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.
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 area of the Atlantic between North Cornwall and Ireland is also known as the Celtic Sea - a name first suggested in the 1920s. The newfangled name has caught on more in academic and surveying circles. The public generally use "Atlantic" where "the bit of it near here" is automatically implied.
Lizards are cold-blooded so they need to bask in the sun to warm up to their "operating temperature" which is around 30 Celcius. They usually do so with an area of cover nearby which forms an escape route from predators. You're therefore likely to encounter them in sunny spots on footpaths and footbridges. Once they spot you, they will usually make a hasty escape - they can move pretty quickly once they are warmed-up. During winter they hibernate as in cold temperatures they are too slow to catch any food (insects, spiders etc. which are also less numerous over the winter).
Stonechats are robin-sized birds with a black head and orange breast that are common along the Cornish coast all year round.
During the summer months, stonechats eat invertebrates. As temperatures drop and there are not so many of these about, they make do with seeds and fruit such as blackberries. Quite a few die in cold winters but this is offset by their fast breeding rate during the warmer months.
Vertical holes leading into a mine are known as shafts whereas horizontal tunnels are known as adits. Adits were created both as a way to get into the mine (a portal adit) and also to drain water out of the mine from the tunnels above the adit. Tunnels deeper than this needed some sort of pumping mechanism to raise water up to the drainage adit.
Choughs sometimes nest along this stretch of coast.
The chough is a member of the crow family, with striking red legs and a red beak. They are also recognisable from feathers, spread like fingers, on their wing tips. It was known as the "Crow of Cornwall" and appears on the county coat of arms. The birds have a loud, distinctive "chee-ow" call which is perhaps best described as resembling a squeaky dog toy! Once you've heard it a couple of times, you'll be able to recognise them from the sound long before you can see them.
In February 1899 the steel sail/steam ship "Umbre" was on a voyage to Liverpool to Amsterdam with a mixed cargo including soap, margarine, palm oil, distillery equipment and battleship portholes. The crew encountered thick fog off the coast of Cornwall and stranded on the rocks at Greeb Point, tearing a hole in the ship. Within 10 minutes the upper decks were awash. The crew escaped in the ship's two lifeboats. An account from the time states:
Within minutes, the fore hatches burst up, and as she listed over to port, Captain Stubbs gave the order to abandon ship. The smaller boat landed at Portheras, and by 8am her crew were enjoying breakfast at the commercial hotel in St. Just. The Captain, two officers, the stewardess, nine sailors, the ships dog & cat, and a pet parrot were landed at Newlyn.
Quite a lot of the cargo was salvaged. Some of the portholes are reported to remain concreted into the rocks and wreckage.
In 1851, the ship "New Commercial" ran aground in a storm on the reef of The Brisons and was wrecked. The crew managed to climb onto the rocks but six of these were swept off the rocks by the huge waves. Of the three remaining, one managed with great skill and courage to build a makeshift raft from the wreckage and paddle this into Whitesand Bay where he was rescued by local fishermen. The remaining two on the rocks were the captain and his wife who couldn't swim and was wearing only a nightdress. They remained there for two days until a rescue boat reached them and fired a rocket line. Both were rescued but the captain's wife - Mary Sanderson - sadly died of exposure in the rescue boat before she could be brought ashore, and is buried in Sennen churchyard. As a result of the tragedy, the Sennen lifeboat was established.
In December 1919, the "Ravenshoe" was on its way back to Cardiff from Lisbon loaded with ballast having delivered a cargo of coal. As it was passing around Land's End on New Year's Eve, the engines failed as it approached Cape Cornwall and it ran ashore near Gribba Point. A line was secured to the ship and the crew were rescued by the Sennen Cove brigade using a breeches buoy suspended on wires between the ship and shore.
The Longships Lighthouse is located just over a mile off Land's End on the highest of the islets known as Carn Bras. The original tower built in 1795 was 40ft high, perched on the 39ft high rock but despite the lantern being nearly 80ft above the sea, it was sometimes obscured by the huge waves off Lands End. A new taller tower was therefore constructed starting in 1869 and completed in 1873 and was manned until 1988. The current lantern emits a white flash seaward, but red-tinted glass colours the light for any vessel straying to the headlands to the north or south.
