At the Golitha Falls National Nature Reserve, the River Fowey cascades through a pretty valley covered in a mixture of ancient woodland and a beech avenue.
The name is slightly misleading as there are no major waterfalls but rather a series of cascades and rapids. Once expectations are managed that something rivalling Niagara won't be encountered then it's a pretty spot to unwind and enjoy the riverside scenery and wildlife, and journey back through Cornwall's history from 20th Century china clay and Victorian mining to Celtic times where the last king of Cornwall drowned here in the river.
In spring, the valley is carpeted with bluebells and in autumn, the trees are vivid colours and there are lots of fungi. In summer, look out for woodland butterflies such as the orange and black silver-washed fritillary; the males are attracted to orange items including car indicators!
It is thought that the path running between the raised banks (that you emerge onto at the end of this direction) was once part of the leat that channelled water to a high point ready to power waterwheels below.
The simplest design for a waterwheel is known as an undershot wheel where the paddles are simply dipped into flowing water. This works well in large rivers where there is a strong current.
However, in hilly areas with smaller streams (such as Cornwall), the overshot design is more common where the water is delivered via a man-made channel (leat) to the top of the wheel where it flows into buckets on the wheel, turning the wheel through the weight of the water. An overshot design also allowed the mill to be located slightly further away from the main river which had obvious advantages during floods.
During Victorian times a mine, appropriately named Wheal Victoria, operated in the woodland here. The wheel pit beside the wooden fences contained a 30ft waterwheel and the sunken path running above it was once a leat that carried water to it. The mineshaft is some distance away from the waterwheel so it is thought that power was transmitted mechanically via a system of rods between the two.
The name of the River Fowey is from Fowydh, based on the Cornish word for tree, gwydh, and more specifically beech, fawen.
Golitha Falls is pronounced by most (even many Cornish) people as "Gol - eye - tha". However it is pronounced "Goleetha" by the local farmers in the immediate area and this considered the correct pronunciation. It was spelt Galetha in the 19th century and Goletha in 1949 so may have originally been pronounced to rhyme with "let" rather than "leet".
It is thought that name may derive from an old Cornish word for obstruction, similar to the Welsh word gorlifo meaning "to overflow". Another possibility is the name is based around the Cornish word leth meaning "milk" which could have been used to describe white water on the rapids. The go- prefix means "slight" in Cornish so go-leth-a (literally "little milky place" could mean "small rapids").
Until recently, a raised pipeline crossed the Fowey valley at Golitha Falls. The pipeline was used to transport china clay slurry from the pit north of St Neot at Parsons Park to the Moorswater works on the edge of Liskeard. The old china clay pit is now used as a reservoir for the public water supply, known as Park Lake.
At Park Lake a floating pump is used to extract water from the surface of the lake without disturbing clay sediment. Due to the relatively flat profile of the lake, dropping the water level by up to 7 metres requires the pump to be on a floating pontoon 100 metres out from the shore. However, the wet surrounding moorland is able to replenish the water in the pit at several million litres per day.
The Westcountry Rivers Trust began life in a meeting in a Devon pub in 1994 and was set up as a charity in 1995 to protect and improve the Westcountry's rivers and streams. It was initially a small grassroots charity staffed entirely by volunteers and was then run from the home of its first employee.
In 2001 an umbrella organisation was set up to coordinate the work of four regional rivers trusts (including the WRT) and is now simply known as the Rivers Trust. The 4 founding members have been joined by another 53 that now cover all of Wales, most of England and some parts of Scotland and Ireland.
From Golitha Falls to its source on Bodmin Moor, the river Fowey lies within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
There are 33 designated National Landscape regions in England many of which were created at the same time as the National Parks. In fact the AONB status is very similar to that of National Parks.
A single Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) was established in 1959 and is itself subdivided into 12 sections. 11 of these are stretches of the coastline and the 12th is Bodmin Moor. In 2023, the AONBs in England and Wales were renamed National Landscapes to better reflect the similarity in their status to National Parks.
The stones of sloes (and plums, cherries and peaches) contain the compound amygdalin which is metabolised into hydrogen cyanide. Therefore breaking the stones is best avoided when using them in cooking, gin etc.
