The Par river was diverted to create a canal from the Fowey Consols mine to Par docks by 1830. In 1835, this was extended to Ponts Mill to connect with the horse-drawn tramway being planned for the Luxulyan Valley. However due to the labour-intensiveness of transferring cargo between the trams and boats, the tramway was extended all the way to Par harbour in the 1850s, running alongside the canal.
In the 1820s, the ferry at Par was replaced with a bridge and work began on the construction of the harbour, which was completed in 1840. Since the main export from the harbour at the time was copper which needed to be taken to coal-rich South Wales for smelting, the location on the Channel coast was not ideal as ships then needed to make the treacherous journey around Lands End. Consequently work began on a tramway to replace Par with Newquay as the port for export.
Towards the end of the 19th Century, china clay took over from copper as the most profitable mineral to extract in Cornwall and Par harbour gained a new lease of life. A pipeline for clay slurry was built to the harbour, driers were built on the docks and China clay was exported all through the 20th Century until 2007. At the time of writing it is still dried at Par but then sent to Fowey to be shipped.
When the First Edition OS map was recorded in the 1880s, almost all of the walk route so far would have been below the high-tide line as would have most of the holiday park. With rising sea levels caused by melting polar ice from climate change, it may be again before too long.
National Cycle Route 2 runs for 361 miles along the south coast from St Austell to Dover but at the time of writing, several sections including the one between Par and Plymouth (using the Cremyll ferry to cross the Tamar) haven't been completed yet.
The private road linking Par and Fowey was originally the Cornwall Minerals Railway linking Fowey and St Blazey which opened in 1874 and included the longest railway tunnel in Cornwall. It closed in 1968 and after the lines were removed in 1974, it was converted into a private haul road, used to transport china clay by lorry from the dryers at Par to ships in Fowey harbour.
Before 1800, the village of Par was just a small group of houses below the cliff overlooking the mouth of the River Par. By the 1880s, as well as a railway and canal, there were two inns, a customs house, post office, school, chapel, Sunday school and a large locomotive shed (which is now the Roundhouse business park) but Par was still tiny in comparison to Tywardreath.
The name Par is thought to be a corruption of Porth, which is how it was recorded in 1327. In the 1880s, a few houses behind the harbour were recorded as Porth which is now the location of a 20th Century china clay dry.
Par railway station opened in 1859 as part of the Cornwall Railway, initially for passengers and then a goods shed followed a year later. In 1879, the station was connected to the Cornwall Minerals Railway to Newquay but since this was a different track gauge to the main line, everything had to be unloaded at Par and swapped between trains until the main line was converted to Standard Gauge in 1892.
New station buildings were erected in 1884 and when the first edition OS map was recorded in the 1880s, the small cluster of houses around the station was documented as a separate settlement named "Parstation".
The main line railway through Cornwall was originally conceived as a means to link the port of Falmouth to London. However, whilst funds were being raised for the railway, much of Falmouth's Packet trade was transferred to Southampton. The line was built to Truro instead but initially failed to make money and was bought up by Great Western. Once established, the new railway allowed rapid exports of perishables to London including fresh flowers and fish. It also made large-scale tourism possible and the term "Cornish Riviera" was coined.
Moorhens are water birds which is the basis of names including "waterhen" and the more entertaining "swamp chicken". The name mor-hen was recorded in the 13th Century and is from an old word for marsh that also gave rise to "mire", rather than simply "moorland".
Moorhens are close relatives to coots but have red-and-yellow beaks rather than white. Like coots, they are aggressive in the breeding season. Unlike coots, they are not aggressive the rest of the time too! The older moorhen chicks will even help their parents to raise the young ones. Moorhens also spend more time out of the water than coots and will even climb trees.
Swans usually mate for life, although "divorce" can sometimes occur if there is a nesting failure. The birds can live for over 20 years but in the 20th Century many swans were found to be suffering from lead poisoning. This was tracked down to the tiny "lead shot" weights used for fishing that swans would hoover up with weed and roots from the bottom of rivers and lakes. Since the introduction of non-toxic metals for making fishing weights, incidents of poisoning have disappeared and the swan population is now even growing very slightly.
