The lane continues past the Laundrette to meet the main road at the village square and St Just church is on the opposite side.
The churchyard at St Just is thought to date from early mediaeval times. The current building dates from 1334 and was substantially rebuilt and extended in the 15th Century. The granite stone with Celtic carvings that is built into the wall was once a cross shaft and is thought to date from the 9th Century. The paintings in the church date from the 15th Century, and the small stone basin beside the font was found in St Helen's Oratory on Cape Cornwall.
The church is dedicated to St Jestyn, in common with St-Just-in-Roseland (hence the two identical place names) and also the chapel in Gorran Haven, which was formerly known as Portheast (thought to be a corruption of Porth Just).
The upright stone in St Just church is thought to be from around the 5th or 6th Century and has a Latin inscription which translates to "here lies Selus". It is thought that this commemorates St Selevan (also known as St Levan) who was recorded as being the brother of St Jestyn (St Just). As well as the church and chapel of St Levan near Porthcurno, it is also postulated that Lansallos near Polperro may be dedicated to the same saint. During mediaeval times, the stone was built into the church wall by the altar but it was extracted during the restoration in 1824.
The circular grassy area is a mediaeval meeting area and amphitheatre known as a plain-an-gwarry (Playing Place) where "miracle plays" were performed, re-enacting miracles performed by the Saints. These were described as "often noisy, bawdy and entertaining". Plays are still occasionally performed here. It is over 600 years old and thought to be the oldest outdoor theatre in Britain that is still in use.
The clock tower was built as a memorial to the men of the town who died in the First World War. However, it was not completed until 1931 and it is thought that this may be due to the time taken to raise the funds. Within 8 years of its completion, the Second World War began, and tablets with more names were subsequently added to the tower.
For many years, the pasties for Warren's Bakery were made on the right. Closure of the factory was announced in 2019 as part of a restructure after the company made a loss of nearly £1 million.
Warren's Bakery was established in St Just in 1860 and is Britain's oldest pasty maker. At the time of writing, the bakery has 50 shops throughout the West Country and there are plans to expand further afield.
Pineapple weed is related to chamomile and is consequently also known as false chamomile. Unlike chamomile, it doesn't have white flowers - its flowers consisting of little yellow balls are therefore quite distinctive. Even more so is the fruity pineapple-like scent when is trodden on or squeezed.
Pineapple weed was introduced into the UK in the late 19th Century but is now widely naturalised. One reason it has been so successful is that it is able to colonise poor soils on waste ground including cracks between paving and consequently one of its common names is "street weed". In the rural environment it's often encountered near gateways or tracks through fields where the ground has been disturbed by tractors.
"Pasty" was another word used for "pie" throughout England from the Middle Ages onward, and did not necessarily imply the characteristic shape and crimping we associate with the Cornish Pasty. A pasty recipe from 1746 contains no veg, just meat (venison), port wine and spices. The first "Cornish pasty" recipe is from 1861 which contained just beef and no veg.
Even during Victorian times, the main meat available to poor people would have been pork. The Cornish dialect word for a pork flatbread eaten in the mines during the 18th and 19th Centuries is hogen (pronounced "hugg-un") which evolved into "oggy" - the dialect word for pasty. The really poor had a "tiddy oggy" (with no meat at all).
The "traditional" Cornish Pasty recipe contains beef, onion, potato and swede (referred to as "turnip" in the local dialect from its more formal name of "Swedish turnip") seasoned with salt and pepper. It's thought that this probably dates from the late 18th Century (when the Poldark novels were set) when potatoes and turnips were a staple diet for the poor but the first documented "traditional" recipe is not until 1929. Over 120 million Cornish pasties are now consumed each year.
Tin lodes to the west of St Just were first recorded as being worked in 1782, initially via several small mines which were eventually amalgamated in Victorian times under the name Wheal Cunning. The workings extended beneath the sea near Cape Cornwall, where it was hoped as in the Levant and Botallack mines, the lodes would become richer. In this case however, the seaward excavations proved poorly productive and the mine closed in 1876.
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
Researchers have found a recessive gene which appears to turn normal 3-leaf clovers into the 4-leaf version. Normally this is masked by the 3-leaf gene but environmental conditions can promote the 4-leaf form. Some domestic varieties have also been selectively bred to increase the proportion of 4-leaf plants. Genetically-engineered four leaf clovers are now a possibility with some farms in the USA reportedly already using genetic modification to churn-out thousands of plastic-sealed "lucky" charms per day.
