Altarnun is a pretty village to the north-east of Bodmin Moor. The name "Altarnun" is a corruption of "Altar of St Nonna" although the village was originally known by the Cornish name Penpont (hence the name of the river - Penpont Water). The Old Rectory near the church was featured by Daphne du Maurier in "Jamaica Inn".
Wild garlic grows along the lane here, which is evident in spring and early summer.
Wild garlic has been found in settlements dating as far back as the neolithic period which given its springtime abundance and aroma is not that surprising. Its culinary use was eventually overtaken by domesticated garlic which first arrived with Mediterranean traders and had the advantage that the bulbs could be stored for relatively long periods.
In 1849, a Bronze Age stone mould for casting axe heads was found at the Glebe in Altarnun. An axe head found in one of the barrows at Harlyn Bay seems to fit the mould and both are displayed in the Royal Cornwall museum in Truro.
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.
Navelwort produces flower spikes with small green bells from June to September. When the flower spike is first forming, it is a rather beautiful structure and is a perfect subject for macro photography.
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
In farms around Cornwall, harvest was celebrated with traditions such as "crying the neck".
Neck - a miniature sheaf of wheat with four plaited arms, intertwined with everlastings and the more durable of flowers. The stalks of wheat brought down by the last sweep of the scythe are brought home in thankful triumph, and woven as described. In the evening, the sheaf or zang is taken into the mowhay, where are assembled all the harvest party.
A stout-lunged reaper proclaims: "I hav'en! I hav'en! I hav'en!"
Another loud voice questions: "What hav'ee? What hav'ee? What hav'ee?"
"A neck! A neck! A neck!" is the reply;
and the crowd take up, in their lustiest tones, a chorus of "Wurrah".General merriment follows and the draughts of ale and cider are often deep. The neck may be seen hanging to the beam of many of our farm-houses between harvest and Christmas eve, on which night it is given to the master bullock in the chall. "Hollaing the neck" is still heard in East Cornwall, and is one of the cheerfullest of rural sounds.
Since the 20th century, the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies has been reviving this tradition; the ale part sounds good.
The Harvest Festival that we know today was invented in Morwenstow in 1843 by Rev. Hawker. Traditions celebrating harvest predate Christianity but Hawker revived this, centred around the church. Hawker invited his parishioners to a harvest service, as he wanted to give thanks to God for providing such plenty. The service took place on the 1 October, and bread made from the first cut of corn was taken at communion. It quickly caught on and spread throughout Cornwall and beyond. In the Port Isaac Harvest Festival celebration, fish, nets, oars and lobster pots took the place of the more conventional flowers and fruit.
The farmstead at Tregunnon was first recorded in 1189 as "Gunan" and is from the Cornish word goon meaning "downs". By 1231, the settlement had split into Higher and Lower Tregunnon which in 1231 were referred to using the Middle English for "higher" and "lower": Overgunan and Nithergunan.
Evidence of windmills in England dates from around the 12th century and in Cornwall there are records of windmills as far back as 1296. Wind turbines may be viewed as the modern successor but actually themselves date back to Victorian times: the first large windmill to generate electricity was built in 1888 in the USA, and in Cornwall, a private house was lit using electricity generated by a wind turbine in 1890.
Green dock beetles can sometimes be seen on dock plants. They have a metallic shimmer which can produce colours of gold, blue, purple, violet or red in sunlight. The sheen is produced by a stack of microscopic reflective layers which create interference patterns in light causing different colours to appear at different angles. As the beetles mature, melanin (the "sun tan" chemical produced in humans to protect skin from the sun) pigments the layers and causes them to become reflective.
Scientists have found that cows tend to lie down when the weather is cool but stand up when it's hot to improve air circulation and regulate their body temperature. The folklore about cows lying down being a sign of rain might well be due to the cold fronts causing precipitation being reflected in the "cow thermometer". Cows also lie down to sleep but they only sleep for about 4 hours a day.