The wetlands are on an arm of the Par river that was once a tidal inlet but became filled with silt, most likely from mining activity. An area of the marshes is a wildlife reserve managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and a series of small openings from the otherwise canalised river allow water to trickle onto the reserve area to sustain the marshland habitat. The public footpath across the marshes may be the remains of a mediaeval causeway.
Hemlock (also known as water dropwort or poison hemlock) is a member of the carrot family (related to cow parsley and alexanders) and is common in damp, shady places, particularly near streams. The stems are tubular and quite thick like alexanders and the leaves look quite like coriander (more toothed on the edges than alexanders). New leaves begin to shoot in early winter and by February these are starting to grow into quite noticeable small plants. It flowers in April and May with white flowers similar to cow parsley.
Dragonflies are named after the way they hunt, as both the larvae and adults are carnivorous predators. Mosquitoes form a large part of their diet both for adults and particularly for the larvae (nymphs). One dragonfly can eat tens of mosquitoes in a day and an average of over 100 per day has been recorded for the nymphs of some species. It is thought that this is an important factor in keeping the mosquito population under control. Dragonfly nymphs have a massive lower jaw to engulf their prey (a bit like an Angler Fish) and are also able to propel themselves by shooting a jet of water out of their anus.
Willow trees are usually found in wet places including riverbanks and waterlogged ground. Common species include grey willow and goat willow but these often hybridise so they are more often known by the more broad-brush collective term "pussy willows" (due to their catkins). In January the fluffy, grey male catkins appear and and turn bright yellow in March when they release their pollen. Then in April, the fertilised female catkins develop into woolly seeds. In early May, air can be filled with the downy seeds that look a bit like dandelion seeds.
The first record of Tywardreath was in the Domesday Survey 1086 as the manor of Tiwardrai which, despite having 100 acres of pasture, was valued at £2. The name is Cornish for "house on the strand" which gave the name to one of Daphne du Maurier's books.
Tywardreath grew rapidly during a copper mining boom at the start of the Victorian era and many of the historic buildings visible today date from this period. At its peak it had 17 pubs, inns and beer houses which were presumably mutually exclusive with its two Methodist chapels.
Also around the time of the Norman Conquest, a priory was founded as a satellite of a French Abbey and despite being very small with only 7 monks, it controlled the port of Fowey. At the start of the 15th Century the endowment was transferred to the English Crown and the French monks were expelled. A revival with English monks occurred during the 15th Century but it was suppressed by the Crown in 1536 and nothing survives apart from the few carved stones in the churchyard and other carved stone fragments re-used within some of the buildings in the village.
There are records of Tywardreath church being re-dedicated in 1347 so a Norman church must have existed but there are no obvious remains. The earliest elements of the existing church date from the 14th and 15th Centuries, mainly the tower. The rest of the church was almost completely rebuilt in 1880.
Within the churchyard, the carved pieces of stone and octagonal support for a cross are thought to have come from the mediaeval priory.
As you exit the churchyard, the Regency building on the right was originally built in 1837 as a market house where the Butter Market was also held. In 1860 it was converted to a police station which was used for just over 100 years. It was saved from demolition in the 1970s by the Cornwall Building Preservation Trust who converted it for residential use.
The Saints' Way runs for 30 miles from Padstow to Fowey, and follows one of the likely routes of early Christian travellers making their way from Wales and Ireland to the Continent during the Dark Ages. Rather than risk a premature martyring on the rocks around Land's End, they would disembark their ships on the North Devon and Cornish coast and cross the peninsula, on foot, to ports on the south coast such as Fowey. The Bush Inn at Morwenstow is thought to be one of the stopovers from the North Devon ports. The route from Padstow to Fowey was in use before the Dark Ages which is evident from Roman coins found along the route. However it is thought that it was likely to have been in use even earlier still, in the Iron Age.
The postbox at the start of the track dates from Victorian times.
