The current church building in St Mabyn dates from the 15th Century. Before this, there was another church on the same site. It's possible that the churchyard dates back to Celtic times as it is of an approximately circular shape that is typical of Celtic churchyards.
St Mabyn Inn is just along the path to the left from the gate. It was built in the 17th century originally as a farmhouse. It later became a church Alehouse and then finally an inn.
Church Ales were celebrations held within the church calendar, particularly at Whitsuntide and May Day, when ales were brewed and sold in order to raise funds for the Church or for good causes in the parish. With the growth of Puritanism in the late 17th century, drinking was seen as sinful. Church Ales were considered to be nothing but drunken disorders and were suppressed. Church houses were gradually abandoned, demolished or put to other uses.
The village of St Mabyn takes its name from St Mabena to whom the church is dedicated. She was daughter of the 5th Century Celtic king, Brychan and is depicted on the sign of the St Mabyn Inn as well as in the stained glass in the church.
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.
Several mediaeval manuscripts state that he was married three times but the numbers of children vary from 12 to 63 with 24 being the most commonly reported number. There is also little agreement in the lists of names between Cornish and Welsh manuscripts. It is thought that the list of his children may have grown over time as more people claimed themselves or their local saint to be descended from what was seen as the holy family.
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.
In the 40 years since 1960, the global production of cereal crops tripled, with wheat accounting for more than all the other crops combined. One of the factors driving the increase is processed foods where the stretchy and adhesive properties of gluten are made use of.
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 trees along the wall are Beech.
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.
There are six species of the tit family of birds found in the UK but the blue, great and coal tits are the most common. Coal tits are the least colourful (grey with a black and white head). Both blue tits and great tits have green backs but great tits are larger with a black and white head, whist blue tits have a blue top to their head.
Nettles are often found near human habitation, much to the displeasure of many humans. Humans generally remove dense vegetation such as tree cover, leaving open ground that fast-growing nettles can rapidly colonise. Food waste from humans and droppings from livestock boost phosphate levels in the soil which nettles require to thrive. Grazing animals also leave nettles alone, munching away competing vegetation instead.
Goosegrass produces lots of small white flowers in summer which are quite noticeable in hedgerows, particularly in July. The sticky seeds then form in late summer - early autumn. The seeds germinate immediately so the seedlings can get started before the winter. They then overwinter as small (frost-resistant) plants, ready for a growth spurt in April once the weather warms up.
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.
The settlement of Trescowe dates from early mediaeval times and the first record is from the 13th Century. The name is thought to be based on the Cornish word scawen meaning elder trees.
When you reach Pencarrow House, you may want to visit the house and/or gardens. When open, tickets are on sale in the car park to the right of the "Way out" signs. There is an honesty box to pay for entrance to the gardens when the house is closed (Fri and Sat at the time of writing).
Pencarrow House is located near Washaway on the Bodmin to Wadebridge Road. For nearly 500 years, Pencarrow has been the family home of Molesworth-St Aubyns and they still live there today but open the house and gardens to the public. The house was built in the 1760-70s extending an older house on the site, probably dating from around 100 years earlier. The house was used as the setting for a classical music concert in ITV's comedy drama series, Doc Martin.
The 50 acres of gardens at Pencarrow House were designed and laid out by the Radical politician, Sir William Molesworth. The gardens contain more than 600 varieties of rhododendron and camellia, and at one time included just about every possible species of conifer that can be grown in England.
Where the lane passes through a wooded valley, wild garlic grows either side.
Like its domesticated relatives, wild garlic grows from a bulb. To distinguish it from other wild plants from the onion/garlic family (such as the three-cornered leek), the species sometimes just called "wild garlic" (Allium ursinum) is often known by the name ramsons or broad-leaf garlic. The scientific name (meaning bear leek) is because the bulbs are thought to be a favourite food of brown bears on the European mainland.
The original tarmac was made from coal tar and ironworks slag. In the 1920s, coal tar was replaced by the tar from petroleum oil - bitumen. This oil-based tarmac is known as asphalt in the UK. However in the USA, "asphalt" means bitumen (i.e. just the tar with no "mac"). If that wasn't confusing enough, tarmac is known as "bitumen" in Australia!
The UK is one of the windiest places in Europe and considered as one of the best places in the world for wind power. Around a quarter of the UK's energy already comes from wind power (higher during windy months) and it is now one of the cheapest sources of electricity. Wind turbines last for about 20-25 years until the moving parts wear out and they need to be replaced.
Blackthorn and hawthorn trees both grow in similar places but in each season there are different ways to tell them apart.
In spring, blackthorn is one of the first trees to flower. The white blossom appears before the leaves in April. In warm weather, the leaves may quickly catch up and this is when it can get mistaken for hawthorn, which produces leaves before flowers. However, there are a few other ways to distinguish the flowers: blackthorn pollen is orange whereas hawthorn is pink, fading to black. Hawthorn petals overlap each other whereas blackthorn is more "gappy".