The early purple orchid gets its common name from its spring flowering time - it appears at a similar time to bluebells although it lasts a bit longer. It has a Latin name meaning "virile" which is in keeping with the word "orchid" coming from the Greek word for testicle (on account of the shape of the tuber).
In autumn, sloes are often plentiful and can be used to flavour gin, sherry and cider. The berries can be harvested from September until nearly Christmas although more tend to shrivel as the autumn advances. Traditionalists say that you should wait until the first frosts in late November when the sloes are less bitter. This is because freezing breaks down the bitter tannins. Therefore you can pick your sloes in September before they go too wrinkly and then pop them in the freezer to achieve the same thing.
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.
Beech trees can live up to 400 years but the normal range is 150-250 years. Beech trees respond well to pruning and the lifetime of the tree is extended when the tree is pollarded. This was once a common practice and involves cutting all the stems back to a height of about 6ft during the winter when the tree is dormant. The 6ft starting point kept the fresh new growth out of the range of grazing animals. When allowed to grow to full size, a beech tree can reach 80ft tall with a trunk diameter of around 3ft.
The River Inny is a tributary of the Tamar and is approximately 20 miles long, supporting populations of trout, salmon and sea trout as well as otters and kingfishers. The name of the river was recorded in the 1600s as Heanye and may be from the Cornish word enys - for island. Penpont Water is its main tributary and has a status of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Area of Great Scientific Value and Area of Great Historical Value. The source of the Inny is very close to the Davidstow Cheese factory, from a spring in the field opposite Pendragon House.
The name Laneast is thought to mean "church to the East" (of the older one at St Clether). The church building dates from Norman times with additions in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th Century, the tower and south aisle were completed. The church was restored in the mid-1800s but much of the 15th Century woodwork and stained glass remains.
The word "farm" has the same origins as (e.g. law) "firm". Both words are related to the mediaeval Latin word firma meaning "fixed payment". Its original use in English was to do with contracts and leasing (which is why "to farm out" means "to subcontract"). In fact the word "farm" had no association with food production until the 19th Century. In the 16th Century it began to be applied to leasing of land and the association with farmland developed from this.
Laneast Holy Well is located on private land within the meadow to the right.
The Holy Well, known locally as "Jordan Well" or "Wishing Well", is covered by a slate-roofed granite building dating from the 16th Century which is now Grade II listed. Water from the well was still used for baptisms until relatively recently.
The berries of holly contain a chemical compound very similar to caffeine. Only in very small doses is this a stimulant; in larger doses it is toxic. It is for this reason that you see holly berries on bushes rather than being inside the nearest bird. The birds have learned to wait until after the frosts have reduced the toxicity of the berries before eating them.
Holly was known in Cornwall as the holm (bush) and is the origin of the Holmbush area of St Austell and Holmbush Mine in Kelly Bray.
From Tudor times onward, the majority of farming in Cornwall was based around rearing livestock with dairy cattle being predominant. This is reflected in traditional Cornish dairy produce including clotted cream and, later, ice cream and in the North Cornwall dialect where the pejorative for "farmer" was a fairly graphical description of the act of milking before the introduction of milking machines which rhymed with "bit fuller".
Elephant grass (Miscanthus) has been described as a "revolutionary" biofuel crop due to its rapid carbon sequestration and its high yield.
At St Mabyn, it is used to produce an eco-fuel for wood burners (google "Burlyburn logs") which as well as being carbon-neutral are roughly the same price as coal briquettes but very low in sulphur (which corrodes the metal stove and flue when coal-based fuels are burnt).
The elephant grass leaves are also used to produce an eco-friendly animal bedding ("Burly bed"). This rots down easily, storing some of the captured carbon in the soil in the form of humus.
Once the crop has been planted, it lives for around 20 years, can be harvested every year and doesn't need pesticides or fertilisers once established. Also because it is a sterile hybrid, it's non-invasive.
The settlement of Trespearne was first recorded in around 1200 as Trespernan. The name is Cornish and means "thorn tree farm". It is thought that the settlement dates from the Dark Ages.
