Polkerris is thought to mean "fortified cove". This is likely to date from the early mediaeval period and may have referred to an Iron Age or Roman-era fortified settlement overlooking the cove. A bronze brooch was found on the beach which is thought to date from the 1st or 2nd Century.
In Tudor times, and possibly earlier, Polkerris was the main fishing port in St Austell Bay. There are records of a sizeable pilchard fishery from 1583 and mentions of a mackerel fishery in the 17th Century. In the early 18th Century, the village was developed by the Rashleigh family for more intensive pilchard seining which involved construction of the quay and one of the largest cellars in Cornwall. After the pilchard fishery declined from the 1830s, a smaller mackerel fishery continued a little longer until the collapse of mackerel stocks in the late 19th century due to overfishing.
During Victorian times, the Polkerris lifeboat station was built and what is now the Rashleigh Inn was the Coastguard station. The Coastguard cottages were originally built for what was known as the "Preventative Service", responsible for catching smugglers. There was another pub called the General Eliot which was situated in the car park of the Rashleigh Inn but it was swept away by the sea in a storm! The lifeboat station closed in 1922 and was transferred to Fowey instead. The cannons embedded muzzle-first in the harbour wall are from the Napoleonic wars.
Throughout the 19th century, mackerel was fished commercially off Cornwall and by the end of the 19th century, there were hundreds of drift netters. These decimated the mackerel stocks and by the 1930s, mackerel were so scarce that the fishery had virtually closed. By the 1960s, the mackerel had recovered and were plentiful for the next couple of decades. More recently, they have noticeably declined again which is thought to be due to intensive trawling in Scottish and Icelandic waters. The South West Handline Fisherman's Association operate a more sustainable fishing model, and readers are encouraged to buy line-caught fish.
At the lowest point of the field, just before you reach the gate on the far side, a path leads through the undergrowth to the rocky point and from here it's possible to climb down to the beach.
Whilst you stop to get your breath back, the main beaches around the back of the bay from right to left are:
The small beach just before you reach the kissing gate is known as Peel Cove. Its sheltered position on the eastern side of St Austell bay means that floating objects such as jellyfish can get washed up here. The largest of the species commonly seen around the coast is the barrel or football jellyfish, on account of its shape. It is also known as the dustbinlid jellyfish which gives a hint of the size that it can reach: large specimens have caused media excitement regarding "jellyfish the size of wheelie bins". Fortunately, they don't have stinging tentacles.
The larger beach below you is known as Platt Cove. Platt is the Cornish word for "flat", and the "square" in many Cornish towns and villages was known as "The Platt", and still is in some cases such as Wadebridge and Port Isaac.
Daphne du Maurier's inspiration for her horror story "The Birds" was the sight of a farmer being harassed by a flock of gulls as he ploughed a field near Gribbin Tower.
Aggressive behaviour by seagulls has become more widely witnessed in recent years - a seagull has even drawn blood when we have been testing the walks (clearly, a Cornishman would not let go of his pasty!). Biologists think that seagulls are no more aggressive than they always have been and it is simply that humans are making food more easily available. Most fishermen know that a seagull wouldn't hesitate to snatch a mackerel from half-way down the throat of another seagull and us holding a pasty or ice cream is no different.
The 84ft tall tower on Gribbin Head was erected by Trinity House in 1832 as a daylight navigation aid for shipping, enabling ships to distinguish Gribbin Head more easily from other headlands along Cornwall’s south coast. It is now owned by the National Trust and can be climbed on some Sundays during summer; a flag is flown to show when it is open.
In the mid-1980s, engineers identified ancient underwater channels criss-crossing the seabed in St Austell bay which had become filled with tin-rich sediment. However, no further exploration was done after the price of tin dropped. In recent years, the price of tin has been steadily increasing as the relatively rare metal is used in the production of electronic devices. These reserves are now being re-examined, with possible exploratory work to follow.
