Bude Canal runs from Helebridge, through the centre of Bude, to the sea lock near Summerleaze beach. The canal was built in the 1820s to carry sea sand and lime inland for use as fertiliser and the original canal system spanned 35 miles reaching Launceston. The canal closed in 1901 when competition from the railway, bringing cheap manufactured fertilisers, rendered it uneconomical. Today, roughly 2 miles of canal remain filled with water.
You can sometimes see kingfishers on the canal.
Kingfishers are found near slow-moving or still water where they dive to catch fish, as their name implies, but they also eat many aquatic insects, ranging from dragonfly nymphs to water beetles.
The Kingfisher is able to switch between light receptors in the main central area of its eye and a forward-facing set when it enters water, allowing it to judge distances accurately underwater. It is estimated that a female needs to eat over twice her own body weight in order to increase her condition sufficiently for egg laying.
The unmistakable metallic blue and orange birds fly fast and low over the surface of the water so may only be apparent as a blue flash. The pigment in their feathers is actually brown but the microstructure of their features results in light interference patterns which generate the brilliant iridescent blue and orange colours. Unfortunately the result, during Victorian times, was that kingfishers were extensively killed for display in glass cases and for use in hat making. The population has since recovered and is now limited by the availability of suitable waterways.
National Cycle Route 3 runs 338 miles from Bristol to Land's End. The route is a mixture of lanes, byways and some tracks not open to road traffic including the upper section of the Camel Trail from Wenfordbridge to Dunmere.
The Romans and Greeks played games which are thought to resemble football with air-filled balls and there is a report of a Roman man being killed whilst being shaved by a barber when a ball was kicked through the window.
A game involving running with a ball became popular at Rugby school in the 1830s and by the 1850s Rugby School football was spreading across the UK. In 1863, the Football Association was formed which formalised the rules of "soccer" (a late 19th Century Public School slang abbreviation of "association"), distinguishing it from "rugger".
In Cornwall, the Celtic sport of hurling was already popular and may be why rugby was so enthusiastically adopted in the 19th Century.
In 2013, water voles were re-introduced in the Bude area and have been breeding successfully. The colony is protected by an ongoing programme to monitor and trap mink in the surrounding area.
Since 1960, 90% of water voles in the UK have been wiped-out and the population is still falling faster than any other wild mammal in the UK. One reason is the intensification of agriculture leading to loss of habitat. A more acute factor is American mink which have escaped or been misguidedly liberated from fur farms. Mink have multiplied in the wild to become the water vole's main predator. Every day, water voles must eat around 80% of their body weight so they spend a lot of time mowing vegetation. When threatened with danger, their instinct is make a dash for water which makes them very vulnerable to predators that are faster swimmers than the voles.
Bude Marshes is an area of wetlands located on the south-west edge of Bude, along the northern bank of the Bude Canal, not far along from the Visitor's Centre. The marshland is the fourth largest area of reed in the county and provides valuable habitat for wintering migrant and breeding birds.
Bude is a small resort town on the northern part of the North Cornish coast. The Bedes, meaning wise men, attended the chapel on the rock and consequently the location was referred to as "Bede's Haven". In Cornish it was known as Porthbud. Locals pronounce it "bood" which probably stems from the Cornish version of the name.
In Victorian times, Bude was a popular seaside resort and many of the Victorian buildings remain. In more recent times, Bude has become famous for its Jazz Festival in August. There is a Tourist Information Centre in the main car park.
Although herons primarily eat fish, they will eat frogs, rodents, moles, ducklings and even baby rabbits! They are quite brave birds and will venture into gardens and parks to eat the ornamental fish. They have also been known to visit zoos to steal fish during penguin and seal feeding.
Fairly large mullet can sometimes be seen in the river.
Grey mullet are related to the perch family (which includes bass) and are surprisingly unrelated to the "red mullet" (which is in fact a type of goatfish). Mullet caught in the open sea are excellent eating fish and can be used in similar dishes to bass. However, those living in muddy water (such as the harbour) generally taste of mud. This can apparently be diminished by soaking them in acidic, salty water but the flavour is still described as "earthy".
