A fishing village on the northern side of the cove was first recorded in 1313 as Porthhilly from the Cornish words porth and hyly, meaning "salt water harbour", although it is likely a settlement existed here for a long time. Artefacts such as arrows and axe heads found in the village and on display in the museum date back to the Bronze Age. Nearby there was a small religious community of Lamorick, centred around what is now St Peter's Church. In 1259, the church was dedicated to two Irish Saints - St Meva and St Issey (who also crops up in St Issey near Wadebridge). During the 15th Century, the two settlements became known collectively by the saints to whom the church had been dedicated: "Meva-ag-Issey" (where hag is the Cornish word for "and"). During the 17th Century, Porthhilly expanded and merged with the neighbouring hamlet of Lamorick resulting in the single town of Mevagissey.
In mediaeval times, the village at Gorran Haven was the primary fishing village of the area, dwarfing Mevagissey, and the quay has been rebuilt a number of times throughout its history. The first recorded use of seining for pilchards in Cornwall was here, in the 13th Century. Once drift netting became popular in the late 18th century, Mevagissey took over as the primary fishery and the quay fell into ruin but was rebuilt in 1886 and a period of crab and lobster potting continued until the Second World War. After the war, crab and lobster potting resumed from the bigger harbour at Mevagissey.
Traditionally fishing nets were woven by hand from flax thread, and in Victorian times these were gradually replaced by cotton nets which lasted a little longer and, as the Industrial Revolution gathered momentum, were increasingly machine-woven. Since the nets were made of plant matter, during storage over the winter the fishy nets would rot away unless treated. They were therefore boiled in vats containing oak bark in a process similar to that used for tanning leather, and then laid out on the beach to dry in the sun. The tannins in the oak acted as a preservative, preventing bacterial and fungal decay. By using this process, cotton nets could be made to last up to 10 years.
Some kind of annual celebration has been held in Mevagissey for hundreds of years. This was originally held in December, and likely to be a remnant of the Celtic Winter Solstice festival, similar to Padstow's Mummers Day. However, this coincided with a busy fishing period, so in 1752, Mevagissey pragmatically adopted St Peter (Patron Saint of fishermen) and has instead held a festival to celebrate St. Peter's Day on 29th June ever since. In the 18th and 19th centuries, this was purely a religious festival where each denomination would have a "Feast Day" which included a procession with a band and hymn singing, with everyone wearing their Sunday Best. As there were a lot more churches and chapels then, this would have taken a whole week. As the number of chapels, and Christian worship generally, diminished during the 20th Century, the feast week began to fade. In the 1960s, the festival was rejuvenated as a week of family fun, music, and floral dances through the streets, with a carnival and fireworks display at the end of the week. This is probably closer in spirit to the original Celtic festival, and coincides with another Celtic celebration - Beltane - of the Summer solstice.
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.
Ivy has two types of roots. The "normal" roots extend into the soil and collect nutrients. At intervals along the climbing stems there are also aerial roots which attach the plant to a surface. As they come into contact with a surface, the roots change shape to anchor the plant. They then produce hairs that wedge into any crevices. The roots also exude a chemical compound which acts as a glue.
Another place that alexanders are commonly found is near the sites of mediaeval settlements, in particular religious settlements where they were cultivated by monks as a vegetable. In mediaeval cuisine they were used as an alternative to celery (which was a more bitter plant back then). It was traditionally one of the "pot herbs" that were added to stews and the dried seeds can also be used as a spice. Alexanders were particularly useful during lean winters as its new growth is available in the late Autumn, before many other spring greens.
There is no biological distinction between "pigeon" and "dove" although "dove" seems to now be used for the more elegant species and "pigeon" for the more unexciting ones. Due to the Norman ruling classes, it's relatively unusual in the English language for the French/Latin word to be the vulgar form and the Norse/Germanic word to be the "posh" form. It's is likely that the reverse was true in mediaeval times: pigeon meat was considered super-posh and the French word was used for the young, tender birds of the species that were eaten.
Navelwort grows in the shaded areas on the walls along the track.
The succulent leaves of navelwort can be eaten and used in a salad. Older leaves become more bitter so the younger leaves are recommended. The crunchy stems can be added at the last minute to a stir-fry as an alternative to beansprouts. Care should be taken not to pull roots out of a wall when breaking off leaves.
Penwarne Manor can be traced back to the 14th Century and was substantially restored during the early 1600s. In the late 20th century, the property fell into disrepair and hadn't been lived in for 10 years when it was purchased in 2007. A restoration programme followed, lasting several years, to repair the manor house and reconstruct the derelict barns as holiday accommodation whilst recreating the original state as much as possible, using original materials.