From geography lessons at secondary school, you'll probably know that wave-cut platforms form where waves hit the cliff face and create a wave-cut notch into which the cliffs above eventually collapse. The reason the cliffs are eroded faster than the platform below them is more in the realms of physics:
Nevertheless, the platform does slowly erode. At Porthleven it is estimated that the platform is eroding at a rate of 1mm every 5 years.
On the rocks on the right-hand side of the beach are the remains of the Romanie.
In January 1930, The Romanie was on her way back from Fowey to Par when she was caught in a sudden storm. The three masted iron sailing ship of just over 100ft in length was pushed into Polridmouth Bay where she lost power and she drifted helplessly onto the rocks. Her captain and crew managed to escape without loss of life but the ship was a write-off. The rusting remains can still be seen at low tide and when Daphne du Maurier walked along the beach during the mid 20th century, the wreck inspired her to make the beach the setting for the murder of her character "Rebecca", and the wreck of her boat.
Polridmouth is pronounced locally as "pridmuth". The cottage behind the beach is thought to be the inspiration for the boathouse in Daphne du Maurier's novel "Rebecca". The ornamental lakes by the cottage were created in the 1920s by the building of a dam. It was used as the basis of a decoy airfield in the Second World War to emulate Fowey harbour. Dams additional to the one remaining were built to create a fake harbour and lights were then placed around the lake, orchestrated to emulate those in Fowey. At least one bomb is known to have been drawn away from Fowey, and on average, it has been estimated that around 5% of German bombs were diverted by decoys, saving thousands of lives across the whole of Britain.
Whilst the trees are deciduous, the harts tongue ferns that grow beneath them are evergreen so they are able to make the most of the light when the trees lose their leaves.
Both evergreen and deciduous plants lose and regrow leaves but in the case of evergreens this happens over a longer period (e.g. 3 years) and not all at once.
In deciduous plants, the cost of having to re-grow all the leaves at once every spring is offset by advantages of reduced ice damage, water loss (useful when water is frozen) and predation during winter when less sunlight is available to power repair processes.
Due to the curvature of the earth, the distance you can see to the horizon depends on your height above sea level. This increases with the square root of height (i.e. with diminishing returns). An adult typically sees the horizon about 3 miles from the beach. From the top of a 100 foot lighthouse, it is about 12 miles away. At the top of the highest cliff in Cornwall it is roughly 33 miles out but if a 100ft tower were built all the way up here, it would only allow an extra 2 miles to be seen.
In March 1937, the 3500 ton Kanteong, at the time the world's largest tin dredger, was on tow from the builders' yard in Holland to the Far East when she capsized in a storm off the Eddystone reef. She had to be abandoned, and drifted down the coast until she hit the rocks at Fowey, broke up and sank. At low tide, a huge iron gear wheel is visible above the surface of the water, and below the surface is the remains of the massive dredging arm, complete with buckets.
Skylarks are the most common member of the lark family in Britain and are often known simply as "larks".
Almost all European countries have reported a rapid decline in lark numbers over recent years. In Britain, two-thirds of the population has disappeared in 30 years. This is thought mainly to be due to intensive agriculture and particularly the autumn sowing of cereals. When cereals were sown in the spring, the fields of stubble that remained after harvest provided an environment where larks could nest during the winter.
The farm overlooking the valley, called Coombe, is now owned by the National Trust and run as a B&B. It is a typically matter-of-fact Cornish place name, simply meaning "valley".
Cornwall has at least 8 different words for "valley".
The two fields alongside the valley of Coombe containing benches are known as Allday's Fields. This was previously a golf course, hence some of the lumps and a number of the benches are located on former tees. The course stretched down into the valley of Coombe where two of the greens were located. The Fowey Golf Club was founded in 1907 and the 9 hole cliff-top course was played until WW2 when the land was requisitioned. An attempt was made to resurrect the course and the club after the war but it only lasted a few years. The land was eventually bought by a wealthy businessman (James Allday) who gave the fields to the town in 1951.