Geese migrate to warmer climates for the winter and fly in a V-shaped formation known as a skein or wedge (on the ground, a collection of geese is known as a gaggle). The V-formation allows birds behind the leader to fly more efficiently as the rising air from flapping wings of the bird ahead helps to support the weight of the one behind. This can increase the range that the bird can fly by over 70%. The birds each take it in turns to do the harder job of flying at the front.
The footbridge is known as Nanny Moore's Bridge.
Nanny Moore's Bridge is a footbridge that crosses the River Neet in Bude. The bridge was formerly known as Bude Bridge but renamed in the early 1800s after a widow who lived in one of the Leven Cottages next to the bridge. It was built originally for packhorses and carts as well as pedestrians and led to Efford Mill (which became the cottages). The end section is cantilevered so it can be lifted to allow boats through.
The widow known as Nanny Moore was an attendant (known as a "dipper") to the bathing machines on Bude beach in the early-mid 19th Century, when the Victorians had decided that bathing in the cold sea was good for one's health. Her role was to assist bathers in immersing themselves, especially when the temperature of the water sapped the courage of the more timid! She died in 1853 and is buried in St Michael's churchyard.
The bathing machine was a device, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which purported "the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy". Bathers entered the small room of the machine whilst it was on the beach and once inside changed into their bathing suits. The device was then hauled out into the sea either by horses or strong locals. Once in the water, the occupants disembarked down steps from the sea side. It was considered essential that the machine blocked any view of the bather from the shore. Men and women were usually segregated, so nobody of the opposite sex might catch sight of them in their bathing suits, which (although modest by modern standards) were not considered proper clothing in which to be seen.
The protruding rocks on the left of the beach and river channel are where the ship Bencoolen was wrecked.
The Bencoolen was a ship wrecked off Summerleaze beach near Bude. On its way from Liverpool to Bombay, the Bencoolen - a 1415-ton cargo vessel - met gale force winds off the North Cornish coast on October 21st 1862, breaking its main mast and leaving the captain unable to steer. At roughly 3 PM the ship ran aground on Summerleaze beach, just metres from safety. The sea was too rough to launch the lifeboat, so the rocket brigade were deployed.
"In five minutes the rocket apparatus was put to work; the first rocket fell short, the next failed, the third fell over the ship where the despairing crew huddled on the poop. A man who rushed forward and clutched the line was washed overboard with it in his hand. A huge roller then broke over the apparatus rendering it useless."
"Within two hours from the time she struck, she was in fragments, and 24 men had drowned within a cable's length of the breakwater at Bude. Of the 33 crew, only six were rescued alive."
The figurehead that was recovered from the ship is on display at the Heritage Centre in Bude Castle. Timber from the ship was used to build many of the houses at the time and may have accelerated the expansion of Bude.
Bude Sea Pool is located on Summerleaze Beach. After "tragic happenings... through people bathing at low water", the Sea Pool was created in the 1930s in the bay known as "Saturday's Pit". The local newspaper stated it was now possible to "proclaim worldwide that there was absolutely safe bathing at Bude... In all probability precious lives will be saved". Due to budget cuts in 2010, Cornwall Council ceased funding for the pool and it is currently being run by a local charity appropriately named "Friends of Bude Sea Pool" (formerly SOS = Save our Sea Pool).
The cliffs at the far end of the pool are known as the "Bude Fish Bed".
The cliffs at the northern end of Bude Sea Pool are known as the "Bude Fish Bed". They are so named because they are some of the most fossiliferous in the area. There is a black shale layer just over 4 metres thick which contains the fish fossils and also some crustaceans.
Next to the sea pool on Summerleaze beach is a long rock known as Coach Rock. At the bottom of this is a metal cross, erected in 1840. This is a Half Tide Cross and lives up to its name when the water is level with arms of the cross, marking the tide being half in, or out, depending on whether your cider glass is half full or half empty.
