive oil to make a fairly thick paste and then freeze this in an ice cube tray (or slightly larger silicone moulds if you have them). Standard cooking olive oil will do for this (it's a waste to use extra-virgin as the powerful garlic will mask its flavour). Turn out the frozen blocks into a bag and keep in the freezer. They can then be used as garlic "stock cubes", added just before the end of cooking.
The woodland trees include chestnuts.
To roast chestnuts, prick each of your chestnuts with a skewer or slit the shell with a knife - this is vital to stop them exploding (and disappearing into dust). Bake them in a hot oven for at least 10 minutes. Wild chestnuts are harder to shell than the shop-bought variety as the shells are much thinner and the nuts are often smaller. An easier way to separate the edible part from the shell is to simply slice the shell in half and then scoop out the contents with the point of a knife blade. Also this way, the bitter pith covering the outside of the nut is left behind in the shell. The contents of the nut should be fluffy and pale yellow; discard any that are brown. Separating the flesh from the shells is a fairly tedious process, but with a few friends armed with large cups of tea, a formidable amount of chestnut can be extracted which can be used to make stuffings, soups or whizzed into flour and added to bread recipes. It also freezes nicely so it can be stored up for Christmas recipes.
The River Menalhyl, which meets the sea at Mawgan Porth, is about 12 miles long and had a number of mills along its length. The name of the river comes from the Cornish words melyn, meaning mill, and heyl, meaning estuary.
In the grassy area to the right of the footbridge is the remains of Lawry's Mill.
Lawry's Mill is located alongside the River Menalhyl between St Mawgan and St Column Major. Lawry's Mill (also known as Lowrey's Mill and Nankivell's Mill) was recorded as a tucking mill in 1809 but may date back further, to before 1659 when unspecified mills were recorded to exist along the river. The building is now derelict though appears to have been patched up with concrete blocks and corrugated iron during the 20th century. A pair of long leats were diverted from the river several hundred metres upstream, and ran down the side of the valley to power the mill. These are visible as gullies (no longer filled with water) below the footpath leading up the valley.
Daffodils were originally called asphodels (lumped together with the other plants that are now called asphodels). A pronunciation variation was "affodell". No-one is quite sure how the initial "d" was added - perhaps "the asphodel" by someone with a cold ("d affodel").
Bluebells are extremely poisonous, containing a number of biologically-active compounds and were used (probably with varying success) in mediaeval medicine. The sap was used as a glue for book-binding as its toxicity repelled insects. It was also used to attach the fletchings onto arrows.
The are several hamlets and villages throughout Cornwall named "Tuckingmill". Tucking was the Cornish term for fulling - the process of cleansing woollen cloth to eliminate oils and dirt, and matting the fibres to make it thicker. In these mills, the process was automated with wooden hammers driven by a waterwheel. The technology originated in the Islamic world, came to Europe via the Moors in Spain and was introduced to Britain by the Normans. After fulling, the cloth would be dyed using natural colourants and then stretched out to dry on tenterhooks.
Many of the trees in the woodland are beech and the nut casings often cover the path.
The word "beech" is thought to have the same origins as "book" as beech (most probably the bark) was used as a writing material in which to carve runes by Germanic societies before the development of paper. This is still apparent in modern German where the word for "book" is buch and "beech tree" is buche.
A large find of silver coins was made on the Carnanton estate which was recorded in the New Monthly Magazine of Sep 1821:
A short time since some persons employed in a field belonging to James WILLYAMS, esq. of Carnanton, cleared the head of a spring for the convenience of drinking, and threw up the gravel on the sides. A heavy shower falling soon after, a broken pitcher and some pieces of silver were discovered by a boy who went to the well to drink; a search immediately took place, and several hundred silver coins of Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., and a crown and half-a-crown pieces of Charles II. were found.
The estate rears pheasants which can often be seen in the fields here.
The pheasant is named after the Ancient town of Phasis (now in West Georgia) and the birds were naturalised in the UK by the 10th Century with introductions both from the Romano-British and the Normans. However, by the 17th Century they had become extinct in most of the British Isles.
In the 1830s, the pheasant was rediscovered as a game bird and since then it has been reared extensively for shooting. The pheasant has a life expectancy of less than a year in the wild and it is only common because around 30 million pheasants are released each year on shooting estates.
In 1819, an ingot of tin weighing nearly 18kg was found at Nanskeval Farm, buried nearly a metre below the surface in swampy ground. It was cast in Roman times, probably using an open granite mould, and is stamped with the head of a soldier wearing a Roman helmet. It is now in the Truro Museum.
St Column Major was a market town in the Middle Ages: in 1333, Edward III granted a market here to Sir John Arundell of Lanherne.