Postboxes are a Victorian invention. The first pillar boxes were erected in the 1850s and by 1857, the first roadside wall boxes were in place. Early postboxes were green and it wasn't until 1874 that some in London were painted red. Over the next 10 years this was applied elsewhere. Postboxes are initialled with the reigning monarch at the time which allows them to be approximately dated. For example Edward 7th (marked as E VII) was only on the throne for 10 years so these date from the 1900s before the First World War.
The embankment carried the railway across the top of the beach and during a big spring tide, the sea may have reached the bottom of the embankment. From the OS map recorded in the 1880s, it looks like a small underpass existed at this location as part of the original railway construction but it's since been widened and reinforced with concrete.
The hamlet of Polmear gets its name from the Cornish for "large cove" (i.e. Par beach). The almshouses date from the 17th Century and the Ship Inn from the early 18th Century. The Ship Inn car park was at the top of the beach in the 19th Century and had targets for a rifle range which stretched up as far as the railway embankment (near the holiday park).
Since Charlestown also had a large cove and hence was also called Polmear, when travel horizons had broadened enough to include both, they were known as East Polmear (at Par) and West Polmear (Charlestown) until the name "Charlestown" was used for the latter and then the "East" was no longer needed.
In March 1947 the Empire Contamar (a coaster carrying coal from South Wales to Par) arrived in a gale and was driven onto Killyvarder Rock whist waiting for the tide to be able to enter Par harbour. By the time the Fowey lifeboat reached them, the wheelhouse was chest deep in water and despite 20ft waves breaking over the ship and one crew member falling into the water, the lifeboat managed to rescue all the crew and bring them safely to Fowey.
There are more details of the remarkable rescue on the Friends of Par Beach website.
Par beach faces south into St Austell Bay and is roughly half a mile across. The dunes behind the sandy beach are slowly growing in height and consequently the high tide line has been measured as moving seaward by an average of roughly one metre per year between the 1880s and 1980s. The sparkles in the sand are due to tiny particles of mica and the gravel with the sand is quartz - both are unwanted bits of rock separated from china clay when is it purified.
Since water drains away quickly through the sand, marram grass has evolved a number of strategies to capture and retain water including its waxy, curled leaves which contain hairs inside to minimise evaporation caused by moving air. Its roots form a fibrous mat which traps water but also plays a vital role in stabilising the dunes by stopping the sand blowing away. During the 17th Century, large amounts of marram grass were harvested for thatch and this destabilised the dunes so much that farms, estates and even entire villages were buried.
The River Par rises on Criggan Moor near Roche and flows through the China Clay areas around Bugle before descending through the Luxulyan valley and meeting the sea at Par. The river is fast-flowing and once ran white from the suspended china clay; it now supports a healthy fish population.
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.
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.
Geese migrate to warmer climates for the winter and fly in a V-shaped formation known as a skein or wedge (on the ground, a collection of geese is known as a gaggle). The V-formation allows birds behind the leader to fly more efficiently as the rising air from flapping wings of the bird ahead helps to support the weight of the one behind. This can increase the range that the bird can fly by over 70%. The birds each take it in turns to do the harder job of flying at the front.
Wetlands act as sponges, storing and gradually releasing water which helps to prevent floods and buffer river levels during dry periods. Sediment and nutrients washed off the land by rainwater are absorbed by the wetland plants, feeding the wetland ecosystem but also filtering and cleaning the water before it enters rivers.
In marshes, micro-organisms thrive in the wet mud and use up the supply of oxygen. To survive being partially buried in mud with low oxygen levels, many marsh plants have therefore evolved snorkels: air channels in the stem which allow oxygen to reach the base of the plant. This is why the leaves of reeds feel spongy.
The yellow water iris (also known as yellow flag) is a native plant but can become invasive and have a negative effect on biodiversity due to its ability to out-compete many other water plants. It is thought by some to be the original plant on which the "fleur-de-lis" heraldic symbol is based.
If heavy metals are present in the soil, the plant is quite effective at absorbing these. This together with its aptitude for growing in pools of shallow water makes it potentially useful for detoxifying mine drainage.