According to folklore, you should not pick blackberries after Michaelmas Day (11th October) as this is when the devil claims them. The basis for this is thought to be the potentially toxic moulds which can develop on the blackberries in the cooler, wetter weather.
Bramble seeds are spread very widely by being attached to a tasty blackberry. Mammals, birds, insects and even some fish will eat blackberries. Bramble seeds can survive up to 100 years in the soil, which helps them to colonise recently-cleared land.
Like other members of the pea family, gorse produces its seeds in pods. The seeds are ejected with a popping sound when pods split open in hot weather. This can catapult the seeds up to five metres. The plants are able to live 30 years and survive sub-zero temperatures, the seeds can withstand fire and remain viable in the soil for 30 years.
The stiles in Cornwall that consist of rectangular bars of granite resembling a cattle grid are known as "coffen" (coffin) stiles. These often occur on footpaths leading to churches such as the Zennor Churchway. The mini cattle grids are fairly effective at containing livestock and were significantly easier for coffin-bearers to navigate than stiles crossing walls. They are more frequently found in West Cornwall but there are a few in East Cornwall such as those on either side of Advent Church.
Ribwort plantain is a common weed on cultivated land with long leaves and unmistakable black seed heads on the end of tall stalks often with a halo of white flowers. Generations of children have worked out that by knotting the stem, the seed head can be launched as a projectile at unsuspecting adults.
A tea made from the leaves is a popular herbal remedy but care should be taken where the plant is harvested as it is not only highly tolerant of high metal levels in the soil but also accumulates these. It will even tolerate and accumulate arsenic which is normally toxic to plants. It therefore has the potential to be used for cleansing soils contaminated with mine waste.
The grand house that you pass on the right is Porthledden.
Porthledden was built by Francis Oats, a local man who was a mine captain by his early twenties and went on to make his fortune in the gold fields and diamond mines of South Africa, becoming the Chairman of De Beers within 3 years of joining the company as a mining engineer. Porthledden was completed in 1909, towards the end of his life, and was run as a hotel by his son after his death. As the family was heavily invested in Cornish mines and the hotel was not that successful, the family debts mounted and eventually they had to sell off the house. Towards the end of the 20th century it became derelict until it was bought in 2003 by a young couple who had built a successful company in the .com boom with a website about hotels, ironically. The restoration of the house took them 10 years and had to be approached as a maritime engineering project due to the salt-laden winds that blow over the Cape that would corrode any materials that are not marine grade.
The small ruined building in the field next to The Forge is St Helen's Oratory.
St Helen's Oratory is thought to be on the site of a 6th century church and the font in St Just church might have originally come from here. In the mid-19th Century, an ancient cross was discovered on the site with markings that were in use during the 4th and 5th centuries. A small stone basin was also found and this is now inside St Just church. The cross has since been lost; according to one account, it was thrown down the St Just vicarage well! The cross that is now on the chapel is another ancient one that was found nearby.
In 1889, the steamship Malta ran aground at full speed on the rocks offshore of the Kenidjack Valley, in dense fog. The crew and passengers were all rescued by the Sennen lifeboat. A court found the captain's navigation to be substandard and suspended his licence for three months. The cargo included copper, tin and iron and has been heavily salvaged but copper ingots still turn up occasionally.
Cape Cornwall is the only headland in England referred to as a "cape" and one of the only two in the UK (the other is Cape Wrath in Scotland). According to some sources, Cape Cornwall was once thought to be the most westerly point of the mainland, although most maps from the 16th Century onward clearly show Lands End as protruding further west. The name Cape Cornwall first appeared on maritime charts in Tudor times though on some maps it was marked as "Chapel Just". The Cornish name for the headland is the topographically-inspired Kilgodh Ust which has been translated as "goose-back at St Just" and eloquently describes the view from the headland at the bottom of the Kenidjack Valley.
There is a lookout on the seaward side of Cape Cornwall which is manned by volunteers from the National Coastwatch Institution and during Victorian times, there was a tin mine on the headland which operated intermittently between 1838 and 1883. The mine's chimney near the peak of the cape was retained as an aid to navigation, and during a period in the early 20th century, the former ore dressing floors were converted into greenhouses and wineries. In 1987, the headland was purchased by the Heinz corporation and gifted to the nation, to be managed by the National Trust. The chimney is marked with a commemorative plaque and is now known as the Heinz monument.