Overshot wheels can achieve higher efficiencies than undershot wheels and can operate using a smaller volume of water which explains why they were generally preferred, particularly in steep-sided Cornish valleys.
A 2004 Civil Engineering publication concluded that high energy conversion efficiencies (of around 85-90%) were possible from overshot waterwheels and that if these can be manufactured cheaply, they could provide an environmentally sound means of small-scale electricity production.
Gimblett's Mill, on the River Inny near Altarnun, dates from about 1800. The bridge over the river was built in 1847, following the great flood which swept away almost all the crossings along the river.
In July 1847 a large waterspout came in off the Atlantic and collapsed over Davidstow Moor where the sources of both the River Camel and River Inny rise. A wall of water 12-18 feet high swept down the Camel Valley demolishing all but two of the bridges. The solidly-built mediaeval Helland Bridge survived despite tree trunks piling against it. Wadebridge survived by being secured with ropes and chains by (brave) men in boats. Many years after the flood, pieces of hay and straw could still be seen in the trees 20 feet above the river at Dunmere.
Oak was often associated with the gods of thunder as it was often split by lightning, probably because an oak is often the tallest tree in the area. Oak was also the sacred wood burnt by the druids for their mid-summer sacrifice.
It may be an urban myth that Eskimos have a large number of words for "snow" but it's cast iron fact that there are at least this many words for "hill" in Cornish:
The settlement on the opposite side of the valley beside a small tributary valley is appropriately named Coombe.
Cornwall has at least 8 different words for "valley".
Staddle Stones (also known as Mushroom Stones) were originally used to raise granary barns off the ground. These had two purposes: the first was that the elevation above the ground kept out the damp which would spoil the grain. The second was that the overhanging stone cap made it an extreme rock-climbing expedition for any mice and rats wishing to enter the barn.
The small settlement is called Trethinna. The place name has changed little since the Middle Ages - it was recorded as Trethynna in 1350. Other than indicating a farm, the meaning of the name is not known.
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".
In summer you may need to bear left around the patch of nettles along the line of trees on the right, but the route to the gate should still be clear.
Nettles are the theme of German and Dutch colloquial expressions for a troublesome situation. The German equivalent of "having a bit of a nightmare" is to be "sat in the nettles". The Dutch have abbreviated this further, so you'd be having a bit of a "nettle situation".
The settlement here, now known as Trerithick, was recorded in 1350 as Treydock. It is thought to be based on a personal name, i.e. "Ydock's farm" and date from the early Middle Ages.
Cow pats can often be spotted (and therefore avoided) by the tuft of ungrazed grass surrounding the cow pat know as the "ring of repugnance". If it is left undisturbed, cows will avoid the area around a cow pat for a couple of years, allowing a bright green (well-fertilised) hummock of grass to form.
The biological reason that the repulsion exists is to prevent cows from ingesting parasites from other cows. The reason that we find it repulsive too is due to our biological "wiring" to protect us from parasites.
The Inny Valleys route is featured on the back of OS Explorer maps of Bodmin Moor.
In the late 1700s, the Department of Ordnance (forerunner of the Ministry of Defence) began a mapping exercise for military purposes and the Ordnance Survey maps were born. The Ordnance Survey remains a government department but acts as a Trading Fund, raising revenue through the sale of its maps.
The first edition OS maps were produced in the late 19th Century and were far more detailed than the previous tithe maps which were mostly concerned with land boundaries for taxation. The Ordnance Survey snapshot of the late Victorian period has been invaluable for historians to discover what was around before the 20th Century.
The frequency with which the modern maps are updated is based on how much change there has been in a particular area together with a five-year rolling surveying programme; this means that the OS maps on sale can be out-of-date by up to approximately seven years. There is a web page on the Ordnance Survey site which gives the date when each 1:25000 raster tile was updated in their digital dataset, which will appear within the next paper map print run.