The two parishes of "St Columb" are so named because their churches are both dedicated to St. Columba - a local saint with a holy well at Ruthvoes. It is not known exactly who St. Columba was, but it is known she was not Columba of Iona, who is (mistakenly) depicted in a modern west window in St Columb Major church.
The place name, Sancta Columba, is first recorded in the 13th century. To distinguish the 2 settlements, they are now prefixed with "Major" and "Minor". Previously these were known as Higher and Lower St Columb, with "St Columb" often used to refer to St Columb Major.
Twice a year on Shrove Tuesday and the Saturday eleven days later, the mediaeval game of "hurling" is played in St Columb Major. The game vaguely resembles rugby though there are no written rules or even a referee. The town is divided into two teams of several hundred people (known as "townsmen" and "countrymen") and the objective is to carry a silver ball to the opposing team's goal. The goals are situated 2 miles apart and the "pitch" is the 25 square miles of the parish; the largest of any game in the world (and appears in the Guinness Records). Although the game takes place mainly on the streets of the town, it sometimes ventures into private gardens, through houses and into pubs. The game can stop at any time so members of the watching crowd can handle the ball which is said to bring good health and fertility.
As with many Cornish churches, the parish church of St Columb Major is likely to be an ancient pagan site where Celtic missionaries would have later erected the first Christian place of worship, most probably a wooden building which would have been replaced a number of times.
In about 1100 A.D., a Norman stone church was built. Part of the original Norman foundations can still be seen at the base of the pillars.
For most of the Middle Ages, the church belonged to the Arundells of Lanherne and was lavishly endowed. The 80ft tower is a fine example of a fifteenth-century building, consisting of four stages with battlements and pinnacles. It contains eight bells which were re-hung in 1950.
In the year 1676, the greatest part of the church was blown up with gunpowder by three youths of the town, and subsequently rebuilt.
A college for six priests, that stood adjacent to the church, survived this incident but only 15 years later was destroyed by a (this time accidental) fire.
The legend of St. Columba is preserved in a manuscript in the University Library of Cambridge. This states that she was the daughter of an Irish King, and that, in order to escape marriage with a pagan prince, she took a ship to Cornwall. She arrived at Trevelgue head but unluckily, she had been followed by the Prince. He chased her through the forest (which is now Porth beach). The princess fled up the valley, past Rialton and Treloy until she was captured at Ruthvoes. The Prince cut off her head and where blood fell, a spring gushed forth and the water following the course of her flight, formed the river that runs across the beach.
The river passing beneath the bridge is the Menalhyl, and the tall building on the right just before the bridge was a watermill known as "Town Mills". The wooden protrusion was a hoist for unloading sacks of flour.
Grain for animal feed was ground using millstones made from readily-available Cornish granite which tended to shed pieces of grit that would make flour unfit for human consumption. Fine flour used for baking was milled using millstones made of imported French quartz or limestone.
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.
In a small food processor, whizz approx 20g of Italian-style hard cheese (Parmesan or Pecorino). Optionally whizz in about the same amount of any toasted nuts (nice but not vital). Next whizz in 50g of wild garlic leaves. You can also add 10g lemon balm leaves if you have it growing in your garden. Add zest of a lemon, juice of half the lemon and whizz in a couple of glugs of olive oil to the desired consistency. Finally whizz in salt and pepper to taste.
Make your own super-quick fresh pasta with 200g plain flour, 4g salt, 1 egg and enough water to form a smooth dough. Use a good dusting of flour and roll out thin. Dust again, roll up into a Swiss roll and cut across at 1cm intervals to form spirals. Unravel each and drop the squiggles into boiling water. Done when it floats (about 2 min).
Ivy is a creeping vine which is well-known for being able to climb up almost anything. With good support, an ivy plant can climb as high as 90ft. A plant can live over 400 years and on mature plants, stems can reach a diameter of over 10cm.
Baby blackbirds usually leave the nest before they can actually fly then hop and scramble through the bushes. Their parents watch over them so don't attempt to rescue them.
This stretch of the Menalhyl valley runs approximately east to west towards the coast.
The salt-laden breeze coming off the sea dries out leaf buds and inhibits growth so the plants end up growing most vigorously in the lee of the wind. In the direction facing the prevailing wind, the growth is therefore more compact and stunted whereas in the lee of the wind, the branches are much more straggly. The result is that the trees appear to point away from the prevailing wind. Where there are no obstacles interfering with the wind direction, the shape of the trees can be used as a compass. Prevailing winds come from the southwest, so in general, trees in Cornwall point northeast.
Notice how the trees on the hill on the right increase in size from southwest (ahead) to northeast as the neighbouring trees provide increasing amounts of shelter from the prevailing wind.
Grazing animals very quickly learn to avoid electric fences so that the fences can even act as effective barriers when not powered. Some animals have gone further in their learning and developed crafty techniques for breaking through electric fences. One is to push another animal through the fence so that it gets the electric shocks instead!