Some estimates suggest the UK has up to half of the world's total bluebell population; nowhere else in the world do they grow in such abundance. However, the poor bluebell faces a number of threats including climate change and hybridisation from garden plants. In the past, there has also been large-scale unsustainable removal of bulbs for sale although it is now a criminal offence to remove the bulbs of wild bluebells with a fine up to £5,000 per bulb!
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.
Because bluebells spread very slowly, they're considered to be an indicator of ancient woodland sites. In areas where trees are not very old, the fact there are bluebells around can indicate that there has been a wood on a site for a very long time. Even if there are no trees there at all, bluebells tell us that there was woodland there some time in the past. The bluebells along the coast are a relic of the gnarled oak woodland that used to grow here before it was cleared for grazing. There is still a patch of the ancient oak woodland left along the coast at Dizzard.
Some plant nutrients such as phosphorus tend to be more abundant near the surface of the soil where decaying organic matter collects. Bluebell seedlings start life at the surface so these are OK but as bluebell plants mature and send their roots deeper into the soil to avoid winter frosts, they have a phosphorus problem. They have solved this by partnering with a fungus that extends from their root cells, drawing in minerals from the soil in return for some carbohydrates from the plant.
Bluebells are extremely poisonous, containing a number of biologically-active compounds and were used (probably with varying success) in mediaeval medicine. The sap was used as a glue for book-binding as its toxicity repelled insects. It was also used to attach the fletchings onto arrows.
In Elizabethan times, starch made from the bulbs was used to stiffen collars and cuffs in clothing. The ruffs that were highly fashionable at the time would have needed a lot of starch to prevent them flopping. The toxins in bluebell sap might also have had the desirable property of preventing the starch encouraging the formation of mould.
In folklore, the bluebell is a symbol of constancy, presumably based on the fact that they flower in the same place every year. It was said that anyone who wears a bluebell is compelled to tell the truth. This could be the origin of the "…something blue…" that a bride should wear on her wedding day.
According to folklore, it's unlucky to bring bluebells into a house and also unlucky to walk through bluebells as it was thought that the little bells would ring and summon fairies and goblins.
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.
Bluebells are also known by folk names based on their shape including Lady’s Nightcap and Witches’ Thimbles.
Other common names for the bluebell include "wild hyacinth" and "wood hyacinth" as they are related to the hyacinth family. Their Genus name Hyacinthoides also means "hyacinth-like".
When photographing bluebells, the flowers that look blue to your eye can end up looking purple in photos.
The first thing to check is that your camera isn't on auto white balance as the large amount of blue will cause the camera to shift the white balance towards reds to try to compensate.
Another thing to watch out for is that the camera's light metering will often over-expose the blue slightly to get a reasonable amount of red and green light and the "lost blue" can change the balance of the colours. You can get around this by deliberately under-exposing the photo (and checking there is no clipping if your camera has a histogram display) and then brightening it afterwards with editing software.
Bluebells are very vulnerable to trampling. The reason for this is that when their leaves emerge in the early part of the year, they are powered by the stored sugars in their bulbs. Sunlight is very limited at this time of the year and even more so in the shady places where they grow. In order to survive, they then need to photosynthesise flat-out to store enough starch in the bulb for next year's growth. If a bluebell’s leaves are crushed, it cannot photosynthesise and and doesn't have enough reserves left in its bulb to grow new ones. It's therefore important to stick to footpaths in bluebell woodland and best to take photos with a zoom lens from there as wandering around in the bluebells to take photos will inadvertently kill them.
A rare genetic mutation occurs in bluebells which results in about 1 bluebell in 10,000 being white rather than blue.
Three-cornered leeks - which have white bell-shaped flowers and are very common - are often misidentified as "white bluebells". The easiest way to tell them apart is that 3-cornered leeks smell strongly of onion. Their flower stems are also triangular (hence the name).