In mediaeval times, blackthorn was associated with evil. This may also tie in with the English word "strife" which has Celtic origins. Straif was the name of a letter used in Celtic Ogham script and was originally the word for "sulphur". Some of the other letters in the script corresponded to tree names. In late mediaeval times, a retrospective assignment of trees to the letters in the alphabet used for Ogham that weren't already tree names became popular (sometimes known as the "tree alphabet") and blackthorn was chosen for Straif.
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 stream is a tributary of the River Fowey which it joins near Draynes Bridge at the start of the walk. The stream is fed by a number of moorland springs around Common Moor and Higher Gimble.
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.
Sheep are now farmed pretty much solely for their meat rather than their wool. The reason that you may see scruffy sheep with wool falling off is that due to cheap synthetic (plastic) fibres, demand for wool declined through the late 20th and early 21st centuries resulting in many sheep not being shorn due to the wool price being lower than the cost of the labour to remove it.
The hawthorn tree is most often found in hedgerows where it was used to create a barrier for livestock, and in fact haw was the Old English word for "hedge".
Whereas many plants rely mainly on bitter chemicals to avoid being eaten by herbivores, thistles have gone one step further and evolved spikes. Grazing livestock will understandably avoid them which allows them to accumulate in pastureland and become a nuisance. One thistle plant produces thousands of seeds dispersed by the wind which can remain viable in the soil for up to 10 years.
Plant nutrients like phosphates and nitrates are used to improve the fertility of soils to make crops grow well. These chemicals dissolve easily in water and can wash into rivers where they stimulate the growth of algae. This uses up the oxygen in the water, suffocating the other aquatic life.
Phosphates are also used in many laundry and dishwashing powders. These cannot be fully removed by the sewage treatment process and the remainder is discharged into rivers, causing serious damage. You can help to reduce this by switching to low or phosphate-free dishwashing and laundry detergents (Ecover brand is particularly good and their dishwasher tablets seem to work amazingly well). Other things to be on the lookout for around the home are waste pipes that go into drains instead of sewers (these don't get any sewage treatment so any phosphates go straight into rivers). It's worth ensuring cesspits/septic tanks are emptied regularly otherwise all kinds of nasty things including phosphates will seep from these through groundwater into rivers.
Foam on the surface of a river can look like pollution but, as with sea foam, it's normally a natural phenomenon. When water plants such as algae die and decompose, organic matter is released into the water. If the water is agitated, proteins in the water can form a froth, just like whisking egg whites. Plant nutrients entering the water will increase the amount of algae, making foam more likely or prolific so a very foamy river can be an indicator of nitrate or phosphate pollution.
The first record of the settlement of Trekieve is from 1401 but given the Cornish place name it is thought to date from early mediaeval times. By 1665 it had been subdivided into separate "North" and "South" settlements. The name is thought to be based on the Cornish word kyf, meaning "stump".
Ash trees in Britain are now under threat from a highly destructive fungal pandemic similar to Dutch Elm Disease, known as chalara or "ash dieback". Rather than being spread by beetles, this one is simply carried by the wind. Work is underway to try to find genetic factors which allow some trees to resist infection in order to breed a new generation of disease-tolerant trees.
The Living Ash project started with over 150,000 seedlings gathered from a wide range of areas, planted during 2013 in locations with the most ash dieback. In 2018, grafts were taken from the 575 trees which appear to have resisted infection and planted alongside 420 grafts from trees in woodlands and hedgerows which also seem to have survived infection. The idea is that these can all cross-pollinate to maximise genetic diversity and it is hoped this will eventually become a source of seeds of disease-resistant trees.
Similarly to Dutch Elm Disease, the chalara fungal disease that causes ash dieback is originally from Asia and the ash species there have co-evolved to be tolerant. In case attempts to breed disease resistant native ash trees are unsuccessful, work is underway to create hybrid species that closely resemble the Common Ash but with the disease resistance from an Asian parent plant.
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".
According to folklore, you should not pick blackberries after Michaelmas Day (11th October) as this is when the devil claims them. The basis for this is thought to be the potentially toxic moulds which can develop on the blackberries in the cooler, wetter weather.
