At high water, there are two separate beaches known as East and West Kennack Sands, separated by some serpentine cliffs. Between the two beaches lies the reef known as the Caerverracks which is exposed at low tide. The path over the hill links the two beaches. At low tide, it's possible to walk on the sand from one side to the other. Each of the beaches is crossed by a stream which can get a bit lively after heavy rain in winter but wading can be avoided by crossing the bridges on the coast path a short distance inland from the beach.
There's also a legend that the single most valuable treasure ever stolen by a pirate (consisting of gold, silver and jewels) is buried somewhere on the beach.
Swallows forage for insects on the wing, typically around 7-8 metres above the ground, but will skim over the surface of the ground if that's where the insects are. They can sometimes be seen skimming the surface of water either to drink or to bathe which they also do in flight.
At Kennack Sands, it is reported that a local man with a metal detector found a 14th Century Belgian gold coin, known as a mouton d'or which has been dated between 1355 an 1383 and valued at £1000. Another was found in a rockpool by a holidaymaker during the summer of 1960. It's possible that these are from a treasure wreck in the bay that so far has not been discovered by divers.
In mediaeval times, golf balls were made from wood. In the 17th Century, the "featherie" was created, made from leather and stuffed with feathers. In the mid-1800s, balls moulded from sap were the first to be mass-produced. They could also be heated and re-cast if they went out of shape from being hit. However people noticed that battle-scarred balls that had been used a long time seemed to fly more consistently. Golf ball manufacturers began etching different protrusions on the surfaces in attempts to improve the aerodynamics. The potential of a ball of elastic bands was discovered by a bored golfer waiting for a friend to finish work and by the 1890s, these were being coated in sap to make golf balls. In the early 1900s, it was found that indentations (rather than protrusions) on the surface resulted in better aerodynamics.
In 1991, sloes were found in the stomach contents of a 5,300 human mummy in the Alps, indicating that they were part of the Neolithic diet. Alone they are extremely bitter but with enough sugar, they can be made into a range of preserves.
Blackthorn wood is very tough and hard-wearing. In order to form its thorns, the tree allows the tips of the tiny stems that make up the thorns to die. The dead wood in the thorn tip is harder and therefore sharper than the living wood.
There is enough space for wind turbines in UK inshore waters to generate more than three times the power that the whole of Britain uses. Offshore wind energy is still more expensive than onshore wind, but the price is falling rapidly. As production costs fall, the fact that, on average, offshore turbines get nearly double the amount of wind as onshore may ultimately make this out-compete large-scale onshore generation. At the time of writing, the UK was the world leader in offshore wind energy with most wind farms being planned off the south and east coasts where the seabed and wave conditions are less challenging than the west coast.
Roughly 250 metres along the path to the right are the National Trust buildings at Poltesco Farm.
The Poltesco valley has been under National Trust ownership since the 1970s and one of the barns at Poltesco Farm has been converted into the Discovery Centre where displays provide information about the heritage and wildlife in the valley.
The path to the left leads to a grassy headland which provides a nice viewpoint overlooking the cove.
The circular tower dates from the 1700s and housed a capstan used to haul fishing boats up the beach. There were originally fish cellars associated with this but these were removed and replaced by the Victorian buildings which form the other visible remains in the cove.
The paths to the left lead to Carleon Cove.
The buildings at Carleon Cove are remains of the Poltesco serpentine factory which was established in around 1855 and was used to manufacture relatively large items such as church fonts, shop fronts etc. Power for cutting, turning and polishing the stone was originally supplied by a large water wheel fed from higher up the stream. Steam power was introduced in 1866 and there are the remains of a boiler house, a demolished chimney stack and engine room on the site. The factory ceased operations in the early 1890s and was largely demolished in the 1930s.
The path to the right also leads to the National Trust discovery centre.
Orchids can sometimes be seen flowering along the path in spring.
Early purple orchid is the con-man of the plant kingdom, with brilliant purple flowers resembling those of other nectar-rich orchids. When the insects arrive and push through the pollen to investigate the promising flowers, they discover that the flowers contain no nectar.