Like its domesticated relatives, wild garlic grows from a bulb. To distinguish it from other wild plants from the onion/garlic family (such as the three-cornered leek), the species sometimes just called "wild garlic" (Allium ursinum) is often known by the name ramsons or broad-leaf garlic. The scientific name (meaning bear leek) is because the bulbs are thought to be a favourite food of brown bears on the European mainland.
Unlike their more versatile narrow-leaved cousins the three-cornered leeks, ramsons grow mainly in shady places such as woodland. Their broad leaves are solar panels that have evolved to capture the weak winter light early in the year before the trees are in leaf. They are an indicator that woodland is ancient and has provided a shady environment over a long period to colonise.
Despite the pungent smell, the leaves of wild garlic are quite delicate in flavour so can be used quite large quantities in cooking or more sparingly within salads. They are at their most fiery early in the season. As well as a garlic flavour, the leaves have a slight (though not excessive) bitter note which can be balanced against sweet flavours (e.g. tomato or roasted pepper) or salty flavours like bacon to cut through a rich sauce.
Wild garlic is best harvested in early spring before it flowers and the leaves start to die off. Unlike domestic garlic, the leaves are generally used rather than the bulb, which is very small. Note that there are some lilies that look very similar and are poisonous! If it doesn't smell strongly of garlic/onions, then it's not wild garlic and should be avoided. A schoolboy error is to rub the leaves between fingers where the smell lingers so a subsequent poisonous lily leaf could be misidentified.
Wild garlic can be preserved as a frozen paste for use as a cooking ingredient throughout the year. Simply whizz up roughly chopped leaves in a food processor with enough olive oil to make a fairly thick paste and then freeze this in an ice cube tray (or slightly larger silicone moulds if you have them). Standard cooking olive oil will do for this (it's a waste to use extra-virgin as the powerful garlic will mask its flavour). Turn out the frozen blocks into a bag and keep in the freezer. They can then be used as garlic "stock cubes", added just before the end of cooking.
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.
If cows eat wild garlic, this flavours their milk. Whilst this is definitely not what's wanted for tea or cornflakes, the butter made from it is more useful. This means of producing garlic butter became popular in Switzerland in the 19th Century.
All plants in the onion family are poisonous to dogs including wild garlic. This is one of the reasons that feeding dogs human foods (many of which contain onion such as gravy powder) is not good for them. Garlic is extremely toxic to dogs and cats and the consumption of even a small amount can lead to severe poisoning. Keep dogs away from wild garlic and wash their paws if they come into contact with it.
You can make impressively green pasta with wild garlic and the garlic flavour goes well with most pasta sauces. Whizz up some wild garlic leaves with olive oil to make a thick paste (or retrieve some of this from the freezer and zap in the microwave to defrost). Whisk an egg and add roughly the same amount of your wild garlic paste as the egg. Now keep adding plain flour until you reach a stiff dough (stiffer than bread dough). Roll out fairly (but not excessively) thin keeping it coated with plenty of flour to stop it sticking. Roll it up into a Swiss roll and then cut at 1cm intervals with a sharp knife. Unroll all the strips into a floured surface first and then quickly drop them into boiling water. It will be done in just a minute or 2 (as soon as it floats) so get the strips in at the same time and have your pasta sauce made and ready to go before you cook the pasta.
In a small food processor, whizz approx 20g of Italian-style hard cheese (Parmesan or Pecorino). Optionally whizz in about the same amount of any toasted nuts (nice but not vital). Next whizz in 50g of wild garlic leaves. You can also add 10g lemon balm leaves if you have it growing in your garden. Add zest of a lemon, juice of half the lemon and whizz in a couple of glugs of olive oil to the desired consistency. Finally whizz in salt and pepper to taste.
Make your own super-quick fresh pasta with 200g plain flour, 4g salt, 1 egg and enough water to form a smooth dough. Use a good dusting of flour and roll out thin. Dust again, roll up into a Swiss roll and cut across at 1cm intervals to form spirals. Unravel each and drop the squiggles into boiling water. Done when it floats (about 2 min).
The name "buttercup" is thought to have come from a mediaeval belief that cows eating the flowers gave butter its yellow colour. In fact this couldn't be further from the truth as the plant contains toxins which make it taste acrid and is therefore avoided by grazing animals.