Buttercups produce a toxin called protoanemonin, which is at its highest concentration when flowering. It is thought that buttercups may be partly responsible for Equine Grass Sickness. Fortunately the toxin is quite unstable and drying of the plant in haymaking leads to polymerisation into non-toxic anemonin. Buttercups are also toxic to dogs, cats and humans. They have a bitter taste which puts dogs off eating the plants but pollen can collect on fur and be ingested, particularly by cats when they clean themselves. A man in France who drank a glass of juice made from buttercups suffered severe colic after four hours and was dead the next day!
Sorrel is native to the UK and common in fields and hedgerows. It's salt tolerant so it can often be found on the coast in Cornwall. The leaves resemble small, narrow dock leaves. In summer the plant is often evident in abundance in fields by its red seeds at the top of a tall stalk.
Sorrel is used as a culinary herb in many cuisines and in Cornwall during Victorian times, sorrel was known as "green sauce". Some of the most well-known uses are in soups or as a salad vegetable. In French cuisine it is sometimes used when cooking fish as - similarly to lemon - the acidic juice can soften thin fish bones during cooking.
Plantains are common weeds found alongside footpaths. Confusingly, members of the banana family are also known as plantain (e.g. "fried plantain") but despite the name the footpath weeds aren't closely related to bananas.
Towards the top of the valley is an area of new woodland spanning both sides of the valley.
Sanctuary Wood was created as part of the Woodland Trust’s "Woods on your Doorstep" project in 2000. It occupies an area spanning both sides of the Portmellon valley that adjoins the West Bodrugan woodland reserve. Wide rides and open glades have been left between the planting to provide views and varied habitats as the woodland matures.
Researchers think that hemlock produces alkaloid compounds to attract pollinating insects. The compounds are volatile so they evaporate in the warm weather and carry in the air. Although the plants are poisonous to mammals, they are the main food plant of some butterfly species.
The stream meandering across the floodplain creates a wildlife-rich wetland area along the bottom of the valley.
You may remember from school geography lessons that the faster-flowing water around the outside of the bend causes a meander in a river to slowly grow as the outside edge is eroded and sediment is deposited on the inside by slower-moving water. At this point, your school geography teacher probably got excited about ox-bow lakes and never got around to explaining exactly why the water flows faster on the outside in the first place. So that you don't go to your grave feeling short-changed, an attempt at an explanation follows...
Flowing water piles into the outside of the bend and creates a higher pressure there. Close to the riverbed, water is moving very slowly so the high pressure pushes water across the bottom from the outside to the inside. This drags the faster-moving water across the top of the river to the outside to take its place. This spiralling current both erodes the outside edge with faster-moving water and also transports the sediment back across the bottom to the inside
From December until the spring, celandine leaves are quite noticeable along the edge of paths. They have a shape similar to a "spade" in a pack of cards and are patterned with lighter green or silvery markings.
During periods of cold weather, spring flowers, such as bluebells, have already started the process of growth by preparing leaves and flowers in underground bulbs during summer and autumn. They are then able to grow in the cold of winter, or early spring, by using these resources stored in their bulb. Once they have flowered, the leaves die off and the cycle begins again.
Other species (such as cow parsley or dandelions) require warm weather before they are able to germinate and grow. With the warmer springs induced by climate change, bluebells lose their "early start" advantage, and can be out-competed.
Red and Roe deer are the two truly native species of the six found in the UK and both have pointy, branching (rugose) antlers. The Red deer is the largest of the species and has a characteristic large white V on its backside whereas the Roe deer just has a small white patch.
The fallow deer was introduced by the Normans and has flat, elk-like (palmate) antlers and an inverted black horseshoe surrounding a white patch on its rear end.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, three "exotic" Asian species (munjac, sika and Chinese water deer) were introduced. These all have quite rounded ears whereas the European species all have pointy "elf-like" ears.
Roe deer, Fallow deer and Red deer are all present in Cornwall and the populations of all three species has increased substantially over the past decade, possibly by as much as a factor of ten. There are also a small number of munjac deer, but far fewer than in the rest of England.
Fossil records indicate that bracken dates back at least 55 million years. By 24 million years ago it had a worldwide distribution and it is now thought to be the most common plant in the world.
The field here seems to be a popular spot for moles who can easily escape any seasonal flooding by retreating to tunnels higher up the field.
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.
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.
The name "Portmellon" is from the Cornish Porthmelyn meaning "mill cove". In 1880s it was still known as Portmellin but by the 1920s this had changed to Portmellon. The first recorded settlement was the mill of Portmelyn which was still present on an 1888 map, but by 1907 it had disappeared.
The remains of a prehistoric forest has been exposed beneath Portmellon beach a few times over the last couple of centuries with recordings in the 1880s, 1970s and 1980s when the trees were carbon dated at just over 2000 years old. The forest included Oak, Birch, Hazel and Alder.
In the UK, Cordyline australis can often reach around five metres high. In New Zealand it normally reaches around 8 metres. The largest specimen of the plant is thought to be around 500 years old, is 17 metres tall and has a circumference of nine metres at the base!
