Tremaine churchyard was originally more curved in shape which suggests that it may have been a Celtic religious site. The church building has Norman origins and some Norman features can still be seen in the north wall. The font is also from the Norman period, dated at around 25-50 years after the Norman Conquest. The first record of the church is from 1150, when it was given by William de Bottreaux to Launceston priory. The dedication to St Winwaloe may have arisen from the Breton origins of the Bottreaux family. The tower is thought to have been added in the 14th Century and then the church was rebuilt in the 16th Century.
The first record of the settlement of Westcott is from 1284. The name simply means "West Cottages".
The railway bridge crossed by the track is a remnant of the North Cornwall line.
The North Cornwall Railway was a venture backed by the London and South Western Railway to compete with the Great Western Railway for services to Cornwall. The North Cornwall line ran from Halwill in Devon to Padstow via Launceston, Camelford and Wadebridge and was built for economy rather than speed, including climbs and curves to avoid costly construction work. The line was opened in sections at the end of the 19th century, reaching Padstow in 1899. There was an aspiration to connect Wadebridge to Truro, but this was never realised. Due to holidaymakers increasingly travelling by car in the 1960s, demand for passenger services dwindled and the line was closed as part of the cuts in 1966.
Evidence of windmills in England dates from around the 12th century and in Cornwall there are records of windmills as far back as 1296. Wind turbines may be viewed as the modern successor but actually themselves date back to Victorian times: the first large windmill to generate electricity was built in 1888 in the USA, and in Cornwall, a private house was lit using electricity generated by a wind turbine in 1890.
The Ramblers Association and National Farmers Union suggest some "dos and don'ts" for walkers which we've collated with some info from the local Countryside Access Team.
Do
Don't
The hedgerows are a mix of trees including hawthorn and blackthorn and particularly hazel.
Hazel was once a popular firewood as it burns quickly and without spitting. It was also used to produce the charcoal used by blacksmiths and for smelting metals until coal became more widely available in the 18th Century.
The name stitchwort dates from mediaeval times when it is likely to have been believed that it had powers to cure an exercise-induced stitch. Other common names for Greater Stitchwort include "star-of-Bethlehem" (due to the shape and perhaps Easter flowering time) and "poor-man's buttonhole" for budget weddings. It is also known as "wedding cakes" but that may be more due to the colour than anticipation of what a buttonhole might lead to. The seed capsules can sometimes be heard bursting open in the late spring sunshine which gives rise to names such as "snapdragon" and "popguns".
Until relatively recent times, most woodland included large amounts of hazel because it was the best tree for coppicing. This also considerably extends the life of the tree. Some hazel stools (the stump part that the shoots are cut from) are thought to be centuries old.
Cows eat about 10kg of grass a day and a dairy cow produces around 50 pints a day on average rising to around 100 pints at their peak.
The settlement here is called Splatt which is a Cornish word for "field". The first record of it is relatively recent: as an un-named settlement marked on the OS map of 1813.
The building to the left of the bridge was Tresmeer Station
Tresmeer Station was opened in 1892 as part of the North Cornwall Railway and is actually located in Splatt rather than Tresmeer. The use of the parish rather than hamlet name avoided creating luggage labels reading "From Waterloo to Splatt" which might have been perceived negatively in terms of railway safety! The remains of the platform can still be seen as part of the garden and a goods shed has also been converted.
Although primroses flower most intensely in March and April, some primroses can begin flowering in late December. The name "primrose" from the Latin for "first" (as in "primary"), alluding to their early flowering.
Cow parsnip (also known as "hogweed" - not to be confused with "giant hogweed") is a member of the carrot family. It has more solid leaves than cow parsley or alexanders which it often grows alongside. It also flowers later. The leaves are noticeable from around mid-April. Flowering starts roughly at the start of June and continues through the summer.
Giant hogweed is regarded by some as the most dangerous plant in the UK (although hemlock is also a good contender). If you encounter giant hogweed, avoid touching it and children and dogs should be kept away from it as the sap contains a chemical which is extremely phototoxic. When activated by sunlight, this binds to the DNA in skin cells and kills them. Skin reaction starts as an itchy rash and can develop into third degree burns and scarring. It also makes the affected areas susceptible to severe sunburn for several years.
The plant gets its name as it can grow more than 10 feet tall, topped with white umbrella-shaped flowers. Due to the similar style of flowers, it is also known as giant cow parsley although the giant hogweed leaves are much more solid with a toothed edge, more similar to cow parsnip (normal hogweed). It is typically found near water or on waste ground.
The plant was introduced to Britain by Victorian botanists in the 19th century as an ornamental plant and has escaped from gardens into the wild. It has been spreading across the UK (as one plant produces 50,000 seeds) but is still very rare in Cornwall. A project to eradicate it along the Tamar River system is helping to stop further spread into Cornwall.