The Latin name of the buttercup, Ranunculus, means "little frog" and said to be because the plants like wet conditions. It is thought it may have come via a derogatory name for people who lived near marshes!
There are a few different species of buttercup. One of most common is meadow buttercup (unsurprisingly found in meadows!) which is the tallest member of the family. Another common one is creeping buttercup which as the name suggests spreads through rhizomes so is more likely to be found in dense clumps in damp places. Its leaves are also more golden and glossy.
Meadow buttercups spread across a field relatively slowly as most seeds fall quite close to the parent and although it has a creeping root system capable of propagating new plants, this only extends a fairly short distance from each plant (unlike creeping buttercup which has a much more extensive root system). Because grazing animals avoid buttercups due to their acrid taste, this allows them to accumulate over time. The combination of these factors allows the number of meadow buttercups in a field to be used as an indicator of how long it's been used for grazing.
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!
Rooks can be distinguished from other members of the crow family by their pale, hairless, pointy beak (other members of the crow family have black beaks and also a moustache on the top of their beak).
Rooks nest in colonies and are one of the most social members of the crow family. Scientists have found that rooks are happy to work cooperatively to solve problems (e.g. each pulling on a separate string to release food).
Experiments have shown that rooks are able to use tools to solve problems, choosing tools with optimal sizes and shapes to solve a problem. They are also able to adapt tools e.g. bending a wire to make a hook to retrieve food.
Rooks eat pretty much anything but their primary food source is earthworms and insect larvae which their beak is evolved to probe for.
Lichens are a partnership of two different organisms: a fungus providing the "accommodation" and an alga or cyanobacterium providing the "food" through photosynthesis. The fungal partner provides a cosy, sheltered environment for the alga and tends it with mineral nutrients. However, the alga partner is more than simply an imprisoned food-slave: it is such a closely-evolved alliance that the fungus is dependant on the alga for its structure. If the fungal partner is isolated and grown on an agar plate, it forms a shapeless, infertile blob.
One in five of all known fungi form lichens. Studies suggest that many species of fungi that form lichens started out from ancestors that lived on organic waste. Fossils have also revealed that the symbiosis between algae and fungi dates back more than 400 million years roughly to the time when plants first evolved from green algae.
Lichens often grow on sick or dying trees so some gardeners assume that the lichen might be harming the tree. In fact, it's purely because these trees have fewer leaves so there is more light available for the algae inside the fungus to photosynthesise. It's too dark under many healthy trees for the lichen to grow.
You'll notice that there is lichen growing on many of the headstones in the churchyard. Of the 2,000 British species, over a third have been found in churchyards and more than 600 have been found growing on churchyard stone in lowland England. Almost half the species are rare and some seldom, if ever, occur in other habitats. Many churchyards are found to have well over 100 species.
Lichens obtain nearly all their nutrients from the atmosphere and therefore can be very sensitive to air pollution. As a general rule of thumb, healthy lichens means clean air, but more specifically, different species have been found to be sensitive to different pollutants. By identifying common species that exhibits change for a particular pollutant, lichens can be used as an early warning dashboard showing not only how much air pollution there is but also what kind.
Mica is a term for a group of minerals that split easily into thin plates. These often reflect light and have a sparkly appearance. The name is from the Latin word for "crumb" as it easily breaks into tiny pieces. Mica occurs within granite and the sparkles can add to the attractiveness when polished but due to the fragility of mica, at higher concentrations it can make the granite weak. China clay - which is formed from granite - is initially contaminated with the tiny flecks of mica and one of the challenges in china clay purification is separating these from the clay. The cosmetics industry has found a use for mica in sparkly make-up.
During the 18th Century in Oxford, the Wesley brothers began practising their rigorous holy lifestyle which was mockingly referred to as Methodism by their peers due to their methodical practices. John Wesley began open-air preaching to recruit followers to his movement and formed small classes for each community where followers would receive ongoing religious guidance. Wesley always advocated the practise of Methodism as an extension of the Anglican faith and encouraged his followers to attend the parish church regularly. Nevertheless, senior figures within the Church of England feared the effects (or perhaps popularity) of Methodist practices, suggesting that an overdose of the Holy Spirit might be unhealthy for weak minds.