The flowers and leaves of red clover can be dried to make a sweet tasting herbal tea. In order to get a good flavour, this needs to be infused for quite a long time (around half an hour) until a deep amber colour develops. Fresh clover doesn’t work so well as the drying process breaks down the cell walls of the plant.
Purple loosestrife usually grows in damp places such as next to a stream and can be spotted from spikes of bright purple flowers in August-September.
The common name is thought to be the result of a 16th century mistranslation of the Latin name. Attempts were then made to make "loose strife" fit with reported uses for the plant to try to rationalise the wacky name. The Latin name is now thought simply to refer to the name of city in Thrace (Greek-Turkish border) which perhaps had the plant growing along its watercourses.
The top of the stile into the field above is formed from an old stone roller. Rollers were used to flatten the loose soil created by ploughing and harrowing.
The farm here is called Trenowth which is from the Cornish for "new farm". Since the name is in Cornish, it implies it was "new" a very long time ago - probably in the early mediaeval period. The first record of it is from 1294 as Trenewith.
The farmland here provides a habitat for birds in the crow family, including jackdaws.
Birds of the crow family are considered to be among the world's most intelligent animals, displaying a high learning ability and are able to use logic for solving problems. Researchers have found some crow species capable of not only tool use but also tool construction. Crows have also demonstrated the ability to distinguish individual humans apart by recognising facial features. If a crow encounters a cruel human, it can also teach other crows how to identify that individual.
If you see low-flying aeroplanes, these are likely to be from RAF St Mawgan (aka Newquay Airport) on the top of the hill on your left.
RAF St Mawgan, on the hill to the south of St Mawgan, was originally a civilian airfield that was requisitioned in the Second World War as a satellite of the nearby St Eval airfield. After the war, it was reopened as a Coastal Command base for maritime reconnaissance which continued until the 1990s. It is also believed that the US Government built an underground bunker housing nuclear warheads during the Cold War. Since the 1990s, the airfield was mainly used for Search and Rescue. In 2008, the runway was handed to Newquay Airport, to resume its original civilian role. There is still an RAF base on the site and there is discussion about possibly relocating the Search and Rescue services here once more.
The large house and surrounding grounds on the opposite side of the valley are part of the Carnanton Estate.
The Carnanton Estate covers an area upriver of St Mawgan in the Vale of Lanherne. The Carnanton Estate included the ancient Nanskeval House which was recorded in 1277 as Nanscuvel but this was pulled down in the 1970s. It's likely that the cost of maintenance work required, particularly if the house had received heritage recognition, would have been been crippling, and this together with inheritance tax had made it a liability. Nanskivel cottage still survives on the estate.
It is thought that the surname of Nankivell and its variants derives from here. Nans means "valley" in Cornish. It has been proposed that Kivell may derive from an extinct Celtic word for "horse" (as there is a similar word in Welsh, though margh is the Cornish word for horse). Alternatively, the Cornish word kevelek for Woodcock has been suggested, which would be highly compatible with the wooded river valley in which pheasants thrive today. It's also possible that "Cuval" or "Kevall" was simply someone's name.
In Victorian times, Nanskeval House was the home of Edward Brydges Willyams, Liberal MP and High Sheriff of Cornwall, who was a keen supporter of Cornish Hurling. The Estate is still owned by descendants of the same family.
The reason moles create tunnels is that these act as worm traps. When a worm drops in, the mole dashes to it and gives it a nip. Mole saliva contains a toxin that paralyses earthworms and the immobilised live worms are stored in an underground larder for later consumption. Researchers have discovered some very well-stocked larders with over a thousand earthworms in them! To prepare their meal, moles pull the worms between their paws to force the earth out of the worm's gut.
One in five of all known fungi form lichens. Studies suggest that many species of fungi that form lichens started out from ancestors that lived on organic waste. Fossils have also revealed that the symbiosis between algae and fungi dates back more than 400 million years roughly to the time when plants first evolved from green algae.
Buddleia are originally from northwest China and Japan where they grow in forest clearings, on riverbanks and on limestone outcrops where they are able to survive with minimal nutrients. They were introduced into the UK as an ornamental plant in the late 19th Century and can found in many gardens. Some have escaped and established a niche on industrial land which resembles their native limestone outcrops.
The shrub is commonly known as the Butterfly Bush as the flowers are profuse, rich in nectar and are in the shape of champagne flutes; butterflies and bees have sufficiently long drinking apparatus to reach the bottom.
The plant has two types of leaf; the broad green leaves are replaced with shorter hairy grey leaves during the winter which are more resistant to frost and the drying effect of cold winds.
Genetic analysis has revealed that domestic apples originated from wild apples in Kazakstan near the Chinese border. It is thought that the apple was probably the first tree to be domesticated by humans, several thousand years ago. Wild apples grew in the British Isles in Neolithic times but domesticated apples were introduced by the Romans. Over 7500 varieties of apple are now known.
