The engine house was used for pumping clay from the pit and the building alongside was a boiler house. Unusually the beam engine was inside of the engine house but in later years the building was greatly modified to house an electric winder. Within the undergrowth on the opposite side of the lane are the set of mica drags and settling pits.
The settlement of Chysauster is less than a mile to the right (but there is no right of way to it from here).
Chysauster is one of the best-preserved ancient villages in Britain and is now owned by English Heritage. The settlement of Chysauster dates from the Iron Age but the current remains are from the period when Britain was under Roman rule but Cornwall continued in a Celtic way of life. The village was surrounded by a network of small fields. It is thought that the Castle-an-Dinas hillfort may have been associated with the village and served as an administrative centre a bit like a Town Hall.
If you'd like to visit it afterwards, the easiest way is to drive via Badger's Cross from Nancledra. Note that English Heritage charge an entrance fee for non-members.
Bramble roots are perennial but its shoots last just two years. In the first year, the shoots grow vigorously (up to 8cm in one day!). In the second year, the shoots mature and send out side-shoots with flowers.
The wood anemones and bluebells that grow here suggest that the area surrounding (and within) the hillfort may once have been under tree cover.
Wood anemones can be recognised by their white star-like flowers growing in shady locations during the spring. Hoverflies are important pollinators of the plant so you may also see these nearby. Avoid touching the plants as they are poisonous to humans and can cause severe skin irritation.
The anemones grow from underground stems (rhizomes) and spread very slowly - to spread by six feet takes about 100 years! This makes it a good indicator of ancient woodland.
Mine shafts were dug for several reasons as well as another way of getting people into the mine. One was to pump water up from the lower levels of the mine using a waterwheel or steam engine. Another was to haul ore and waste out of the mine (known as "winding") which was done with capstans and horses in the days before steam engines. The shafts associated with pumping or winding steam engines were often called "engine shafts". Mine shafts were also dug for ventilation and these are often marked as "air shaft" on maps.
As you approach the tower, there are nice views ahead over Mount's Bay.
The Castle-an-Dinas hillfort consists of four ramparts, with the outermost accompanied for much of its length by a ditch. The position is not easily defensible but it does have a very good view.
In the 18th Century it was recorded that the centre still contained the stone foundations of Iron Age roundhouses but the stone has since been robbed and probably now forms part of Roger's Tower.
Rogers' Tower is a folly built in the late 1700s as a destination for family outings by the Rogers family who owned nearby Treassowe Manor. It quickly fell into disuse: by 1817 was already in a state of decay and it was a ruin by the end of the 19th Century. Some repair work was done in 1960 and further restoration was carried out in 2002-3.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum (a grain), in reference to its coarse-grained structure. Granite forms from a big blob of magma (known as a pluton) which intrudes into the existing rocks. The huge mass of molten rock stores an enormous amount of heat so the magma cools very slowly below the surface of the Earth, allowing plenty of time for large crystals to form.
Granite mostly contains slightly acidic chemical compounds, and consequently there is nothing to neutralise acids arising from plant decay and carbon dioxide dissolved in rainwater, resulting in acidic moorland soils.
The hills ahead lie behind the flat area of coastal land that St Ives and Zennor occupy. The hill directly ahead is Trink Hill whilst the largest of the ones further left is Trendrine Hill. Rosewall Hill lies between the two.
Many place names in Cornwall containing "Dennis" are corruptions of Dinas which is the Celtic (Cornish and Old Welsh) word for a fort or citadel. The boy's name Dennis has an altogether different origin, from Dionysus - the god of wine. St Dennis (in Cornwall) and the shortened version of it in Australia - Sydney - are both of the latter origin.
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
The reason moles create tunnels is that these act as worm traps. When a worm drops in, the mole dashes to it and gives it a nip. Mole saliva contains a toxin that paralyses earthworms and the immobilised live worms are stored in an underground larder for later consumption. Researchers have discovered some very well-stocked larders with over a thousand earthworms in them! To prepare their meal, moles pull the worms between their paws to force the earth out of the worm's gut.