The granite outcrops on the headlands give rise to names beginning with carn which means "rock outcrop" in Cornish. The outcrop you climb up to is Carn Polpry (Polpry is the name of the cove). As you descend, the rock outcrop beside the walled mineshafts has a name with a less obvious origin - Carn Ding Dong.
The rocks provide a holdfast for lichens.
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.
The beach is known either as Nanquidno or Nanjulian beach. There are some grassy areas just above the rocky beach which make good picnic spots. According to some sources, the beach is reported as being sometimes popular with naturists. Given that the beach consists entirely of granite boulders, this seems unlikely to be comfortable, especially in strong sunshine when the rocks can get rather hot.
As a wave approaches the beach, the bottom of the wave (which extends as far below the water as the crest does above the surface) starts to get close to the seabed and this begins to slow the wave down. As it slows down, its energy is transferred into increased height and the result is more closely-spaced, taller waves. The bottom of the wave now extends even closer to the seabed and is slowed even more. Eventually, the top of the wave outruns the bottom and the wave breaks. More sudden changes to depth allow the wave to get taller and steeper before it has time to break which is why "reef breaks" attract surfers.
During Victorian times, ravens were exterminated by farmers and gamekeepers throughout much of the UK but retained a stronghold in the southwest. Their nests, constructed of robust twigs, can be seen along the cliffs in Cornwall.
Several species of heather grow in Cornwall and are most easily recognised when they flower from July to September. The one with the most brightly coloured (purple) flowers is known as bell heather due to the bell-shaped flowers. This is the earliest one to start flowering - normally in June. Bell heather is usually interspersed with ling or common heather which has much smaller flowers which are usually paler and pinker and come out at the start of July. A third kind known as cross-leafed heath is less abundant but can be recognised by the pale pink bell-shaped flowers that grow only near the tips of the stems, resembling pink lollipops. A fourth species known as Cornish heath grows only on the Lizard and has more elaborate flowers which are mostly pale with a dark purple crown at the front.
Researchers have found that ravens use gestures to communicate in a similar way to humans. Obviously ravens don't have hands so instead they point with their beaks to indicate an object to another bird, just as we do with our fingers. They also hold up an object in their beak to get another bird's attention.
The carpets of tiny blue flowers on the coast during April and May are the appropriately-named spring squill, which up close is a star-shaped pale blue flower with a dark blue stamen. They achieve their early flowering by storing energy over the winter in a bulb so they can be the first flowers out on the cliffs before they become overshadowed by larger plants. They thrive in locations which are beaten with wind and salt-laden spray which they are able to tolerate but other plants, which might otherwise out-compete them, cannot.
The interdependency between plants and pollinating insects is thought to have accelerated the formation of new species (i.e. a group where members can only reproduce successfully with other members from that group, not from other groups) both for the plants and for the insects. This is thought to explain why there are a few hundred species of conifer but a few hundred thousand species of flowering plant. This has allowed flowering plants to become highly specialised for habitat niches (e.g. salty coastline) and so dominate many of them.
The yellow flowers in the field in early spring are celandines.
Lesser celandines are common plants along woodland paths recognisable by their yellow star-shaped flowers. Despite their name, they are not closely related to the Greater Celandine. Lesser celandines are actually a member of the buttercup family and, like buttercups, they contain the poisonous chemical protoanemonin.
As you cross the (first) stile, if you turn around, there is a panoramic view which includes Sennen Cove and the Longships lighthouse. The rock outcrop on the other side of the small gate onto the coast at the top of the field, called Carn Creagle, is also known as "The Watch" for this reason.
Granite is the most common igneous rock found at Earth's surface and also the oldest - thought to be formed up to 300 million years ago.
The stony area on the left-hand side of the field is the remains of a prehistoric settlement.
The settlement consisted of a cluster of five houses, each with a courtyard; four of which are around a central enclosed area. It is thought that the central area might have been a community public space. There is also the remains of an underground chamber (fogou), although this one appears to be partially above-ground. Artefacts at the site date from the Iron Age but there are also signs of occupation in Roman times. It is possible that the structure of the settlement may have evolved over the centuries as houses with courtyards are more typical of the Roman period.
In late spring and summer, swallows can often be seen swooping over the fields here.
Swallows face a major weather forecasting challenge: to know when to migrate, they need to know what the temperature will be like 7,000 miles away. It is thought that swallows solve this problem by choosing locations at each end where the respective dipping and rising temperatures correlate well, so the temperature when leaving is what they can expect when they arrive.