In summer, the leaf shape can be used to tell them apart. Blackthorn leaves are a classic leaf shape with slightly serrated edges. Hawthorn leaves have deep notches dividing the leaf into several lobes a bit like oak.
In autumn, pretty much all hawthorn trees have small red berries, even the windswept specimens on the coast. Blackthorn trees may have purple sloes, but not all the trees fruit each year. Some years seem to result in a lot more sloes than others.
Hawthorn trees are often a little bigger than blackthorn, especially in harsh environments such as on the coast. Blackthorn tends to form thickets whereas hawthorn are typically distinct trees. Hawthorn bark is usually shiny whereas blackthorn is dull. The thorns on hawthorn tend to be shorter (less then 2cm) and point slightly forwards on the stem. Blackthorn has longer spikes that stick out at right angles.
In fields used for grazing, docks are not necessarily a problem. Their deep roots help to hold the soil together and they provide a good source of minerals (such as selenium and zinc) for livestock. Their bitterness is due to tannins, which are also helpful to livestock for preventing bloat and parasites.
The tall trees ahead have a colony of rooks.
Rooks nest in colonies and are one of the most social members of the crow family. Scientists have found that rooks are happy to work cooperatively to solve problems (e.g. each pulling on a separate string to release food).
The succulent leaves of navelwort can be eaten and used in a salad. Older leaves become more bitter so the younger leaves are recommended. The crunchy stems can be added at the last minute to a stir-fry as an alternative to beansprouts. Care should be taken not to pull roots out of a wall when breaking off leaves.
Unlike St Mabena, Cecilia (also celebrated in St Mabyn church) is not a Celtic saint. She is celebrated with a feast day in many branches of the Christian church including both Roman Catholic and Anglican and thought to be of Roman origin. She is patroness of church music because she is supposed to have sung to god when dying.
Pencarrow Rounds is a concentric series of earth banks that the driveway to Pencarrow House passes through. The Iron Age hillfort is of a form that is typical of the later Iron Age with simple bank and ditch defences; it probably dates from the 3rd to 1st centuries BC. The central enclosure would probably have contained houses, and the spaces between the outer banks would likely have been used for livestock.
Snowdrops are a member of the onion family. Although it is often thought of as a native British wild flower, the snowdrop was probably introduced in Tudor times, around the early sixteenth century.
Snowdrops are one of the earliest plants to flower. They use energy stored in their bulbs to generate leaves and flowers during winter, whilst other plants without an energy reserve cannot compete. The downside to flowering so early is that pollinating insects are more scarce, so rather than relying exclusively on seeds, they also spread through bulb division.
Snowdrop bulbs are poisonous but contain a chemical compound which is used in the treatment of early Alzheimer's, vascular dementia and brain damage. The plant produces another substance in its leaves which inhibits the feeding of insect pests. This is being researched to see if this substance can be introduced into other plants to reduce the use of pesticides.
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!
During periods of cold weather, spring flowers, such as bluebells, have already started the process of growth by preparing leaves and flowers in underground bulbs during summer and autumn. They are then able to grow in the cold of winter, or early spring, by using these resources stored in their bulb. Once they have flowered, the leaves die off and the cycle begins again.
Other species (such as cow parsley or dandelions) require warm weather before they are able to germinate and grow. With the warmer springs induced by climate change, bluebells lose their "early start" advantage, and can be out-competed.
Because bluebells spread very slowly, they're considered to be an indicator of ancient woodland sites. In areas where trees are not very old, the fact there are bluebells around can indicate that there has been a wood on a site for a very long time. Even if there are no trees there at all, bluebells tell us that there was woodland there some time in the past. The bluebells along the coast are a relic of the gnarled oak woodland that used to grow here before it was cleared for grazing. There is still a patch of the ancient oak woodland left along the coast at Dizzard.
Some plant nutrients such as phosphorus tend to be more abundant near the surface of the soil where decaying organic matter collects. Bluebell seedlings start life at the surface so these are OK but as bluebell plants mature and send their roots deeper into the soil to avoid winter frosts, they have a phosphorus problem. They have solved this by partnering with a fungus that extends from their root cells, drawing in minerals from the soil in return for some carbohydrates from the plant.
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.
In Elizabethan times, starch made from the bulbs was used to stiffen collars and cuffs in clothing. The ruffs that were highly fashionable at the time would have needed a lot of starch to prevent them flopping. The toxins in bluebell sap might also have had the desirable property of preventing the starch encouraging the formation of mould.
In folklore, the bluebell is a symbol of constancy, presumably based on the fact that they flower in the same place every year. It was said that anyone who wears a bluebell is compelled to tell the truth. This could be the origin of the "…something blue…" that a bride should wear on her wedding day.
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.