If you find giant hogweed in Cornwall (and are sure it's not normal hogweed), take a photo and report it to invasives@cormacltd.co.uk
The stream at the bottom of the valley is a tributary of the River Ottery.
The River Ottery is a tributary of the Tamar and stretches about 20 miles across the northeast of the county. Its basin spans a Carboniferous geological formation known as the Culm Measures which contains a soft-sooty form of coal and supports grassland that is very rich in species, some rare such as the Marsh Fritillary.
The river once formed a northern boundary between Celtic Dumnonia and Anglo-Saxon Wessex and consequently the place names to the north are predominantly Saxon and those to the south are Celtic. The name of the river itself has Anglo-Saxon roots from the Old English oter (after the creatures that thrived along it) and ea (meaning stream).
The first record of the settlement of Treglith is from around 1300 although the Cornish name suggests it dates from early mediaeval times. The name is thought to be based on the Cornish word gwleghe so the overall gist would be "damp farm". It is thought that the present farmhouse dates from around the 16th or 17th Century and was refashioned during Georgian times.
The place name is from the Cornish word eglos for church, and translates to something along the lines of Church Farm. The church here dates back to Saxon times and though the settlement itself wasn't mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, the church was.
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!
Rabbits used to be a common sight in fields but have become less common.
By 2013, rabbit hemorrhagic disease virus type 2 (RHDV2) had crossed to the UK from continental Europe and began spreading through the wild population. By 2018, nearly half the UK rabbit population had disappeared. In their native region on the Iberian peninsula, rabbits are now an endangered species and there is concern that the UK population decline will continue. Whilst a high density of rabbits can be a pest to farmers, in many areas the rabbit population has already fallen well below the level where this is significant.
Columbines are recognisable from their bell-shaped flowers in May and June which can range in colour from pink, purple, blue or white. They also have distinctive leaves which resemble the clubs suit in a pack of cards.
Names for the plant are based on the unusual shape of the flowers including Granny's bonnet. The common name "columbine" comes from the Latin word for "dove" (hence a dove cote being sometimes known as a "columbarium") based on the inverted flower being likened to a flock of five doves. The genus name Aquilegia is derived from the Latin word for eagle as the flower petals are said to resemble an eagle's claw.
Columbine is part of the buttercup family, and like buttercups the plant is poisonous, particularly the seeds.
The first record of Kyrse is from 1150. The name is thought to be based on the Cornish words kew (meaning "hollow") and ros (meaning "moor"). The basis might be the area of low ground around the river valley versus the surrounding downs.
Studies have shown that crows are capable of self-discipline. If offered one piece of food now or two later, the crows will resist temptation and wait. However if the initial piece of food is a high value item such as sausage, they won't take the risk.
The footbridge is over a tributary of the River Kensey, which all the marshes and streams in this valley feed into. The Kensey runs through Launceston and then joins the River Tamar at the border with Devon. The deep valley cut by the River Kensey made the hill above the river at Launceston an ideal defensible position which ultimately gave rise to the town.
One of the nutrients that plants need are nitrates in order to make amino acids for building proteins. Plants in the pea family (also known as legumes) are able to manufacture their own nitrates from nitrogen in the atmosphere. The nitrates are later released into the soil when the leaves die and rot. The overall process of turning atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates in the soil is known as "nitrogen fixing" and this makes legumes useful in crop rotations to replenish nitrogen removed by other crops without resorting to chemical fertilisers. As well as peas and beans, clovers and vetches are also members of this family.
The fields here are sometimes planted with barley.
The size of a barley grain became part of the British imperial measurement system. The length units were eventually standardised as one inch being equal to 3 barleycorns which in turn were each equal to four poppyseeds. The barleycorn is still in use today as it is the basis of the UK shoe size system. This rises in increments of one barleycorn i.e. a size 9 is one barleycorn longer than a size 8.
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.
Nettles are the theme of German and Dutch colloquial expressions for a troublesome situation. The German equivalent of "having a bit of a nightmare" is to be "sat in the nettles". The Dutch have abbreviated this further, so you'd be having a bit of a "nettle situation".
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
When you close the kissing gate, make sure you push it all the way into the latch as naughty sheep here have learned how to push the unlatched gate open to perform a jailbreak into the next field.
Despite how tough mature dock plants are, at the seedling stage docks are very poor competitors with other plants such as grass. On grazing land, farmers can use docks as a warning sign that there have been bare patches of earth. This could have been caused by livestock damage or uneven spreading of manure which has killed patches of grass by blocking sunlight.