Where an electric fence crosses a footpath, it should either be covered by an insulating sheath (e.g. on stiles) or there should be a section that unclips with insulating plastic handles to allow access through the fence. Ensure that you re-clip this on passing through so animals cannot escape. The connecting cord/spring between the handles is often conducting so avoid touching this and be aware of any dangling rucksack straps.
Some species of grasshopper (known as locusts) can undergo a transformation in behaviour and colour.
Normally these are solitary and behave just like any other grasshopper. We occasionally get some hopping alongside the more common meadow grasshoppers in the UK.
However, if their hind legs are touched frequently (several times per minute over the course of a few hours), which in the wild occurs when the number of grasshoppers starts to increase, a hormone is released. This causes a major change in behaviour: the grasshoppers eat much more, reproduce faster and swarm.
During Victorian times and earlier, small amounts of land in Cornwall were measured by the goad - a unit of nine feet in length, derived from the name of the staff used to drive oxen.
An English acre was less generous (at 43,560 square feet) than a Cornish acre (51,840 square feet). Although both were defined as 160 smaller land units, the English equivalent to the Cornish goad was a perch but this was 5.5 yards (16.5 ft) rather than the two-goad length used in Cornwall of 6 yards (18 ft). It is thought that the reason the perch ended up as a non-round number of feet is that it was originally measured from 20 averaged-sized human feet in Saxon times when nutrition wasn't great.
The Red Admiral, Peacock, Painted Lady and Tortoiseshell butterflies are all quite closely related and specialised for overwinter hibernation. Their wings, when closed, have a jagged outline and camouflaged colours that allows them to blend in with dead leaves. Their feet contain chemoreceptors (taste buds) which allows them to detect nectar-bearing flowers when they land.
The biggest discrepancy between distance shown in fitness apps and true distance on the ground comes from an app trying to measure distance by accumulating GPS positions. Since each GPS reading on a consumer device contains several metres of error, the accumulation of errors over the whole walk causes an overestimation of distance of around 10-20%. By contrast, the iWalk Cornwall app gives a more accurate measure of distance along the route because it already knows the exact route in advance so it doesn't need to accumulate GPS positions to measure distance along the route. Some locals might choose to summarise this as: "it's because the fitness app is an emmet".
The settlement of Trenarrett is likely to date from the early mediaeval period. It was recorded in 1363 as Tregnaret and is thought to be based on a personal name, i.e. "Naret's farm".
Water pepper, as the name implies, grows on wet ground such as on the margins of lakes (it's also known as marsh pepper). It's relatively late to appear, not really getting going until June.
The plant is unpalatable to livestock but is eaten by some insects which has given rise to a Japanese saying which transliterates to "Some insects eat water pepper and like it" but is used more like "There's no accounting for taste".
The natural diet of tits includes seeds and nuts so garden feeders and bird tables are often frequented by members of the tit family. During warmer months they also eat insects, particularly caterpillars. Each blue tit chick is fed around 100 caterpillars per day, much to the delight of gardeners.
An impressively purple blackberry, pear and ginger chutney can be made with blackberries stashed in the freezer. Simmer 500g blackberries, a few chilli flakes, 4 chopped pears and a finely-chopped 8cm piece of fresh ginger until the liquid reduces. Add 150ml distilled or white wine vinegar, and sugar to taste (amount will depend on tartness of the blackberries). Reduce a bit longer until the desired "gloopy" consistency is achieved and finally season with a little salt to taste to balance the sweetness.
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).
Like sloes and damsons, bullaces are a member of the plum family and may originally be native to Great Britain. The fruits resemble sloes but are a bit larger and bullace trees are not so thorny as blackthorn. Despite being a distinct species from sloes, the name is from the Old French for sloe - beloce. The Cornish dialect name is bullum tree.
The taste of bullaces is astringent like sloes when unripe but when fully ripe (quite late in the autumn) some are just about sweet enough to eat raw. As with sloes, freezing them (traditionally the first frost in the days before freezers) makes them less bitter. They are typically used in cooking to make jams or for fruit wines where their tannin content makes the wines age well. They will also do just as well as sloes for flavouring gin.