The location of Fowey close to the mouth of the estuary made it vulnerable to attack by sea. The town was destroyed by fire during invasions by French, Spanish and other pirate ships in 1330, 1380 and 1457. Following the 1380 raid, blockhouses were built on either side of the estuary mouth. A chain spanned between them that could be raised to close the channel in times of need. The chain was later confiscated by the King after boats from Fowey and Polruan were convicted of Piracy.
At the shelter, the path on your right (either over the rocks or the path avoiding the rocks) is a short one-way path to the top of the fortifications, which block entry to the castle. The Catherine's Castle sign marks another one-way path to the main (lower) castle area, from which there are steps up to the building above.
St Catherine's Castle is named after the headland (St Catherine's Point) and was initially constructed in Tudor times as part of Henry VIII's south coast defences. It was maintained during the Tudor period and manned by Royalists during the early part of the English Civil war. By 1684 it was described as ruinous, although it was used during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1855 it was refurbished and two 64-pounder guns were mounted below the blockhouse but it was abandoned again by the end of the 19th Century. During WW2, concrete defences were added (most of which have since been removed) and two naval guns were installed; the gun emplacements below the castle are the remains of these, adapted from the Victorian cannon emplacements.
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.
The growing conditions for trees varies from year to year (e.g. there might be a drought one summer). The "bad years" and "good years" are reflected in the widths of the rings. The pattern of good and bad summers is the same (more-or-less, depending of the location) for every tree so this forms a calendar - the known sequence of wide and narrow rings can be used to assign an exact year to each ring. This can also be done with dead and even fossil trees both to date them and get an idea of what the climate was doing at the time.
Before continuing on the route, you can take a short diversion down the path to the right to reach Readymoney Cove or a slightly longer one to the centre of Fowey (which is roughly ten minutes walk from Readymoney Cove), by keeping right at all junctions along the road.
It has been suggested that Readymoney Cove was a very early premediaeval trading place, which is consistent with the Saint's Way meeting the coast here. The name "Readymoney" is thought to be from redeman meaning "stony ford"; red was an Old Cornish word for ford (as in Redruth) and men means stone. The "stony" part is often assumed to mean "pebbly" but could alternatively be a reference to exposed bedrock such as that seen on the path down to the cove which may have originally continued across the river crossing before the area was developed.
Ferns produce 2 different types of leaf (although they often look quite similar). The normal leaves are used for photosynthesis of sugars just like in other plants. Ferns also produce a special kind of spore-bearing leaf which can often be identified from the dots on the underside. In hart's tongue ferns, these are really obvious.
The Saint's Way forms the route all the way to Tregaminion.
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.
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.
Red campion is also known by a few local names including Johnny Woods (from its habitat) and Ragged Jack (from its flower shape). Some are colour references such as Scalded Apples, and particularly in the southwest, Red Riding Hood. Cuckoo-flower is a reference to the time of year that it flowers. Another name - "Batchelors' buttons" - suggests it was once worn as a buttonhole by young men.
The tall trees along the lane include oak and ash.
Ash trees are often easy to spot by the knobbly twigs all over the ground beneath the trees. They also have distinctive rows of quite small leaves.
Some mosses are able to absorb 20-30 times their own weight in liquid. Moss was used in several ancient cultures as nappies: babies were carried in a moss-lined bag to prevent leaks. Moss has also traditionally been used to line hanging baskets which are very prone to drying-out. Areas of moss help to protect soil from erosion by runoff and rivers from sediment and flooding by capturing rainfall and giving it chance to soak slowly into the soil.
A project to analyse blackberries picked from busy urban roadsides vs quiet rural lanes found that there was a slightly elevated level of lead in the blackberries from busy roadsides which is thought to have accumulated in the soil when leaded fuel was in common use. Surprisingly, commercial blackberries from supermarkets also showed higher levels of lead than the wild blackberries from rural lanes.