Since methane is a powerful greenhouse gas (reflecting more heat than carbon dioxide) and there are around a billion cows in the world, this has led to concern about the contribution that methane belched out by livestock is making to global warning. However, since methane is quite a short-lived greenhouse gas (about 12 years) and since the number of cattle hasn't changed that quickly over time, atmospheric methane levels are fairly stable. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, lasts hundreds of years in the atmosphere so this is much more able to build up over time. One other factor is that pastureland is able to absorb triple the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide as grain fields so grass-fed cattle are preferable to grain-fed.
The name Montbretia is after "Coquebert de Montbret" - a French botanist who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt in 1798 but died there at the age of 20. The Latin name Crocosmia has Greek origins, meaning "saffron scent". This is based on the the smell of the dried leaves. The crocuses which produce saffron are also members of the iris family.
Rabbits also make the most of the grazing land here.
The first record of slang word "bunny" being applied to rabbits is from the late 17th Century. Prior to this it was in use as a term of endearment, recorded in a 1606 love letter as "my honey, my bunny...". The origin of this pet name is thought to be a dialect word "bun" which was a general term for small furry creatures which did include rabbits but also applied to squirrels. The use of the word "rabbit" for chattering is from the Cockney rhyming slang for "talk" (rabbit and pork).
In spring, whilst foxgloves seeds are germinating, the established foxglove plants from the previous year start producing their characteristic flower spike. Once these have been fertilised and the seeds have been produced then the plant dies. One foxglove plant can produce over 2 million seeds.
Foxgloves have a life cycle which spans two years. The seeds germinate in spring and during their first year they produce a "rosette" of large, velvety green leaves with toothed edges. These are particularly noticeable from October onwards once other vegetation has died back. The leafy foxglove plants remain dormant throughout the winter, ready for a quick start in the spring.
During late winter or early spring, if you encounter a patch of plants with white bell-shaped flowers, smelling strongly of onions, and with long, narrow leaves then they are likely to be three-cornered leeks. Once you're familiar with their narrow, ridged leaves, you'll be able to spot these emerging from late October onwards.
The plants get their name due to their triangular flower stems. As the name also suggests, they are members of the onion family and have a small bulb. In fact, in New Zealand they are known as "onion weed". They are also known as "snowbell" due to their white bluebell-like flowers.
The genus name for hawthorn - Crataegus - is derived from krátys the Greek word for "hard" or "strong". Hawthorn wood is fine-grained, dense and most definitely hard. It has traditionally been used for things that benefit from these properties such as wooden mallets, the teeth of rakes and cogs for mill wheels.
In order to be processed, ore-bearing rock mined from mineral veins needed to be crushed to a powder. In earlier times, millstones were used to grind down lumps of ore but later it was done using a process known as "stamping" where the ore was crushed by dropping heavy granite or metal weights to pound it against another hard surface (often a piece of granite known as a mortar stone - as in "pestle and mortar"). The crushing was automated first with waterwheels and later with steam engines. The process was far from quiet and could often be heard from a number of miles away.
The stream is one of several in Cornwall known as the Red River and meets the sea at Marazion. It has a population of small trout.
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.
There are two types of ivy leaf. Those on creeping stems are the classic ivy leaf shape with 3-5 triangular lobes - they grow towards shade to find a tree to climb up. However, more mature ivy plants grow aerial shoots with a completely different (teardrop) leaf shape. These are the shoots that bear the flowers and fruits and are typically located in a sunny spot such as on an upright ivy bush or top of a rock face. The reason for the different shapes is that the larger, multi-lobed leaves are able to catch more light in shady areas whereas the smaller, stouter leaves are more resistant to drying out.
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 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.
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.
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.
The stream is a tributary of the Red River, fed by the springs draining from the marshes. The main stream has its source in the Baker's Pit nature reserve.
Snowdrops are one of the earliest plants to flower. They use energy stored in their bulbs to generate leaves and flowers during winter, whilst other plants without an energy reserve cannot compete. The downside to flowering so early is that pollinating insects are more scarce, so rather than relying exclusively on seeds, they also spread through bulb division.
Periwinkle, also known as myrtle, is a native plant in Europe and both the greater (Vinca major) and lesser (Vinca minor) forms are common, both with blue-purple 5-petal flowers that resemble turbine blades.