The serpentinization process results in rocks that are quite soft. The rock is often also very colourful and may contain veins of green, yellow and red, due to iron compounds within the rocks. Its softness and attractive colours were first noticed on stiles and cattle rubbing posts which had highly polished areas where walkers or cattle had rubbed against them. An industry grew up in the 19th Century making ornamental stone, initially for quite large architectural pieces but it was popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who ordered serpentine tables for their home. Over time, serpentine proved less suitable than marble for architectural purposes due to its tendency to crumble in heat and to absorb water and crack. Interior ornaments are still produced although the quarrying of serpentine is now very strictly regulated.
There is a blowhole in Enys Head which sends plumes of spray into the air at high tide when there is a swell.
Blowholes form when waves enter a cave, and the air they compress weakens the roof of the cave and enlarges the chamber. Often the blowhole eventually breaks through to the surface, forming a collapsed cave which can ultimately result in a rock stack being severed from the land.
In August 1906, the sailing ship "Socoa" was bound for San Francisco with a cargo of cement for rebuilding after the earthquake but ran ashore on the reef off Kildown Point. The 25 crew were rescued by the Cadgwith lifeboat which needed three trips to collect them all.
She was refloated by throwing 50,000 barrels of cement overboard and then beached in Cadgwith Cove before being towed to Falmouth for repairs. The cement barrels still remain on the seabed.
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.
One of the species caught at Cadgwith is red mullet.
Red mullet are a warm-water fish normally found in the Mediterranean but venture into Cornish waters during the summer and are likely to become more common with global warming. They have two long barbels which are sensory, a bit like fingers, which they use to feel along the bottom to locate worms and crustaceans.
Unlike grey mullet which is a member of the perch family, red mullet is a member of the goatfish family and only distantly related. Also unlike grey mullet, they are fast-growing fish and able to reproduce when only two years old. They therefore have great potential for a sustainable fishery.
The large rectangular building on the headland in the distance is Lloyds Signalling Station.
In April 1872, the signalling station opened to pass messages to ships arriving in the English Channel, which removed the necessity for ships to call at Falmouth. Messages were passed using flags, which was limited to fine weather and daytime. Initially, messages back from the ships were sent by horse rider to the nearest telegraph station at Helston. Two months later the telegraph cable was extended to the station which enabled near real-time messaging. As winter approached and daylight hours grew shorter, night-time signalling was tried using arrays of coloured lights, steam whistles, rockets and guns but was not that effective, particularly right next to a massive lighthouse and huge foghorn. Despite the limitations, the savings made by bypassing Falmouth meant the station was heavily used and a rival station soon opened up next door. The resulting confusion, arising from two rival stations both signalling from shore with flags, was fortunately short-lived when the companies merged and the second station was demolished. In the early 20th Century, the station was extended by adding two additional buildings known as "night boxes" to enable night-time lamp signalling without interference from the lighthouse and were used until the 1950s when they were taken over by the Coastguard.
The hut overlooking Cadgwith Cove was used as a Coastguard lookout and is now maintained by the National Trust. A stone near the hut inscribed with 1869 may possibly indicate its age. It is postulated the hut may have originally been built as a huer's hut to spot shoals of pilchards.
At this point you can optionally take a short diversion to the left to see Cadgwith.
The walk continues up the hill to the right to reach a stone stile on the left, a couple of hundred yards up the hill, just past the sign for Ruan Minor.
Cadgwith Cove was originally called Porthcaswydh based on the Cornish words kas meaning a fight and wydh meaning wood, which were combined to mean "thicket", probably because the valley was densely wooded. In mediaeval times, there was little more than a collection of fish cellars around the cove used by local farmers for fishing. From the 16th Century, the cove became a permanent settlement with fishing as the main industry.
Cadgwith has an anthem which has been recorded with slightly different variations of words, sometimes under the title "The Robbers Retreat". It starts with:
Come fill up your glasses and let us be merry, For to rob bags of plunder it is our intent.
...which sounds promisingly Cornish, but it then mentions mountains, valleys, lilies and roses and even "the beauty of Kashmir" which has everyone confused. In fact it makes no mention of Cadgwith, Cornwall or even the coast. Nobody is quite sure where it came from, when it originated, or to what it refers!
Serpentine is not a single mineral but a broad group of minerals formed when minerals rich in iron and magnesium react with water in a series of chemical reactions known as serpentinization. Rocks containing these minerals are known as Serpentinite. The name is due to the resemblance of the patterning in the rocks to the skin of reptiles.