In Old Cornish, both bluebells and marigolds were known as lesengoc which translates to "flower of the cuckoo". In Modern Cornish, the marigold has remained more-or-less the same but the bluebell has been changed to bleujenn an gog ("plant of the cuckoo"). The association between bluebells and cuckoos exists in Welsh ("bells of the cuckoo") and Gaelic ("cuckoo's shoe"), and in some English folk names such as Cuckoo's Boots and Cuckoo Stockings. It is thought that the association is due to the time that bluebells flower coinciding with the time that the call of the cuckoo is first heard.
Bluebells are also known by folk names based on their shape including Lady’s Nightcap and Witches’ Thimbles.
Other common names for the bluebell include "wild hyacinth" and "wood hyacinth" as they are related to the hyacinth family. Their Genus name Hyacinthoides also means "hyacinth-like".
When photographing bluebells, the flowers that look blue to your eye can end up looking purple in photos.
The first thing to check is that your camera isn't on auto white balance as the large amount of blue will cause the camera to shift the white balance towards reds to try to compensate.
Another thing to watch out for is that the camera's light metering will often over-expose the blue slightly to get a reasonable amount of red and green light and the "lost blue" can change the balance of the colours. You can get around this by deliberately under-exposing the photo (and checking there is no clipping if your camera has a histogram display) and then brightening it afterwards with editing software.
Bluebells are very vulnerable to trampling. The reason for this is that when their leaves emerge in the early part of the year, they are powered by the stored sugars in their bulbs. Sunlight is very limited at this time of the year and even more so in the shady places where they grow. In order to survive, they then need to photosynthesise flat-out to store enough starch in the bulb for next year's growth. If a bluebell’s leaves are crushed, it cannot photosynthesise and and doesn't have enough reserves left in its bulb to grow new ones. It's therefore important to stick to footpaths in bluebell woodland and best to take photos with a zoom lens from there as wandering around in the bluebells to take photos will inadvertently kill them.
A rare genetic mutation occurs in bluebells which results in about 1 bluebell in 10,000 being white rather than blue.
Three-cornered leeks - which have white bell-shaped flowers and are very common - are often misidentified as "white bluebells". The easiest way to tell them apart is that 3-cornered leeks smell strongly of onion. Their flower stems are also triangular (hence the name).
Bumblebees were originally called "humble bees". From the 16th Century onward, both terms were in use but even during Victorian times, "humble bees" was the term that Charles Darwin and other naturalists used for them. After the Second World War, the humble version rapidly died out.
There is an urban myth that according to aerodynamics, bumblebees should not be able to fly, leading to statements by US presidential candidates such as:
It's scientifically impossible for the bumblebee to fly; but the bumblebee, being unaware of these scientific facts, flies anyway.
You may not be too surprised to discover this assertion was based on flawed calculations in the early 20th Century that neglected to include the bees flapping their wings!
During flight, bumblebees beat their wings around 200 times every second. However, the buzzing sound they make is not from the beating wings but from the bee's vibrating flight muscles. On cold days, by using their flight muscles, the bees are able to warm up their bodies to temperatures as high as 30 Celcius.
It is estimated that 75% of the food we eat is dependent on pollinating insects. Bumblebees are particularly important pollinators, especially for tomatoes where a high-pitched buzz from the bee is required release pollen from tubes in the plant.
In early spring, queen bumblebees need to visit up to 6,000 flowers per day to gather enough nectar and pollen to establish their colony. Many commercial crops, such as oil seed rape, flower too late for the queens so the survival of bumblebees is heavily dependent on early-flowering rough ground plants and hedgerow bushes such as blackthorn.
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".
The Bray family have been farming at Haywood for over a century and the farm's granite cider press dates back much further than this. In 2003, Tom Bray revived the press and began making cider with friends. This has grown into a family business making traditional farmhouse cider which has involved propagating old varieties of cider apple tree and planting 14 acres of orchards. The cider is available for sale in flagons at the farm and community shop or to drink at the St Mabyn Inn. Tom also runs tours of the orchards (pre-booking required).
The UK produces nearly two-thirds of all cider in the European Union and by volume of alcohol, the excise duty on cider is lower than any other drink. Cider has had a huge resurgence in popularity over the last few years and three in five adults now drink it.
Cider is part of the Westcountry heritage and this includes a tradition dating back to the early Middle Ages known as the "Orchard Wassail" where an offering of bread and cider was made to the apple trees and incantations were recited to promote a good harvest.
Cornish ciders beginning to achieve popularity outside the county include "Cornish Rattler" from Healey's cider farm (distributed by St Austell Ales) and "Orchard Cornish" cider (a joint venture between Cornish Orchards and Sharp's Brewery). In the interests of research, both have been extensively tested and deemed very refreshing and conducive to the recital of incantations.
Full page maps cannot be printed due to copyright and terms of use.