The beach sand and sandstone around Bude was used as a source of lime to improve the fertility of the acid soils further inland.
"the quantity which is every season carried away from different parts of the coast for the purpose of manure almost exceeds belief. From Bude, in the parish of Stratton, it has been ascertained that in one day as many as four thousand horse loads have been taken."Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall 1818.
The remains of an iron tramway is sometimes exposed on Summerleaze beach. This was used to transport horse-drawn tipping wagons. Some of the sand was used to reclaim land near the recreation ground. Beach sand was also used as ballast for empty vessels once they had unloaded cargo at Bude. The collection of sand ended in 1941.
In 1869, John Sainsbury and his wife opened a grocery shop in Drury Lane, London. Sainsbury's trading ethos was "Quality perfect, prices lower" (stated on their Islington shop in 1882) and this proved immensely popular - by 1922 it had become the UK's largest retailer of groceries. The trading ethos also led to Sainsbury's pioneering the concept of supermarket "own brand" products, undercutting established brands on price. When J. Sainsbury died in 1928, his dying words were "keep the shops well lit".
The infamous Bude Tunnel is alongside Sainsbury's.
The 230ft plastic tunnel from the road to Sainsbury's Car Park made it into the national news after it was ranked as Bude's top tourist attraction on Tripadvisor where it is listed alongside the Taj Mahal as one of the wonders of the world, a "religious experience" and "human miracle". What started out from a few people with a sense of humour has snowballed into a social media phenomenon which has now reached cult status with hundreds of Tripadvisor reviews and even has a "Public Relations Manager for Bude Tunnel" on Tripadvisor who responds to reviews. For Christmas 2018, the tunnel was lit with thirty thousand LEDs to produce a spectacular light show.
The confluence of rivers Neet and Strat occurs upstream of Bude at Helebridge. From this point downstream, there has been controversy over whether the river should be called the Neet or the Strat. Historically the residents of Stratton seemed to prefer the name shared with their settlement whereas some Bude residents referred to the "Strat" as a "vulgarism". This has never been formally resolved, and on Ordnance Survey maps, the river is now diplomatically known as the "Neet or Strat".
A ball hitting sport documented in AD 945 in China seems to be more-or-less crazy golf, which would make crazy golf the "original" form of golf.
The form we know today is thought to have evolved from mini golf which was created for Victorian ladies for whom it was unbecoming behaviour to swing a club violently. The St Andrews Ladies' Putting Club, created in the 1860s, is thought to be the first mini golf course.
In 1916, a miniature golf course in America was created with the holes bordered with flower beds. Then, during the 1920s, a series of short-lived crazes culminated in the Crazy Golf craze of 1930 in which four million Americans played every night! The craze spread into Britain via London and by October of 1930 there were already 60 courses.
Bude Castle is located to the west of Bude town centre close to Summerleaze Beach, on an island of land between Bude Canal and the River Neet. The Victorian engineer and inventor Sir Goldsworthy Gurney built his home here in a location originally on the sand, challenged by the locals who said it couldn't be done. "Wait and see..." was Gurney's reply and the result (Bude Castle) is now a heritage centre which rests on an innovative concrete raft foundation.
Gurney invented limelight and his Bude Lights (oxygen-accelerated oil lamps) which were used to light the House of Commons for more than 60 years. His other achievements included extinguishing a mine fire known as "the burning waste of Clackmannan" that had been burning for 30 years by using a steam jet to smother it with a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide and subsequently a spray of water to cool the mine.
The 9 metre conical monument of polished concrete erected outside Bude Castle is named the Bude Light in dedication to Gurney, painted in the colours of sea, sky and sand and lit with fibre-optics which are a little more suited to both the outdoors and health-and-safety than his original lighting systems involving naked flames and pure oxygen.