Birds are technically considered reptiles and the only surviving group of dinosaurs as they are the descendants of the group known as theropods (that Tyrannosaurus rex belonged to). The oldest bird fossils are about 150 million years old and looked like small, feathered dinosaurs with sharp teeth.
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 settlement of Nanjulian was recorded in 1428 as Nanshelen and is thought to be from the Cornish word elin meaning "elbow", as well as the word for "valley". The name perhaps refers to the bend in the course of the river and its associated valley near Nanjulian Mill where it turns to meet the sea.
Clapper bridges are an ancient form of bridge built out of stone slabs spanning piers in the river. Most were built during mediaeval times, often beside a ford where horses and carts would cross. There is disagreement over the origin of the word "clapper". One candidate is an Anglo-Saxon word cleaca meaning "a bridge of stepping stones". Another is a mediaeval Latin word clapus which is is thought to have originated in Celtic Western Europe and to mean "pile of stones".
The settlement of Nanquidno was first recorded in 1327 as Nansgwynyou. The name is based on the Cornish words nans (valley) and gwynn (white).
In the field on the right are the remains of a prehistoric settlement from the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Not much is now left - just a few earth banks and hut circles.
The low stone walls remaining as hut circles were once the foundations of a round house. The granite foundations were likely to have been set into cob (mud and straw) walls which provided insulation and draft exclusion over bare-stone walls. A conical thatched roof on a timber frame rested on top of the walls. Heating was via a central fire which required some care with the thatched roof - presumably roof fires were not unheard of! These buildings varied in size from a just over a metre in diameter up to 10 metres. Some had walled enclosures attached and a few also had internal partitions.
Despite the proximity to a prehistoric settlement, the rocket-shaped standing stone in the centre of the field is much more likely to be a cattle rubbing stone erected in the 19th century. There are a number of these in West Cornwall. In particular, near Lamorna Cove, there is a group of fields with one in the centre of each.
Until the Industrial Revolution, hay making was a very labour-intensive task with low output which involved cutting with a scythe, turning with a pitchfork and gathering with a hand rake.
During Victorian times, the invention of the horse-drawn mowers, hay turners and rakes allowed hay production to be increased as much as tenfold.
Hay was transported loose by horse and cart and layered into towering ricks for storage which were an iconic feature of the rural landscape. At the end of the 19th Century, the hay baler was invented, initially powered by horses on a treadmill.
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 stink from decaying cabbages is due to sulphur compounds which it stores in its leaves, ready for the production of seeds later on. The compounds are also more concentrated in the plant if it has been deprived of water. These compounds are also released from the plant when leaves are boiled - the longer it's cooked, the more cabbage smell. The silver lining is that it's thought that the smelly compounds may possibly have anti-cancer properties. Whilst that's being researched a bit more, blanching or braising cabbage is a less smelly way to cook it.
The efficiency of the chemical processes that plants use to metabolise nitrogen compounds varies with pH (acidity). In soils that are too acidic, many plants have trouble absorbing nitrogen (apart from specially-adapted ones known as "ericaceous"). The ongoing decomposition of plant matter into humus within the soil creates acidic compounds. Some soils contain rocks such as chalk and limestone which will react with the acid and neutralise it. In Cornwall, the beach sand includes a high proportion of seashell fragments which contain the same chemical compound as limestone.
Blackberries are closely related to raspberries and technically neither is a berry but an aggregate of many individual tiny fruits, each containing a tiny stone like a miniature cherry.
The growth rhythm of brambles is so steady that it can be used in forensics to work out how long remains have been at a crime scene.
Since prehistoric times, a year of fallow was used to allow soil nutrients to recover before planting a crop the following year. By the end of the Middle Ages, a three-year scheme was in use with alternating crops allowing production two out of three years. In the 18th Century a four-crop rotation was introduced (wheat, turnips, barley, and clover) which not only resulted in continuous production but included a grazing crop and a winter fodder crop, providing food for livestock throughout the year.
In spring, some of the fields here are sometimes planted with daffodils as part of the crop rotation. Even in years they are not planted, a few stray ones often grow amongst the crops.
Growing daffodils has been an important industry in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly for over a century. When the Great Western Railway reached Cornwall, this provided a means to export perishable goods such as fresh flowers and fish which previously would not have survived the long journey by boat or horse and cart. Out of respect for the dead, coffins were transported by the railway for free. It was therefore not unheard of for coffins filled with daffodils to arrive in London from Cornwall.