There was a quay at Mevagissey in mediaeval times, situated in the vicinity of the current East Quay and there is a record of its construction in 1470. This provided protection from the prevailing southwesterlies, but when a gale occasionally blew from the East, the harbour was exposed. In 1774, an Act of Parliament was passed for Mevagissey to be developed as a port, and the current East and West Quays of the inner harbour were constructed at this time. The outer harbour was added just over a century later, initially built in 1888 but only 3 years later it was badly damaged in a winter storm. By the end of the 19th Century, the outer walls had been rebuilt and have changed little since then.
Following the construction of the outer harbour in 1888, the lifeboat was moved to Mevagissey from Portmellon, and it was moored in the harbour for a few years until the lifeboat house was built in 1896. The station operated until 1930 when Fowey was equipped with a motorised lifeboat which could also cover the coast around Mevagissey. The lifeboat station is now an aquarium containing some fine specimens of local fish.
Further up the road on the right is Mevagissey's church which was once in a separate settlement from the harbour.
The church is thought to date from the 12th Century and in 1259 it was rededicated to St Peter. It was reworked in the 14th and 15th centuries and amongst other additions, the tower was added. By the 17th Century the upper tower was in a state of collapse. When the church was restored in the 1880s, two pinnacles from the ruined tower were found under the porch and these are now on the upper churchyard gate. The churchyard itself contains a number of sea-worn boulders which were used as grave markers in the 18th Century. Within the church are two piscinae from the early 14th century.
In 1895, Mevagissey was illuminated with what is thought to be the first large-scale electric street lighting in Cornwall, though a small arcade in Redruth had been electrically lit since 1892. In Mevagissey, the power was generated by burning pilchard oil, and the electricity was also used for the lighthouse, which was the first lighthouse in Britain to be electrically-powered.
The concept of fish and chips is thought to be a fusion of Jewish and northern English cultures. Fried fish was originally introduced by Jewish settlers, while chips became popular in Lancashire and Yorkshire. The combination as a dish is thought to have originated in the mid 1800s. During World War II, it was one of the few foods that were not rationed. The practice of wrapping in newspaper was stopped in the late 1980s due to the toxic chemicals used in ink.
The RNLI stationed a lifeboat at Portmellon in 1869. Once the outer harbour was built at Mevagissey, the lifeboat was moved there. When the Mevagissey lifeboat was itself later decommissioned in favour of the longer range boat at Fowey, the lifeboat winch was acquired by Mitchell's boat yard and used to launch boats from Portmellon.
Turnstones are small wading birds which can often be seen scavenging for small crumbs of pasty along harbour fronts in Cornwall. Their name arises from one of their ways of finding food on the seashore: they are able to lift stones as large as themselves using their strong neck. As their pasty foraging skills suggest, they are very versatile feeders and will eat almost anything including dead animals.
Red valerian is also known as kiss-me-quick, fox's brush and Devil's or Jupiter's beard and can be seen flowering in early summer in hedgerows near the coast. The plant is originally from the Mediterranean and is thought to have been introduced as a garden plant roughly around the Tudor period. It has since become naturalised and the brightly-coloured flowers provide nectar for bees, butterflies and moths. Over time the base of the stems can get as thick as a small tree trunk which can lever apart the walls in which it can often be seen growing.
Red valerian occurs with three main flower colours: about 50% of plants are deep pink, 40% are red and around 10% have white flowers. Very pale pink also occurs but is much rarer. These distinct forms are an example of flower colour polymorphism. The red pigment within the flowers is an anthrocyanin compound and the different colours are due to different amounts of the pigment.
Symbols on the front of ships arose both out of superstition for good luck and symbols of power. The general practice of putting a carved figure on the bowsprit became common practice from the 16th Century. Figureheads often depicted either the role of the ship (e.g. warship) or the name of the ship allowing it to be recognised by sailors who couldn't read. During the 18th Century, a figurehead of a woman (preferably showing some breast) was thought to bring calm to a stormy sea.
The beach at Portmellon is covered at the highest point of the tide but most of the time there is a beach. The beach is sandy but much of it is covered in green weed. On low spring tides, an area of clear sand beyond the weed is revealed. During storms, waves break against the sea wall at high tide, resulting in plumes of spray.
There are several reasons why seagulls should not be fed.
One is that human foods are not nutritionally suitable for seagulls but seagulls are not smart enough to know these can damage their health.
Another is that seagulls become dependent on humans and lose the skills to obtain food from natural sources.
The reason most affecting us is that feeding seagulls makes them less scared of humans. Since seagulls do not have have the emotional wiring to empathise with humans, fear is the only thing preventing that interaction being aggressive. Seagulls are innately aggressive when it comes to food as their behaviour with other seagulls demonstrates. There are many examples of children being attacked (who then drop food, reinforcing the behaviour).
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