The word "bramble" comes from bræmaz - a word of Germanic origin meaning "prickly". The study of brambles is involved enough to be considered a discipline of its own and is known as batology (from baton - the Ancient Greek word for blackberry).
There are nice views to the right across the lake to Tregarrick Tor.
The tor and surrounding Craddock Moor contain many prehistoric remains including standing stones and hut circles remaining from settlements. Somewhat more recently, the shots of Ross Poldark riding a horse in opening titles of the BBC's Poldark Series were filmed on Craddock Moor.
The rocky gully once connected with the walled footpath earlier on the route as part of an ancient trackway. The isolated large tree in the field is also located where one of the walls was originally. This is thought to be mediaeval or older, possibly even prehistoric. The remains of banks within the field also suggest that there was a prehistoric enclosed settlement here which may possibly have been associated with the trackway.
In windy weather, if the path across the top of the dam is closed but the path to the right is still open then it's possible to follow the route as far as direction 27 to reach the café, then backtrack to here to continue the walk from direction 30.
The remains of an early mediaeval field system is submerged beneath Siblyback lake. After long periods of dry weather, remains of some of the stone walls can be seen.
In the 1990s, a process was put in place to transfer the leisure activities managed by South West Water to a new charity. The South West Lakes Trust was formed in 2000 and looks after the following lakes in Cornwall: Argal, College, Crowdy, Porth, Siblyback, Stithians and Tamar. The trust now also includes the Wheal Martin china clay museum.
Moles are solitary except when breeding so a network of tunnels is occupied by a single mole. Moles typically live for around 3 years and when a mole dies, its tunnel network is often inherited by one of its offspring. Thus the expanding estate can be passed down through several generations. In wetland areas where there is no gradient available to retreat uphill from rising water, moles construct a large mound protruding around half a metre above the ground to act as an emergency flood shelter.
Boards with vertical sails were in use by Polynesians for short trips between islands. The idea of using a universal joint to connect a sail to a board was conceived in 1948 by Newman Darby in the USA who spent the next two decades perfecting the approach. The first boards went on sale during the 1960s and the sport of windsurfing was popularised in the 1970s.
During the 1960s, possible schemes were explored for creating a reservoir in the upper reaches of the Fowey valley above Golitha Falls. Initially the plan was to dam the main Fowey valley which would have created a large lake but obliterated a number of farms. Therefore plan B was chosen - to dam a tributary valley and the result is Siblyback lake. The dam was completed in 1968 and at full capacity the lake holds over 3 billion litres of water. The reservoir is used to buffer the water levels in the River Fowey in the summer. The water is collected downriver for domestic drinking water at the Restormel treatment works. Siblyback is now managed by the South West Lakes Trust.
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.
Whilst it's fairly obvious why cows are reluctant to cross a cattle grid, you might be surprised to learn that cows will also not cross a "virtual" cattle grid composed of dark and light lines painted on a completely solid surface. This even works with wild cattle who have never encountered a "real" cattle grid before and so is unlikely to be learned behaviour. It is thought that the reason is due to the limitations of cows' vision, specifically their limited depth perception means that they cannot discriminate between bars over a pit and a series of light and dark lines.
Tarmac's name has Scottish origins. In around 1820, engineer John McAdam pioneered a road building technique using stone chippings. Roads made from such chippings were then known as "macadam" surfaces (rather than McAdam) which is the origin of the "mac".
Bracken releases toxins into the soil which inhibit the growth of other plants, and the shade created by its large leaves and its thick leaf litter also makes it hard for other plants to compete. This and avoidance by grazing animals makes it quite difficult to control, particularly in steep areas where mechanised cutting or ploughing is difficult. Treading by livestock can reduce bracken's competitive advantage, particularly during winter when frost can attack the roots.
Inkies started in 2014, initially catering at events and won the southern heat of the British Street Food awards in 2015. In 2016, Inkies moved to the Golitha Falls car park after acquiring a lease from Cornwall Council and refurbishing the toilets which had been closed for 5 years. Initially the smokehouse was just a converted horsebox in the car park. A crowdfunding project raised money to build the log cabin.