To deal with the rising land and poor supply of water, the Bude canal included "inclined planes" (hills in a canal!) which were cheaper to construct, saved water and were quicker to use than a flight of locks.
The 20ft long canal boats had wheels, and the boats laden with 20 tons of cargo were hauled uphill on rails. Power was provided by waterwheels or, in one instance, a very large bucket of water which acted as a counterweight as it was lowered down a shaft.
The Barge Workshop at Helebridge - a small museum, opened on Sundays during the summer by volunteers - houses the only known example of a Bude Canal tub boat. Despite being at the bottom of the canal until 1976, this is substantially complete, including its wheels.
When the Bude Canal was built at the start of the 1820s, a lock was constructed at the seaward entrance to allow sailing vessels of up to 100 tons to be admitted to the basin for trading. In 1835, the Sea Lock was badly damaged by a storm. It was subsequently rebuilt, and the opportunity was taken to enlarge it to its current dimensions which could accommodate larger seagoing vessels of up to 300 tons.
In 2000, the sea lock had a complete refurbishment which included 2 new sets of gates. Only 8 years later, the new gates were lifted and damaged when a storm coincided with a very high tide; this broke the seal and caused the canal to start to drain. An emergency dam was built to protect the wildlife in the canal whilst the gates were repaired.
Summerleaze is Bude's town beach and where the canal and river Neet meet the sea, so swimming anywhere near the canal sea lock should be avoided due to strong currents. The beach is sandy at high tide and there is a beach at all states of the tide. At the tide goes out, the beach merges with Crooklets and seawater is retained in the sea pool for swimmers. There are some ridges of rock between Summerleaze and Crooklets interspersed with areas of sand.
Sometimes winter storms strip the sand from the beach and the remains of an iron tramway is exposed which was used to transport beach sand. This was originally built in the 1820s as a horse-drawn "plateway" (consisting of L-shaped metal plates rather than rails) and then replaced in the 1920s with more modern narrow-gauge rails but still horse-powered. The rails on the beach are thought to date from 1924.
Crooklets is a sandy beach with pebbles near the top and areas of rocks either side. There is a beach at all states of the tide. As the tide goes out, Crooklets merges with Summerleaze beach. There are some ridges of rock between Summerleaze beach and Crooklets interspersed with areas of sand.
On a really low tide once the sea recedes beyond Wrangle Point, Crooklets merges with the Mear Cliff beaches to the north and eventually Northcott Mouth beyond these.
Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, around 300 million years ago in the "age of amphibians" before the dinosaurs. Fossils of early dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet across.
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.
Their two sets of wings beat out of phase, and the frequency, amplitude and the angles of each set of wings can be controlled. This allows dragonflies to hover in a completely stationary position for over a minute, perform extravagant aerobatic manoeuvres and even fly backwards.
The little egret - a white member of the heron family - can be seen on many of the creeks in Cornwall and yet is only a very recent settler in Britain. The birds first appeared in Britain in any number in 1989 and the first to breed was in 1996 in Dorset.
Biologically, there is no clear distinction between ducks, geese and swans (geese and swans are one lanky subfamily of ducks). Dark-coloured ducks get the equivalent of "grey hairs" with age - their feathers gradually turn white.
The species of duck that you're most likely to encounter is the mallard. Mature males have striking iridescent green heads and dark bodies whilst females look totally different - a brown and white pattern which offers much better camouflage. However, both have a common feature that is unique to mallards - an iridescent blue patch on their wings.
In situations where ducks need to watch out for predators, they can sleep one half of their brain at a time, keeping one eye open for danger. In safer circumstances, ducks will sleep fully.
Male ducks (drakes) have a penis which falls off every autumn and regrows the following spring. The length each year depends on the amount of competition for females and varies up to a maximum of the duck's whole body length.
Ducks can change gender. This happens for about 1 duck in 10,000 and more commonly from female to male than the other way around. It seems to occur in a flock of ducks where there is a significant gender imbalance where it gives the duck that changes a competitive advantage. It's likely that the female to male direction is a bigger evolutionary win because one male can fertilise multiple females.