Sycamores like moist soil and the young trees need a lot of water (equivalent to an inch of rain per week) to get established. For this reason, sycamores are very often found along streams or in low-lying meadows that collect water. Once their roots grow deep enough, the mature trees can withstand drought by tapping into underground moisture.
The row of granite blocks in the field below Oldhay are the remains of a water power system. At the bottom of the field in the bushes is a pit which contained a water wheel. Water was brought to this via a leat which channelled water from further up the stream. Mechanical power from the wheel was then transported up the field via a series of metal rods suspended on the granite blocks. At the top, these drove a belt around the wheel that can be seen protruding from the wall. This could then turn cogs to drive machinery inside the building.
The outbuildings including stables, a cart shed and the smithy (where the belt wheel is located) are all thought to be from the early 19th Century so it seems likely that the water wheel mechanism dates from the same period.
Unlike many of the place names along the walk which date from the early Middle Ages and are based on the Cornish language, Oldhay is an English name. The first record of it is slightly later than many of the surrounding farms, in 1436, when it was spelt Oldheye. This was Middle English for "old enclosure". The farmhouse is thought to date from the 17th Century.
In mediaeval times, the Anglo-Saxon "stitch meal" technique was adopted in some parts of Cornwall. This involved dividing arable and meadow land into long strips called "stitches". Villagers would be allocated a (usually disconnected) set of strips so that the "best" fields were shared around as evenly as possible. The long, thin shape was ideal for ploughing with oxen. A typical stitch was one furlong in length and one acre in area, which could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a day.
A similar, but not identical, system of strip fields known as "burgage" plots was also used in mediaeval times but these were associated with a row of houses along a road in a settlement. The burgage plots were effectively very long, thin back gardens that also contained about an acre of cultivatable land.
Buzzards breed once they reach 2-3 years old. During their breeding season in spring, male buzzards create spectacular aerial displays to impress females by soaring high into the air and dropping suddenly towards the ground. The birds then pair for life.
Grasses have evolved to grow new leaves from the base of the stem which makes them able to withstand grazing (and mowing). However too much grazing, particularly when grasses are in the process of producing seed, or too much trampling can damage the grass. In the wild, predator species play an important role by chasing herbivores to a new location which gives the grass a chance to recover.
Swallows are often found near herds of livestock where the flies that swallows catch are more numerous. It is thought that swallows were much rarer before humans started keeping animals. Consequently, the rise of veganism is not good news for swallows - a decline in dairy farming and increase in arable will inevitably result in their decline.
In winter, birds have a tough time finding enough food to sustain themselves and keep warm. Flocking offers a number of advantages that eases this pressure. Roosting as a flock means they can huddle together to keep warm (one big object has a larger heat capacity and smaller surface area than lots of little ones so heat is lost more slowly). A flock can also share the work of looking out for predators and spotting food, allowing more time to be spent on feeding. Birds of different species will sometimes even flock together to cooperate.
If flocking offers so many advantages, you may wonder why birds don't do it all year round. During the spring, breeding is all about competition between the birds for mates and nesting sites and here it pays to split up to reduce competition. Also, summer food sources tend to be more spread out (e.g. insects) rather than the dense clumps of seeds and berries found in winter that are better able to feed a flock.
Until the Industrial Revolution, hay making was a very labour-intensive task with low output which involved cutting with a scythe, turning with a pitchfork and gathering with a hand rake.
During Victorian times, the invention of the horse-drawn mowers, hay turners and rakes allowed hay production to be increased as much as tenfold.
Hay was transported loose by horse and cart and layered into towering ricks for storage which were an iconic feature of the rural landscape. At the end of the 19th Century, the hay baler was invented, initially powered by horses on a treadmill.