Wagtails are easily recognised from the tail pumping behaviour that their name suggests. Despite being very conspicuous, the function of this curious behaviour is not well understood. It is possibly a signal to predators that the wagtail has seen them, so there's no point trying anything.
Two of the wagtail species are easy to confuse as they are both grey and yellow.
Grey wagtails nest close to fast-running streams as they feed on aquatic invertebrates. They have pink (skin-coloured) legs.
Yellow wagtails are more often found in open fields and have black legs.
The third kind of wagtail more often seen in urban environments - the pied wagtail - is easy to distinguish due to the lack of yellow: it's entirely black-and-white.
King Doniert's Stone, located near Golitha Falls, consists of two stone fragments of an ancient memorial cross which is thought might have originally been topped with a wooden cross. It dates from the 9th Century and commemorates the death of Dungarth the King of Cornwall, who drowned in the River Fowey nearby at about the time when the Anglo-Saxons were gaining control of eastern Cornwall. The shorter stone has an Anglo-Saxon inscription which has been translated as "Doniert has asked prayers for his Soul".
More about King Doniert's Stone from Cornwall Heritage Trust and the Cornish Bird blog.
The layer of fog which forms above the land or water during the night is known as "Radiation Fog" as it is caused by the surface cooling (by radiating away energy as infra-red) during the night. This in turn cools the air close to the surface which reduces its ability to hold moisture and this condenses out as a fog of tiny droplets. Once the sun rises and the ground begins to warm up, the fog usually dissipates relatively quickly.
The grey heron is an unmistakably massive bird with a 6ft wingspan and yet weighs in at only 1-2kg. The call of the heron is equally unsubtle - a loud croaking "fraaank" noise that is more like grating metal than the sound of birdsong. Herons are most commonly seen in or near freshwater where they hunt for fish. The number of breeding herons has been steadily growing in the UK due to mild winters as they struggle to feed during cold weather when ice forms a barrier on the surface of water.
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.
Herons nest in tree-top colonies known as "heronries" where they make a large nest from twigs. It is not unusual for a single tree to contain as many as 10 nests and the overall colony can reach over a hundred nests. The herons re-use their nest for as many years as possible until it gets blown away by a storm. It is unwise to stand beneath a heronry as the birds defend their nests by regurgitating half-digested fish on those below!
In mediaeval Britain, roast heron was a prized dish reserved for aristocratic banquets. In Tudor and Elizabethan times, hunting herons with peregrine falcons was considered a royal sport which resulted in the population being protected from peasants who might otherwise have caught and roasted them.
The English surnames Earnshaw and Hernshaw originally meant "heron wood" and the surname Herne is also a corruption of Heron.
Trout are members of the Salmon family who all have an extra tiny (adipose) fin on their back towards their tail, that most other fish don't have. No-one is quite sure what the purpose is of this fin but a neural network in the fin indicates that it has some kind of sensory function.
The trout that supermarkets and trout farms stock is the Rainbow Trout (which has a red flush along its side) and is native to North America not to the UK. Our native trout is the Brown Trout which has well-defined dark red spots along its sides. You can often make out the spots when you see them lying in pools. Rainbow Trout are often stocked in fishing lakes so do sometimes escape into the wild.
Small trout typically feed on invertebrates whereas larger trout generally feed on other fish but have been known to eat anything of a suitable size unlucky enough to fall into a river. In fact in New Zealand, mouse-shaped lures are sold for trout fishing!
Squirrels are rodents, closely related to chipmunks and slightly more distantly to dormice. The word "squirrel" originates from an ancient Greek word meaning "shadow-tailed", referring to the bushy tail of a squirrel. A family group of squirrels is known as a "drey" (also the word for a squirrel nest). A group of unrelated squirrels is known as a "scurry", though squirrels tend not to hang out in groups.
Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK from the USA in the late 19th Century and within decades they had replaced the native red squirrel in most parts of the country.
Compared to red squirrels, grey squirrels are able to eat a wider diet (including acorns), are larger so can survive colder winters, and are better able to survive in the fragmented habitats created by urbanisation. They are also thought to be carriers of a squirrel pox virus which they usually recover from but has been fatal to red squirrels, although red squirrels are now also developing some immunity.