Camellias are native to eastern and southern Asia. The first camellia grown in England was in 1739. Many varieties now popular in Britain as ornamental garden plants are from species collected during plant hunting expeditions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were regarded as the ultimate luxury flower in Victorian times.
The memorial at the entrance to the churchyard was constructed in honour of the local people lost in the First World War.
During the First World War nearly 10,000,000 military personnel and over 10,000,000 civilians were killed. A further 23 million people were injured. In addition, over 8,000,000 horses, mules and donkeys and more than 1,000,000 dogs lost their lives. The sixteen million animals that served in World War 1 are commemorated with purple poppies.
Ruan Minor originated as a chapelry of Ruan Major but by the end of the middle ages, it had developed into a parish in its own right. The present church is mainly 15th Century but the earliest parts of the church may be from the 13th Century. The blocks of serpentine used in its construction are so large that there are only six courses from the ground to the roof. The font and piscina in the church are thought to date from the 12th or 13th Century when a previous building stood on the site. A wooden panel from 1677 painted with the ten commandments was found in a cottage near the church.
The mill dates from the 14th century and was first recorded in 1396. It was in use until 1945 and restored in the 1980s.
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.
The source of the river is up on the Goonhilly Downs near the Earth Station.
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.
The settlement of Kugger dates from mediaeval times. It was recorded as Coger in 1324 but is now generally pronounced Koogar rather than to rhyme with "lugger". It is the Cornish name of the stream.
The furthest headland ahead is Black Head. The headland in the front of this with the offshore rocks is Carrick Luz.
Lankidden Point is a dyke of hard, grey gabbro rock which protrudes through the surrounding blacker serpentine rocks. The rock stack on the end is called Carrick Lûz, which is Cornish for "grey rock".
One of the birds you may encounter in the woodland is the robin.
The Cornish name for the bird is rudhek from rudh = "red" (in Cornish, "dh" is pronounced like the "th" in "with"). Cornish place names like Bedruthan, Ruthern and Redruth are all based on the colour red.
Conifers evolved around 300 million years ago, a long time before the first dinosaurs. For nearly 200 million years, conifers were the dominant form of trees and it wasn't until around 65 million years ago that broadleaf trees were out-competing conifers in many habitats.
The holiday parks are built around the settlement of Gwendreath which was first recorded in 1241. The name is Cornish for "white sand" hence Silver Sands.
Recreational camping was first popularised in the UK on the river Thames as an offshoot of the Victorian craze for pleasure boating. Early camping equipment was very heavy and so transporting it by boat was pretty much essential. By the 1880s it had become a pastime for large numbers of visitors.
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.
A number of prehistoric implements have been found on or near Kennack sands ranging from stone-age implements fashioned from the local rocks and imported flints, an iron axe and a figure made from terracotta with white skin and Prussian blue hair. Some of the stone implements were found in a deposit laid down in the last Ice Age around 12,000 years ago.
Somewhere beneath one of the beaches, runs one of the high-speed telecommunication cables linking London and New York. These are fibre-optic cables carrying laser signals for both telephone and internet traffic. The laser signal fades along the length of the cable so there are laser amplifiers every now and then along the length of the cable. As there is nowhere to plug these in on the sea bed, the cable contains its own 10,000 volt power supply. There is little risk of electrocution by digging sandcastles, though, as the cables are buried very deep under the beach.
The Sea Campion flowers from June to August and can be recognised by the white petals emerging from the end of a distinctive inflated envelope. Their grey-green leaves are fleshy, which protect them from drying out in salt-laden winds.
According to folklore, to pick a Sea Campion was to invite death. This might be something to do with the precipitous locations in which they grow! Consequently another name for the plant is "dead man's bells".
The domestic radish has been cultivated from one of the subspecies of wild radish - a member of the cabbage family. Another of its subspecies is found on the coast and appropriately known as sea radish.
Sea radish is a biennial plant (2 year lifecycle) and during its first year it creates a rosette of leaves that are dormant over the winter. These are quite noticeable during January and February when there is not much other vegetation. The leaves are dull grey-green, slightly furry and each leaf consists of pairs of fairly long thin leaflets along the length of the stem plus a final bigger one at the end. Alexanders grows in similar places at similar times but its leaves are glossy green and each leaf is made up of 3 leaflets.