The settlement here, now called Tresmaine, was known during mediaeval times as Rosmaen, from the Cornish word ros, meaning "moor" or "hill-spur", and men, meaning "stone".
Rabbits thrive on the agricultural land.
During mediaeval times, rabbit was decreed by Pope Gregory I as "not meat" so it could be eaten during Lent. This accelerated the spread of rabbits through European monasteries in the middle ages. In fact, there are no barriers in the world's major religions to eating rabbit which is also considered both halal and kosher. From Elizabethan times, rabbit farming became common practice in Britain and it was not until the 1950s (when rabbits were associated with myxomatosis) that its popularity as a food declined sharply.
The small ridges in steeply-sloping fields are known as terracettes and are caused by soil creep and their formation is accelerated by animals using them as tracks.
When the soil gets wet, it expands and particles are lifted up at right angles to the slope. When the soil dries out, it contracts, but the particles fall vertically under gravity, landing a millimetre further downhill from where they started. Over a long period of time, the soil gradually creeps downhill.
The term "thistle" is not biologically precise and covers quite a broad range of different plant species from the daisy family. The common thistle (also known as bull thistle or spear thistle) is appropriately the commonest in the UK. The flowers open as a green spiny ball with a purple tuft (often depicted within Scottish emblems). The creeping thistle is also common in agricultural fields and has lighter pink flowers.
Cornish kilts and tartans were an invention of the 20th Century. Carvings depicting men wearing garments resembling kilts (such as in Altarnun church), which may have given rise to the notion, are now thought to be typical mediaeval tunics. The "official" Cornish tartan was created in 1963. The pattern is based on St Piran's flag with the surrounding gold of the ancient Cornish kings, red to symbolise the legs of the Cornish chough and blue to represent the sea.
Altarnun church is located beside Penpont Water - a tributary of the River Inny - in the centre of the small village of Altarnun which is just to the north-east of Bodmin Moor. The 15th century church, dedicated to St Nonna, has an amazing collection of carved pew-ends from about 1520 (including one that mentions the artist - Robert Daye), a striking Norman font with the original colour still visible, and 15th century Rood screen. The church is known as "Cathedral of the moors" due to its impressive 109ft tall tower on which you can still see the deep padlocks that once held its scaffolding in place. A 6th century Celtic Cross stands in the churchyard, from the time before the Celtic Cornwall had been conquered by the Anglo Saxons.
St Nonna's well is recorded as being used to cure the insane.
The reputation of holy wells to cure madness stems from the mediaeval practice of "bowsenning" the "insane". This consisted of, without any warning, shoving the unfortunate person who was in a state of psychosis (and therefore already highly distressed) into the cold water. In many cases, this only increased the level of distress but the fatigue resulting from trying not to drown was mistaken for improvement. It is also possible that in a few cases that the shock caused a mental reboot which did bring a sufferer out of a mild psychotic episode, and these occasional successes fuelled enthusiasm for the practice. It is also possible that "insanity" was occasionally alcoholically-induced and similar improvement was noticed. For the very unfortunate sufferers that did not recover on first round of "treatment", the practice was repeated regularly.
The slate bridges from the doorways of the row of cottages along the road span a leat that was once used to power a mill in the village.
The stocks was a form of punishment introduced in mediaeval times and was a common sight in most villages by the 16th Century. Many sets of village stocks were able to accommodate the ankles of multiple offenders seated on a bench. The last recorded use was in 1872 but it was never formally abolished and is therefore still a legal form of punishment in the UK although the acts carried out by passers-by in mediaeval times would not be. By Victorian times, it was mostly foot-tickling by mischievous children.
Waterspouts are funnels of spray caused by a rotating vortex of air over the sea or a lake caused by warm air spiralling as it rises. Massive waterspouts can be caused by tornadoes but they can also occur on a smaller scale in stormy weather. Eventually the rising column of air collapses and the spray (and frogs or fish that ventured too close to the surface) falls as rain. The author has witnessed two waterspouts over the Atlantic in North Cornwall in recent years.
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