There are nice views over St Mawgan Church through some of the gateways on the left side of the lane.
The church in St Mawgan dates from the 13th Century and was enlarged in the 15th Century, which included raising the tower to 70ft in height. It is dedicated to the Celtic saint Mauganus who crops up elsewhere in Cornwall, Wales and Brittany. By the top of the steps near the porch is a mediaeval cross in the shape of a lantern which dates from 1420.
The settlement on this side of the river is known as Lanvean.
The settlement on the opposite side of the river to St Mawgan is known as Lanvean. The name Lanvean may refer to a former chapel: Lan typically refers to a churchyard and Vean means "small" in Cornish and survived for a long time in the local dialect, even when English replaced Cornish as the spoken language (e.g. "E'm only a vean child").
Rooks can be distinguished from other members of the crow family by their pale, hairless, pointy beak (other members of the crow family have black beaks and also a moustache on the top of their beak).
St Mawgan School are participating in the Great British Elm Experiment.
Dutch elm disease wiped out over 25 million elms in Britain but a small number of trees survived. Cuttings taken from mature trees that have survived Dutch elm disease for over 60 years (mostly wych and field elm) have been micro-propagated. The resulting saplings have been distributed to schools, community groups, local authorities and private landowners who have signed up to take part in The Great British Elm Experiment. It is hoped that a proportion of these trees may prove resistant to the disease. It's also likely that amongst the millions of small elms in the hedgerows, disease-resistant mutations will eventually occur.
The Falcon Inn in St Mawgan dates back to, at least, the 16th Century. In 1780, the pub was known as the Gardeners Arms and was later renamed The Falcon due to its association with the Willyams family of the Carnanton estate whose coat of arms features a falcon.
Records of an Inn in the village have been found as far back as 1758, and in 1779 there were records of a pub called "The New Inn". It is known that from the 14th century, the village had a number of breweries and cider houses which is presumably why it was seen as a "New Inn" in the 16th Century.
The building in St Mawgan that is now Lanherne Covent, which is over 800 years old, originally belonged to the Arundell family and was the servants' quarters for their Manor House. Lanherne is a cloistered Convent, which means the Sisters never leave the grounds unless they need to go to hospital. In between worship, they live a subsistence lifestyle: cooking, cleaning, sewing and tending the gardens, orchards, ducks and geese. The Sanctuary light, before the Blessed Sacrament, has remained alight for hundreds of years.
For two centuries, it was home to The Carmelite Sisters, but numbers dwindled, and in 2001, the ageing nuns eventually handed it over for use by the current Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate. However, recently, the Carmelite order expressed their desire to sell the property, and the Friends of Lanherne charity has been set up to preserve the use of the building as a Convent (by Sisters of the Immaculate). One complication is that as Franciscans, the Sisters are not allowed to own any properties and nor do they have any money to purchase it. Hence they need a little help from their Friends. The campaign has even given rise to a spot of blogging and a YouTube video from the Sisters in between prayer, picking apples and tending geese.
In St Mawgan churchyard, there is a memorial carved in the shape of a stern of a boat (replacing the original memorial which had decayed in 1992). This is to ten men who died of hypothermia in a boat which drifted ashore on 15th December 1846 at Beacon Cove at the northern end of Tregurrian Beach (now more commonly known as Watergate Bay).
The reason they are here in the churchyard is that in 1808 the "Dead Bodies Interment Bill" was introduced which meant that a Christian burial was required for the shipwrecked (funded by the county where they came ashore) and a reward was paid to those who discovered the bodies.
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.
Green woodpeckers are the largest and most colourful of the woodpeckers native to Britain and have a distinctive laughing "yaffle" call. The two species of spotted woodpecker are smaller and usually noticed from the drumming sound they make on trees although they can sometimes be heard making a short "cheep" sound. They are quite shy of humans but can sometimes be seen on garden bird feeders containing fat balls or peanuts.
Of the spotted woodpecker species, the sparrow-sized Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is now not very common. Greater Spotted Woodpeckers are starling-sized and have a white patch at the top of their wings which Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers don't have. Male Greater Spotted Woodpeckers can be recognised from the red patch on the back of the head. Mature female Greater Spotted Woodpeckers don't have a red mark on the head but have the red rump. Juvenile Greater Spotted Woodpeckers have a red mark at the front of their head which can lead to confusion with Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers.
All of the woodpeckers bore holes in trees in which they nest, but only the spotted woodpeckers drill into trees in search of food, spending most of their time perched on a tree. Conversely, green woodpeckers spend most of their time on the ground, hunting for ants. The ants nests are excavated using their strong beak, and then ants are caught on the barbed end of their long tongue. In fact, their tongue is so long that it needs to be curled around their skull to fit inside their head.
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.
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