Feeding bread to ducks is quite bad for them although not feeding ducks anything at all is potentially worse as many have now become reliant on being fed. White bread lacks many of the nutrients that ducks need but ducks will gorge on it to the point of ignoring other foods, effectively becoming junk food addicts. The problem is that by filling up on just this, they can become malnourished, deformed and even die. Some healthier things to feed ducks are leftover peas, sweetcorn, seeds, rice and salad.
Moorhens are water birds which is the basis of names including "waterhen" and the more entertaining "swamp chicken". The name mor-hen was recorded in the 13th Century and is from an old word for marsh that also gave rise to "mire", rather than simply "moorland".
Moorhens are close relatives to coots but have red-and-yellow beaks rather than white. Like coots, they are aggressive in the breeding season. Unlike coots, they are not aggressive the rest of the time too! The older moorhen chicks will even help their parents to raise the young ones. Moorhens also spend more time out of the water than coots and will even climb trees.
Roach are silver freshwater fish with red fins that are members of the Carp family. They are typically found in shoals in fairly static water such as lakes and canals. Cornwall's fast-flowing streams are the domain of more powerful swimmers such as trout.
Roach are tough little fish that can live for up to 15 years. They are able to cope with more pollution than most other fish, salty water, cold temperatures and can even adapt their body shape to deal with a scarcity of food. They are able to survive on just about anything from insects and fish eggs to water plants.
They can be confused with their cousins rudd which are similar in shape and also have red fins. The easiest way to tell them apart is that rudd have distinctly upturned mouths for hoovering in floating water plants.
The common carp originated in the inland delta of the Danube River about 2000 years ago, and was torpedo-shaped and golden in colour. The Romans then farmed it in large ponds in southern Europe, and domesticated version became gradually fatter through selective breeding. During the 13th-16th centuries, domestic carp was spread around Europe by monks who kept it in abbey ponds as a source of food.
Carp are omnivorous and although the prefer worms and crustaceans, they can survive on a diet of water plants. In British lakes, carp can reach over 70lb (30kg) in weight which makes them popular with anglers.
The earliest form of canal lock was a single gate known as a "rush lock" which afforded downstream navigation resembling whitewater rafting!
The idea of an enclosed area between two gates - allowing upstream as well as downstream navigation - was pioneered in mediaeval China by the naval engineer Qiao Weiyue in 984. It is now referred to as a "pound lock" (pound in the sense of "enclosure").
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.
Himalayan Balsam is a tall plant with very pretty pink flowers that can often be seen lining footpaths in the summer and early autumn. It was introduced as an ornamental species in 1839 and unfortunately the plant is now a major ecological problem. It can grow from a seed to 9ft high in a few months, forming dense thickets and wiping out other plant species. It is also extremely invasive as the seed pods open explosively, launching around 800 seeds per plant up to 7 metres and the seeds are also adapted to travel by water. It is a nuisance on riverbanks as its roots are shallow and allow the sediment to become easily eroded into the river. It can be identified by its bright pink flowers and it has a characteristic sweet smell.
Swans usually mate for life, although "divorce" can sometimes occur if there is a nesting failure. The birds can live for over 20 years but in the 20th Century many swans were found to be suffering from lead poisoning. This was tracked down to the tiny "lead shot" weights used for fishing that swans would hoover up with weed and roots from the bottom of rivers and lakes. Since the introduction of non-toxic metals for making fishing weights, incidents of poisoning have disappeared and the swan population is now even growing very slightly.
A transatlantic internet cable from the USA to Spain and the UK comes ashore at Crooklets beach. The cable laid by Google, named "Grace Hopper", has a capacity of 352 terabits per second. As well as improving the UK's connectivity to the USA, this also provides a fast link for Google's data centre in Madrid via the other section of the cable that comes ashore at Bilbao. The internet traffic within the cable is strongly encrypted to prevent submarines doing anything naughty.
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