The reason that Cape Cornwall could once have been thought to be the most westerly point of the British mainland it that is almost is. The tip of Cape Cornwall is further west than the coastguard lookout overlooking Sennen Cove and the shipwreck near Land's End.
In fact, the longitude of Cape Cornwall's most westerly point is approximately equivalent to the exit from the Land's End coach parking area. The most westerly point on Dr Syntax's head is only about 450 metres further west than this.
A mine was operating on Cape Cornwall for copper and tin in 1787 and possibly before this. Many of the mine buildings including an engine house were situated where the cottages and enclosed gardens have since been built. One other engine house was situated further along the terrace towards the sea near the end of the track. The chimney on the top of the Cape was built in the 1850s but caused an excessively fierce draft through the boilers that was too powerful to be useful. It was replaced with another chimney lower down, nearer the boilers. The boiler house was converted into one of the cottages. Water for the boilers came from a reservoir in the Kenidjack valley and a long leat ran all the way to Cape Cornwall. The line of the watercourse can still be seen on the slopes of Kenidjack Valley.
In the early 20th Century, the dressing floors of Cape Cornwall mine were converted into a lower garden for Porthledden House. The area on the Cape consisted of greenhouses and walled terraces for growing ornamental plants and fruit, including vines. The gardens were in their heyday in the 1920s but by the 1950s they were in decline and have since been lost. The small garden and greenhouse in some of the walled area is more recent but the plant carpeting the cliff with purple flowers (Hottentot Fig) may be a living relic from the original gardens.
Priest's Cove has nothing to do with the clergy and everything to do with misspelling. The cove was originally known as Porth Ust (St Just Cove) which was shortened locally to "Por Ust". At some point, "Por Ust Cove" was misrecorded on Ordnance Survey maps as "Priest Cove" and the name stuck.
The beach is rocky at all states of the tide, with shingle at the top of the beach and boulders and rock platforms further down the beach. As the tide goes out, numerous rockpools are revealed. One area of rocks has been dammed to create a small seawater swimming pool for children.
The rocks in the middle of the bay are The Brisons. On a clear day, the Scilly Isles can be seen on the skyline behind the rock on the left.
The pair of rocks roughly a mile off the coast near Cape Cornwall are known as The Brisons which is from the French word brisant meaning "reef". They are part of a reef system that extends all the way from Gribba Point (Pen an Gribow in Cornish which is from the word krib, meaning "reef"). The smaller rock has a large protruding "nose" whilst the larger rock is more rotund and consequently the pair have been described as forming the profile of General Charles de Gaulle lying on his back.
A number of small ancient tin mines operated on Ballowall and Bosorne Common. During the 19th Century these were amalgamated, eventually into St Just United Mines which operated until the 1880s.
Some exploration took place near Porth Nanven from the 1890s into the early 20th Century (hence the concrete remains). This was to investigate mining the lodes from the St Just United mines at greater depth and beneath the sea, but the site was abandoned after World War II.
Ballowall Cairn was discovered in Victorian times after it had been buried under mine tips. It contained a number of burial cists with artefacts dating right back to the Stone Age but others were found from the Bronze Age implying it was in use for thousands of years. The site was excavated in the 19th Century after miners' tales of strange lights and fairies and some reconstruction work was carried out as part of the excavation. Unfortunately many of the finds that were reported from the original excavation of the site have also been lost, possibly into private collections. A Roman coin was found in one of the cists which may indicate that the site was still in use after the Bronze Age.
The headland sticking out into the bay is Dr Syntax's Head at Land's End. The islands with a lighthouse are The Longships. On a clear day, you can see another lighthouse on the skyline. This is Wolf Rock.
Wolf Rock is a pinnacle seven miles southwest of Gwennap Head which rises more than 60 metres to break the surface. The rock earned its name from the howling sound caused by gale force winds blowing through fissures in the rock.
In the 1830s, a beacon was built on the rock which has survived into the 21st Century. The beacon consists of a metal cone, just under 5 metres in diameter and height, constructed of iron plates and filled with cement rubble. The difficulties of building this were enormous: during 5 years, there were only 302 hours during which work could be carried out. Work on a 25 metre lighthouse began in 1861 and took 8 years to complete. It is constructed of granite quarried at Lamorna Cove and until 1988, it was manned.
Shafts which are fenced and completely open are one of the favourite nesting places of bats and the Cornish chough. Therefore resist the temptation to drop stones down the shafts otherwise you may unknowingly be stoning bats or chough chicks to death.