The Wesley brothers arrived in Cornwall in 1743 and began preaching, bringing with them charismatic lay preachers who spoke in the dialect of the locals. During the 18th Century in Cornwall, a rift had developed between the the elite Anglican clergy and the majority of the population who were predominantly miners, farmers and fishermen. The "down to earth" nature of the Methodists appealed greatly and is one of the reasons it was enthusiastically adopted.
Methodist services were held in the cottages which was attractive to women who needed to look after young children, and in the many villages where the parish church was more than a mile away or at the top of a steep hill. This helped to make Methodism very popular in Cornwall and through the late 18th and the 19th Century, many chapels were built in the centre of the villages.
By the time John Wesley died, the majority of Methodists were not attending Anglican church regularly, and following his death a Methodist church was formed, separate from the Anglican church. In the first half of the 19th Century, the Methodist movement fragmented into several different factions, often each with its own chapel in the same town. The Bible Christian movement was one of these, founded in North Cornwall in 1815 by William O'Bryan from Luxulyan. His followers are also known as the Bryonites, although after falling out with most of his ministers, O'Bryan emigrated to America. In 1907, the Bible Christian movement amalgamated with other Methodist groups to form the United Methodist Church.
The blackbird is a species of thrush. The name "blackbird" is mediaeval, first recorded in 1486. Since most of the crow family is also black, plus many seabirds, the choice of this particular species for the name is thought to be due to its size. Up to the 18th Century, larger birds such as crows were referred to as "fowl" and the term "bird" was only used for smaller species.
The Old English name for the blackbird was osle and up to the 17th Century this survived as in alternative names for the blackbird ranging from ouzel to woosel. One of these is used in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare: "The Woosell cocke, so blacke of hew, With Orenge-tawny bill".
Only male blackbirds are actually black. The females are brown. The difference in appearance between males and females is known as sexual dimorphism and is an evolutionary strategy by the males to get noticed more by females at the cost of decreased chances of survival.
Blackbirds can be found in deciduous woodland, particularly where there is dense undergrowth. In the man-made landscape, hedges provide plenty of dense undergrowth and have consequently become a really important habitat for blackbirds. Moreover, many gardens have such a high density of hedges and bushes that they are able to support ten times the blackbird population versus an equivalent area of their natural woodland habitat.
Blackbirds are one of the most common birds in the UK with a population of somewhere between 10 and 15 million. However, blackbirds were in steady decline from the 1970s through to the mid-1990s. The population has only relatively recently recovered.
Blackbirds begin singing from around the end of January but it is normally the overkeen young males initially - the older, wiser males wait until March, pacing themselves for the singing period which continues into the early summer. Blackbirds have been shown to sing more during and after rain but exactly why is not yet known.
Baby blackbirds usually leave the nest before they can actually fly then hop and scramble through the bushes. Their parents watch over them so don't attempt to rescue them.
Blackbirds in the UK are resident all year round but the blackbirds that live further north (e.g. in Norway) migrate south for the winter. To help with migration and also to avoid being eaten by predators, blackbirds can sleep half their brain at a time. This allows them to get some rest whilst still maintaining enough alertness to fly or spot predators.
The reference in the nursery rhyme "sing a song a sixpence" to "four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" is thought to be to the 16th Century amusement (though not for the blackbirds) of producing a large pie which included an empty chamber. After the pie had been baked and was ready to be served, a trapdoor would be cut in the empty chamber and live birds were placed inside which would fly out when the pie was cut open. Live frogs were sometimes used as an alternative.
In the Christmas carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas", the line "four colly birds" is thought to be from 18th Century slang meaning "black as coal" and was a popular nickname for the blackbird. Whilst many people today sing and write "four calling birds", this is thought to be a modern misunderstanding of what was originally written.
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