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 leaves have a pleasant lemony flavour but before being tempted to try one, it's important first to learn how to avoid one of the most common poisoning mistakes from eating wild plants - how to distinguish sorrel leaves from the poisonous lily Arum maculatum (Lords and Ladies) as the latter causes serious irritation if consumed as it contains needle-like crystals that puncture mucous membranes. There's a video here.
Barbed wire was first used in Victorian times with several different people independently inventing and patenting different designs. Modern barbed wire is made from steel which is then galvanised to prevent it rusting (at least until the zinc coating dissolves away). The barbed wire used for fencing is often made of high-tensile (springy) steel which is suited to being laid in long, continuous lengths. As it is forbidden by the Highways Act of 1980 for barbed wire to block a Public Right of Way, one practical solution used by farmers is to put a plastic sheath over the barbed wire where it passes over a stile. In the rare circumstance that you encounter exposed barbed wire on a stile, the most likely cause for this is mischievous cattle pulling off the plastic sheaths; let the Countryside Team know and they can alert the landowner.
Further down the valley to the left is the manor house of Menabilly.
Since the 16th Century, Menabilly has been the ancestral home of the Rashleigh family, who originated as powerful merchants in the 16th century. The gardens were landscaped and the surrounding woodland was planted in the 18th Century. The house was rebuilt after a fire in 1822 and was greatly extended in size.
During the early 20th century, John Rashleigh III resided mainly near Okehampton and it fell into decay. It was leased to Daphne du Maurier in 1943, who restored it and lived there until 1969 when it was returned to the Rashleigh family, who occupy it once again. Manderley, in Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca, is thought to be based on Menabilly.
There is a common myth that the poisonous compounds from hemlock can enter the human food chain via milk/meat from animals that have ingested it - this has been scientifically proven to be complete nonsense.
The word "farm" has the same origins as (e.g. law) "firm". Both words are related to the mediaeval Latin word firma meaning "fixed payment". Its original use in English was to do with contracts and leasing (which is why "to farm out" means "to subcontract"). In fact the word "farm" had no association with food production until the 19th Century. In the 16th Century it began to be applied to leasing of land and the association with farmland developed from this.
In May 1856 a small schooner - the Endeavour - was driven ashore against Gribbin Head by a violent storm. Three of the crew managed to climb onto an offshore rock. Two attempted to swim ashore but drowned. One remained on the rock. Rescuers lowered a small boat 200ft down the cliff and three volunteers descended the cliff to man the boat. Despite the violent sea, they managed to row to the rock and rescue the sole survivor.
As you turn right onto the lane, the entrance to Tregaminion chapel is on your left.
Tregaminion chapel was built as a Chapel of Ease for Menabilly, to save a long commute to the parish church in Tywardreath. Work began in 1813 and the foundation stone was laid in 1813 by Rachel, the wife of William Rashleigh but 6 months after this she died. The chapel was completed as a memorial to her. As the rest of the foundations were being dug, a carved stone bearing the Rashleigh arms was found and it is built into the wall over the porch. The chapel took another 2 years to complete and was finally consecrated in 1816. William Rashleigh remarried and a son was born and baptised in the chapel in 1817. Many of the items within the church, such as the pulpit, predate the building. Two mediaeval stone crosses were also brought from the Milltown area, one formerly used as a bridge. The chapel was renovated (with a new roof) in 1993.
Surveys have revealed that some European countries are losing a third of their honeybee colonies every winter. Yields of some crops such as apples are already being affected by lack of bees and some commercial plants have been recorded reaching levels of 70% under-pollination.
The edges of fields are typically less productive areas (e.g. due to the shade from hedges) so for purely economic reasons a margin was sometimes left around the main crop. However, field margins have been found to play such a crucial role for protecting soil and water and enhancing biodiversity on farms that there are now legislative requirements for farmers to maintain uncropped field margins.