By the late spring, sea radish is a reasonably tall plant, recognisable by its yellow flowers that have 4 narrow petals. The flowers go on to form tapering seed pods later in the year with 2 or 3 large seeds in each pod with a spike at the end.
The plant is edible and probably at its best in the autumn and winter when the leaf rosettes are present. The leaves have a mild cabbage flavour but the leaf stems and ribs taste like a milder version of radish.
Gorse is a legume, related to peas and like other members of the pea family it's able to get its nitrogen from the air. It's also tolerant to heavy metals in the soil and to salt. This makes it able to grow in Cornwall's harshest environments: moorland, coast and mine waste tips.
Like other members of the pea family, gorse produces its seeds in pods. The seeds are ejected with a popping sound when pods split open in hot weather. This can catapult the seeds up to five metres. The plants are able to live 30 years and survive sub-zero temperatures, the seeds can withstand fire and remain viable in the soil for 30 years.
Gorse seeds each contain a small body of ant food. The seeds also release a chemical which attracts ants from some distance away. The ants carry the seeds to their nests, eat the ant food and then discard the seeds, helping them to disperse.
The seeds of common gorse are the source of the chemical used to identify people with the rare "hh" blood group. The red blood cells in the vast majority of people (in blood groups A, B, AB and O) have a material called "H substance" on their surface. It turns out that the chemical extracted from gorse binds remarkably specifically to this and cells from the "hh" blood group (that have no H substance) are left alone.
Gorse is also known (particularly in the Westcountry) as furze from the Middle English word furs. This itself is from the Old English word fyres, closely related to the Old English word for fire.
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.
As gorse ages, it accumulates more dead material. The spiky, springy nature of the plant even when dead means air can circulate well through the dead material and when this dries out in the summer, it substantially increases the risk of fires. As gorse seeds have evolved to withstand fire, controlled burning can be used to used to keep the gorse at a young age where uncontrolled fires are less likely.
Gorse is present as two species along the Atlantic coast and size is the easiest way to tell them apart: Common Gorse bushes are up to 10ft tall whereas Western Gorse is more of a mat - less than 1ft tall. Common Gorse flowers in spring whereas Western Gorse flowers in late summer - early autumn.
In 2005 a man had to be rescued from a 10ft deep patch of coastal gorse by helicopter. Whilst mountain biking home along the coast from a bar, with the assistance of a not insignificant amount of alcohol, he managed to catapult himself into the bushes where he remained stuck for 2 days before being found by a passer-by. She asked if he needed help, to which he replied "can you ring the RAF?".
Between the two species, some gorse is almost always in flower, hence the old country phrases: "when gorse is out of blossom, kissing's out of fashion" (which is recorded from the mid-19th century) and "when the furze is in bloom, my love's in tune" (which dates from the mid-18th century). Common gorse flowers are bright yellow. Western gorse flowers are very slightly more orange - more like the colour of the "yolk" in a Cadbury's creme egg. Also like creme eggs, gorse flowers are edible but are significantly better for use in salads and to make a tea, beer or wine.
Common gorse flowers have a coconut-like scent but rather than fresh coconut, it is reminiscent of desiccated coconut or the popular brand of surf wax, Mr Zoggs. However, not everyone experiences the smell in the same way: for some people it's very strong and for others it quite weak. One complicating factor is that Western Gorse flowers don't have any scent, so you need to be sniffing a tall gorse plant to test yourself.
Flower scents are volatile organic compounds which drift though the air and has evolved as an advertisement to pollinating insects that nectar is available. Squeezing the flowers releases these compounds onto the surface where they can evaporate and therefore intensifies the smell. Similarly the warming effect of sunlight helps the compounds to evaporate faster and so the smell is more intense on sunny days.
Gorse flower wine can be made using 5 litres of gorse flowers stripped from the stems and simmering these in 5 litres of boiling water. Once the flowers are removed, 1.3kg of sugar should be dissolved in the hot water and allowed to cool to room temperature. Then add 500g of chopped raisins and juice and zest of 2 lemons and ferment with white wine yeast and yeast nutrient. Although flowers are present year-round, they are best picked in spring (April and May) when they are most profuse and fragrant.
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