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.
The stile you pass in the right hedge is for a path leading to Kelynack.
In English we often add a -y ending to a noun to turn it into an adjective; for example "rock" becomes "rocky". For many of the nouns imported from French, we add "-ic" (acidic, magnetic, artistic...). The equivalent in Cornish is to add -ack or -ek to the end of the word. Thus meynek is "stony" (men is stone), stennack means "tinny" (sten is tin).
Kelynn is the Cornish word for holly which means that kelynnek is ... harder to express succinctly in English ("abounding in holly" or possibly "holly-tastic").
The settlement to the left is called Hendra.
Hendra is a common Cornish place name meaning "home farm" (from the Cornish word hendre which itself is based on the words hen meaning old, and dre is equivalent to tre). Hendra was also used as a boy's first name with the meaning literally "from the family farm".
The red campion produces a blaze of pink flowers along hedgerows in the spring with the most intense flowering period occurring between late April and the end of June. A scattering of flowers continue throughout the rest of the summer. In the mild Cornish climate, a few plants can often be seen flowering during winter months.
The word crow is from the Old English crawe. Since this sounds a lot like the noise the bird makes, there is a misconception that the Old English is directly derived from this. In fact the word is far older. It's related the the Old Saxon kraia and can be traced back further to a Proto-Indo-European word from the late Neolithic period which is thought to mean "to call hoarsely".
The mounds along the far hedge of the field are associated with mine workings here. About 5 mineshafts have been identified although not much is known about them. They are marked as "old shafts" on the 2nd Edition OS map from the early 1900s. A small tin mine known as Kelynack Mine was known to be in operation in this area in 1901 with an adit down in the valley to drain the mine.
Navelwort is a member of the stonecrop family which are able to survive in barren locations by storing water in their fleshy leaves. In dry conditions, the plant takes emergency measures to conserve water, producing fewer green chloroplasts (so it goes red) and loses it succulent fleshiness. Leaves with red tinges are therefore not the ones to forage.
Even up to the 16th Century, magpies were simply known as "pies" from the Old French word pie (related to the Latin word for magpie - pica). The term "pied" meaning "black-and-white" (as in pied wagtail) is from the magpie's colouration. It's also possible that the pastry thing we now know as a pie (which can be traced back to Mediaeval Latin) was named after the magpie. It has been speculated that the assortment of ingredients in the pastry crust was likened to objects collected in a magpie nest. The "mag" in the modern name is a (somewhat sexist) mediaeval slang word for someone who chatters, based on the name Margaret.
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.
Unlike many birds that just sing in spring, robins sing nearly all year round. In fact during winter if you hear birdsong, it's most likely to be a robin. Despite how cute robins look, they are actually very territorial and the chirp is an aggressive warning to any would-be intruders not to even think of trying it. When robins don't sing, this a sign that their body fat reserves are low and they are conserving what little they have left until food becomes more plentiful.
The oldest moth fossils found so far are from the Carboniferous period 300 million years ago. By the Middle Triassic (age of amphibians - before the dinosaurs), moths had evolved their proboscis used to collect nectar from flowers. Day-flying butterflies were on the scene in the Late Cretaceous (when Tyrannosaurs were around). Originally it was thought day-flying was to avoid night-flying bats but it's now thought more likely that this was mainly to take advantage of the abundance of nectar that was originally targeted at bees.
The breeches buoy is a piece of life-saving equipment devised in the 1860s. It is essentially a zip-line to which a "cradle" (consisting of a lifebelt with a pair of attached shorts) is connected. The flotation device provided a backup if the line broke or sagged into the sea. The breeches - whilst not glamorous - were an effective way of preventing the person being rescued from being washed off the zip-line by breaking waves.
A lightweight line was first sent from the shore to the wrecked ship possibly via a kite, rocket or mortar. This was then used to haul out a more heavy-duty rope (known as a "hawser") on which the zip-line could run. Lighter ropes were also secured to the cradle from each end so it could be hauled in each direction to bring each crew member ashore and then send it back for the next one.
One of the challenges with the mode of rescue was length of time needed for transferring the crew one-by-one. During this period the vessel could roll, drift away or sink. Training the rescue team to operate at the maximum speed possible was therefore important.
Full page maps cannot be printed due to copyright and terms of use.