At this point you can take an optional detour down the path to the right and follow the lane downhill for about a quarter of a mile to Porth Nanven, returning uphill on the lane to reach the next direction.
Otherwise continue ahead on the bridleway until the path ends on a lane beside a footpath sign.
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.
Porth Nanven is also known as "Dinosaur Egg Beach" due to the ovoid granite boulders. The boulders were smoothed into this shape by the sea when sea levels were much higher and then trapped on the land when sea levels dropped, becoming buried under the topsoil. The sea has slowly eroded the land and freed the trapped boulders which you can see embedded in the cliffs behind the beach. Souvenir collecting was causing depletion of the smaller boulders so they are now protected; removing them is an offence which would result in a criminal record.
The ruins by the stream were part of the Wheal Rose tin mine. Water from the stream was transported along leats to a waterwheel to power an ore crushing mill. Channels also connected to the dressing floors where the water was used to wash the rock fragments from the tin ore.
The mediaeval Celtic cross in the garden is originally from Bodmin Moor. In 1896, the cross was recorded at Penvorder in St Breward. By 1950 it had been moved to Tregaddick House near Blisland. In 1990, it was sold and moved to its present location.
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.
Three-cornered leeks are native to the Mediterranean and are first recorded as being introduced to the UK in 1759. By Victorian times, they had become well-established in the wild. They thrive in the moist, mild climate in Cornwall and are salt-tolerant so will grow almost anywhere, even on the coast.
There are over 30,000 miles (more than the distance around the earth) of hedges in Cornwall, many of which are based on distinctive local styles of stone walling. Consequently, often what a Cornish person calls a "hedge", most people from outside the county do not recognise as a hedge, resulting in some foreign translation needed for walk directions.
Around 50% of the hedgerows in the UK have been lost since the Second World War. Although intentional removal has dramatically reduced, lack of maintenance and damage from mechanical cutting techniques such as flailing are still causing deterioration of the remaining hedgerows.
Some Cornish hedges are thought to be more than 4,000 years old, making them some of the oldest human-built structures in the world that have been in continuous use for their original purpose. They act as vital miniature nature reserves and wildlife corridors that link together other green spaces. This supports hundreds of species of plants and tens of thousands of insect species, many of which are vital pollinators for arable crops.
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 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.
In Celtic times, fields were small and surrounded by banks or stone walls. The fields were used both for growing crops such as oats, wheat or rye, and for keeping livestock. The field shape was round or square, rather than rectangular, so that the stones didn't have to be carried further than necessary. The small size was because they needed to be weeded by hand, in many ways similar to a modern-day allotment.
Rock samphire has been a popular wild food since Celtic times. It has a strong, characteristic, slightly lemony flavour and recently has become more well-known as a flavouring for gin. It was very popular as a pickle in 16th century Britain until it almost died out from over-picking in the 19th Century. Consequently, it's currently a protected plant but is now making a good comeback. In Shakespeare's time, a rope was tied to a child's ankles and he was dangled over the cliff to pick the rock samphire that grew in crevices and clefts in the rocks.
The completely unrelated but similar-looking golden samphire also grows around the North Cornish coast. The leaves look almost identical, but the daisy-like yellow flowers in summer are a giveaway, as rock samphire has tiny green-white flowers that look more like budding cow parsley. Golden samphire is edible, but is inferior in flavour to rock samphire; it is also nationally quite rare in Britain.
Also completely unrelated is marsh samphire (also known as glasswort) which looks more like micro-asparagus. This is what typically appears on restaurant menus or in supermarkets as "samphire".
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.
The Hottentot Fig (Carpobrotus edulis), was once classified as a Mesembryanthemum but as plant genetics were better understood, was found to be a close relative but in a different sub-family of the larger ice-plant family. They are called ice plants due to hairs on the leaves which refract sunlight and make them sparkle. The plant is native to South Africa and was originally grown ornamentally in gardens but has subsequently gone feral and settled on the coastline where it thrives in sandy soils, helped by its resistance to wind and salt. It forms a dense mat which crowds out other species and is therefore considered invasive.
The National Coastwatch Institution was set up to restore visual watches along the UK coastline after two Cornish fishermen lost their lives within sight of an empty Coastguard lookout in 1994. The first station - at Bass Point on The Lizard, where the fishermen had died - opened in December 1994. The organisation, staffed by volunteers, now runs 50 lookout stations around England and Wales.
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