The "greater" form has wider teardrop-shaped leaves whereas the leaves of the "lesser" form are thinner and lance-shaped. The flowers on the lesser form are also smaller.
The name may be from the Russian name for the flower - pervinka - which is based on the word pervi, meaning "first", as it is one of the earliest spring flowers. Some flowers start appearing in November.
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 chimney is part of the remains of the Baker's Pit China Clay works.
The first record of the workings is from 1758 and the area was worked until 1942. The site was given by Imerys to the Cornwall Wildlife Trust in 2000. The habitats include heathland and wet willow woodland (with some consequently boggy paths in winter!). The wildlife is reported to include some less common birds of prey such as merlins and hen harriers. The flooded quarry pool has a population of freshwater fish such as small roach and rudd.
Once clay was extracted from a pit, kaolin needed to be separated from the other components of granite in the clay slurry. In earlier times, the slurry was flowed through three stepped tanks: in the first tank sand was deposited, in the second a mixture of fine sand and mica, in the third tank mica alone was deposited.
The introduction of mica drags made the process of separating the clay from the unwanted sand and mica far more efficient. Rectangular stone tanks with a very shallow gradient were divided into a series of long narrow channels. The slow flow rate down the shallow gradient caused the heavier sand and mica to be deposited in the bottom of the channels.
The ruins surrounding the chimney are the remains of a pan kiln for drying china clay.
Up until about 1850 china clay was dried in open-sided sheds known as air drys. This was a slow process: in winter, it could take as long as eight months.
From 1845, pan kilns were developed and became standard in the 1860s and 70s. Flues led beneath a floor of porous tiles on which the cream-like clay slurry was dried. The moisture was drawn down into the hot fumes and vented from a chimney.
The Castle-an-Dinas quarry extracts stone from a body of granite known as the Lands End formation which forms the large hills and rugged coast in the north and west of Penwith. Within the quarry, granite is broken into gravel for use in concrete, tarmac etc.
Roach are silver freshwater fish with red fins that are members of the Carp family. They are typically found in shoals in fairly static water such as lakes and canals. Cornwall's fast-flowing streams are the domain of more powerful swimmers such as trout.
Roach are tough little fish that can live for up to 15 years. They are able to cope with more pollution than most other fish, salty water, cold temperatures and can even adapt their body shape to deal with a scarcity of food. They are able to survive on just about anything from insects and fish eggs to water plants.
They can be confused with their cousins rudd which are similar in shape and also have red fins. The easiest way to tell them apart is that rudd have distinctly upturned mouths for hoovering in floating water plants.
You may wonder how fish (other than eels which can crawl over land) are able to colonise a lake that has no obvious river system connecting it to the sea. The answer may well be duck poo! Scientists have found that a small percentage of fish eggs are able to pass through a duck's digestive tract and remain viable. Whilst the survival rate is less than 1%, one large fish can produce over a million eggs and many water birds will completely fill their stomach with fish eggs in spawning season. Somewhat dedicated scientists found the eggs generally took just an hour to pass through a duck. They then calculated this was long enough for it to fly around 30 miles. They also found that the occasional egg would also get stuck in a duck longer and pop out 4-6 hours later by which time a duck could have flown up to 200 miles.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust was founded in 1962 as the Cornwall Naturalists' Trust and was run entirely by volunteers until 1974. It was renamed in 1994 as part of a national initiative to unify the names of wildlife trusts across the country. It now manages over 50 nature reserves and has over 17,000 members with over 1,000 active volunteers.
There's a volunteering section on the Cornwall Wildlife Trust website which includes lots of marine activities as well as things in the nature reserves.
The process of placing trig points on top of prominent hills and mountains began in 1935 to assist in the retriangulation of Great Britain - a project to improve the accuracy of maps which took three decades.
A plate (known as a "flush bracket" and marked with an ID code) on the side of each trig point marked a known measured height above sea level. The brass plate on the top with three arms and central depression (known as a "spider") was used to mount a theodolite which was used to measure the angles between neighbouring trig points very accurately. These angles allowed the construction of a system of triangles which covered the entire country and provided a measurement system accurate to around 20 metres.
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