To date, culling of grey squirrels has not reversed their domination of woodland habitat and alternative approaches such as planting food with contraceptives are being explored as a means to control the population. The theory is that infertile squirrels can compete for food against fertile squirrels, whereas culling can create a glut of food resulting in a higher number of squirrels surviving which replace those that were exterminated. Natural predators such as goshawks or pine martens also remove more grey squirrels than red squirrels. This is because red squirrels are more savvy having co-evolved with the predators so for example they recognise the scent of pine martens and actively avoid areas with this.
Squirrels assess each of their acorns before burying them. If an acorn is too light (which suggests it might have a hole), the squirrel will eat it immediately rather than risking it going mouldy.
In order to later find the nuts that they've buried, squirrels need to be organised. Some species of squirrel have been studied and found to structure their hoards by type of nut e.g. burying all their acorns under one tree and all their conkers under another. This is equivalent to us organising all the veg onto one shelf of the fridge to make it easier to remember where to look for them.
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
Squirrels eyes are positioned on the sides of their head which allows them to spot predators approaching from behind them. When a squirrel spots a predator, its runs away in a zigzag pattern. This confuses many of their predators but unfortunately it doesn't work well for cars.
Young squirrels suffer a high mortality rate in the wild and less than one in three make it to adulthood. The ones that do, live on average for about 6 years, although a lucky one can live to about 12 years old. In captivity, where there are neither predators, cars nor cold winters to contend with, they can reach 20 years old.
By using their tail as a parachute, squirrels are able to survive falls from high trees. This allows them to attempt risky jumps between treetops that don't always work out. They are one of the few mammals that can (but not always) survive an impact at their terminal velocity i.e. if a squirrel jumped out of an aeroplane, it may well survive.
In urban areas in cold countries such as Canada, a black form of the grey squirrel is more common which is able to withstand the cold better both by retaining more heat and also having a slower metabolism. In wilderness areas where predators are more common, the black squirrels don't seem to do so well, perhaps because they are less camouflaged against trees than the grey ones.
The common earthball is a woodland fungus that looks a bit like a scaly white or pale yellow potato and its external appearance could be confused with a small puffball fungus.
Earthballs have a slightly different approach to release their spores than puffballs. When mature, puffballs have a central opening in the top through which the spores puff out. With the earthball, the surface of the cap ruptures when the spores are ready to release.
Since puffballs are edible and earthballs are poisonous, it is a common offender for stomach upsets arising from misidentification. This might seem strange as puffball flesh is pure white whereas the internal earthball flesh is dark (purple/brown/black) when mature. The potential for confusion arises because when very young, the earthball flesh is pale.
The jay is a member of the crow family recognisable by the flash of electric blue on their otherwise brown body. Their natural habitat is woodland, particularly oak.
Like squirrels, jays collect and bury acorns as a winter food store. Once jays were the main means by which oaks colonised new locations as a population of 65 jays can bury (but not always find again afterwards) half a million acorns in a month. Jays prefer to bury their acorns in open ground which is an ideal spot for a new oak tree.
Beard-like lichens (known as Old Man's Beard) are very sensitive to sulphur dioxide in the air. Where the air quality is poor, at best they only manage to grow a few millimetres and may not survive at all. Long beards are therefore an indicator of clean air.
Rosebay willowherb is a tall plant with a spike of pink flowers in late summer which can often be seen beside paths and tracks. Their long leaves have a distinctive thin, white vein along the centre.
The name "rosebay" dates from at least Tudor times and is thought to be based on loose resemblances of the leaves to bay leaves and the flowers to wild roses. The overall family are also known as "willowherbs" due to the resemblance of the leaves to willow leaves. The two names have since been brought together resulting in the slightly confusing duplicate description of the leaf shape.
Rosebay willowherb is known as fireweed in USA as it's found on burnt sites after forest fires. For similar reasons it was known as London's Ruin after the Great Fire. In the Second World War it was also known as bombweed due to its rapid colonisation of bomb craters.
It is a pioneer species which is good at colonising disturbed ground as its seeds travel long distances in the wind and remain viable in the soil for many years. It was considered a rare species in Britain in the 18th century but spread along the corridors cleared for railways in Victorian times.
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