Kennall Vale
The Kennall Vale gunpowder factory was immediately successful and by 1819 it was thriving: "Here are situated waterwheels constantly employed, two of which keep 14 tons of marble constantly turning (three tons and a half in a block), making four to five thousand barrels of gunpowder annually; some of the mills have occasionally blown up, but no life has been lost; it employs a fine fall of water of eighty four feet".
The Kennall Vale Company continued to expand, eventually taking over the rival works at Cosawes Wood. By 1860, the company was employing about 50 men. When high explosives came onto the market in the 1880s, the factory declined and closed in the first decade of the 20th century.
On walks
- Stithians to Kennall Vale (6 mile walk)
Get the iWalkCornwall app
Download the app and use it to explore the walks and to purchase a guided route.
The app will direct you to the start of the walk via satnav.
The app guides you around the walk using GPS, removing any worries about getting lost.
The walk route is described with detailed, regularly-updated, hand-written directions.
Each time there is a new direction to follow, the app will beep to remind you, and will warn you if you go off-route.
A map shows the route, where you are at all times and even which way you are facing.
Each walk is packed with information about the history and nature along the route, from over a decade of research than spans more than 3,000 topics.
Once a walk is downloaded, the app doesn't need a phone or wifi signal during the walk.
The app counts down distance to the next direction and estimates time remaining based on your personal walking speed.
We keep the directions continually updated for changes to the paths/landmarks - the price for a walk includes ongoing free updates.