More than 150 plants are characteristic of arable land but due to agricultural intensification, these and the insects and birds which depend on them have declined. The field margins are areas where these biologically important weeds can thrive.
When fields are ploughed and tilled, rainwater can wash the loose soil out of the fields. The vegetation on margins acts as a barrier and strains out many of the particles of soil from the rainwater.
When fertilisers are applied to the crops in the field, the margin helps to reduce the amount drifting over the hedges when it is applied. The plants around the margin then act as a sponge, helping to hoover up nutrients that wash off the crop.
It is estimated that 75% of the food we eat is dependent on pollinating insects. Bumblebees are particularly important pollinators, especially for tomatoes where a high-pitched buzz from the bee is required release pollen from tubes in the plant.
In 1902 land on St Catherine's Point was leased for 100 years from the Rashleigh Estate to build a lighthouse and it was completed in 1905. Shipping fees were increased by a farthing to cover the cost. It was originally powered by gas and was converted to electricity after the Second World War. In 2002, the lease was due to run out so the Fowey Harbour Commissioners purchased the land (permanently this time) from the Rashleigh Estate.
There are two beaches at Polridmouth with separate access points from the coast path. The beaches are shingle at high tide but sandier as the tide goes out with wave-cut rock platforms containing rockpools. At low tide the two beaches are linked by a rock platform. The remains of a shipwreck is along one side of the eastern beach.
Readymoney Cove is a sandy beach sheltered by the cliffs either side and faces into Fowey Estuary. The beach faces east so it's fairly protected from prevailing southwesterlies by St Catherine's Point. Most of the time there is a beach at all states of the tide but on high spring tides the beach can be entirely covered.
The currents in the main part of the estuary can be quite strong at mid-tide and it is busy with boats, often travelling at significant speed. Therefore swimming is safest within the shelter of the inlet. A rope with buoys is sometime placed across the mouth to separate swimmers from the main river channel.
In 1828, customs officers seized the Fowey sloop Lucy when they discovered that her sleek hull was not purely for hydrodynamic reasons. In a hidden compartment either side of a false keel, 100 small barrels were concealed below the waterline, each filled with spirits.
At the end of the 18th century, record catches of pilchards were made in Cornwall. In 1792, one of the largest pilchard cellars in Cornwall, known as St Catherine’s Cellars, was constructed at Readymoney Cove on the site of a former gun emplacement by Philip Rashleigh. In one year alone, 60,000 hogshead barrels, each containing up to 3000 pilchards caught in St Austell Bay, were exported from Fowey.
Alexanders are a member of the carrot family and grow along roadsides in places similar to cow parsley. The leaves are more solid than the lacy cow parsley leaves and the flowers are yellow rather than white. The name arises because the plant was introduced to the UK by the Romans and was known as the "pot herb of Alexandria". It is also sometimes known as horse parsley.
Alexanders are very salt tolerant so they thrive in Cornwall's salty climate. They are just as likely to be found along coastal footpaths as along country lanes. New growth appears in the autumn so during the winter, when most other plants are dormant, it is a dominant source of greenery along paths and lanes in exposed coastal areas.
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.
All parts of the alexanders plant can be eaten and it is a good source of iron and vitamins A and C. The flavour has been described as somewhere between parsley and angelica. However, foraging alexanders is not recommended unless you are experienced at identifying it because novices can confuse it with hemlock (the most poisonous plant in the UK - just a few leaves from this can kill you).
The Portuguese man o' war resembles a jellyfish but is actually a colony of polyps, specialised into four different roles. Some provide the float and others make up the stinging tentacles which can stretch over 160ft long and catch 100 fish in one day.
The man o' war is easily recognised by the pasty-shaped float with pink and purple colouring. They are normally found in the open ocean but big Atlantic storms with strong winds can very occasionally drive them onto the Cornish coast.
It is named after a heavily-armed 18th Century warship as a sting is extremely painful and in rare cases can be fatal.
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.
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