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 village church in the hamlet and parish of Tresmeer (Cornish: Trewasmeur) is within the Launceston district. Tresmeer church tower is thought to date from the late 15th Century when many Cornish churches were rebuilt and towers added. The rest of the church was rebuilt in the late 1870s, so if there was an earlier structure, no traces now remain. The church is now dedicated to St Nicholas, but in September 1505 it was recorded as being dedicated to a Celtic Saint from the Dark Ages - St Winwolus - who became the first Abbot of Landevenac in France.
A recording of the settlement of Tresmeer in around 1150 as Rosmeur suggested that the name might be from the Cornish words for "great moor" but more records from around this period which are along the lines of Treguasmer and Trewasmur suggest this was probably a "typo". The name is of a farm but the meaning of the second word is not clear. It could be a personal name.
If you are crossing a field in which there are horses:
Cows are thought to have been domesticated in the Middle East around 8,500 BC. By about 6,400 BC they were being traded into Neolithic Europe. This is just about the point where the land bridge between Britain and Continental Europe (known as Doggerland) flooded with rising sea levels, so the first few cattle may have just managed to walk across.
The berries of holly contain a chemical compound very similar to caffeine. Only in very small doses is this a stimulant; in larger doses it is toxic. It is for this reason that you see holly berries on bushes rather than being inside the nearest bird. The birds have learned to wait until after the frosts have reduced the toxicity of the berries before eating them.
From Roman times, holly trees were planted near houses as it was believed to offer protection from witchcraft and lightning strikes. There is some scientific basis for the latter at least: the spines on the leaves can act as lightning conductors. The sharp points allow electrical charge to concentrate, increasing its potential to form a spark.
The first record of the settlement of Tremaine is from around 1150 when it was given, with the church, to Launceston Priory. Due to the chapel here, the name was once thought to mean "place of monks" from tre and menegh, but early records of the name e.g. from 1230 are "Tremen" which is from the Cornish word men, for "stone".
Several churches in Cornwall have been dedicated to St Winwalloe (or Wynwallow) including at Gunwalloe and Landewednack on the Lizard, Tremaine near Launceston and Poundstock near Bude. Winwalloe was the son of a prince of the Celtic kingdom of Dumnonia (now known as Cornwall) born in 460. He fled to Brittany to avoid the plague, founded a monastery and died at the age of 72.
The Cornish Celtic revival began in the late 19th - early 20th Century, triggered by an increased academic interest in the Cornish language. In the 1920s, a number of non-political societies were formed, including the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies and Gorsedh Kernow - both dedicated to maintaining Celtic traditions. These have continued into the 21st Century as interest in cultural heritage has gathered momentum and have been joined by other organisations such as the Cornwall Heritage Trust.
Ferns evolved a long time before flowering plants and dominated the planet during the Carboniferous period. The bark from tree ferns during this period is thought to have been the main source of the planet's coal reserves.
Fern fronds form in a coil (known as a crozier or fiddlehead) with the delicate tip protected in the centre. As the outer parts begin to photosynthesise, the sugars they produce cause more water to be drawn into the leaf, causing it to expand and gradually unfurl.
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.
Ferns produce neither flowers nor seeds and rely on the tiny spores for their reproduction which are most commonly distributed by the wind. This allows them to colonise some quite random places such as rocky ledges that heavier seeds might not reach. Since the spores come from just one parent fern, the offspring is a genetic clone.
The spore from a fern doesn't grow into a fern. Instead it grows into an organism resembling a liverwort (i.e. a small green blob). Instead of producing spores, these produce eggs and also sperm which they interchange with neighbouring blobs to get a new mix of genes. The fertilised egg grows into a new fern and so this alternating process of ferns and blobs repeats.
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.
Despite being called red campion, its flowers are most definitely pink - varying quite widely in shade from vibrant deep pinks to very pale. The colour is produced by red anthrocyanin compounds which are also responsible for red autumn leaves and red tinges on new growth in some plants as well as flower colours. In red campion, the intensity of the colour is controlled by a pair of genes and several other genes control the exact balance of anthrocyanin compounds within the petals. These are passed down the generations and so pale pink parents are likely to produce pale pink offspring.
The second part of the Latin name of red campion - dioica ("two houses") - refers to the plants' gender. Some plants are male and others are female. The male plants' flowers can be recognised from five yellow stamens sticking out from a protruding ring in the centre of the petals. The female plants' flowers have no protruding ring and instead have 5 curly white stigmas. These produce a white froth to trap pollen.
Red campion is also known as "red catchfly". The flowers are an important nectar source for larger pollinating insects including butterflies, bees and hoverflies. Much smaller flies drawn to the nectar can become stuck in the froth on the stigmas of the female flowers but this is not intentional by the plant (it doesn't eat them).
Red Campion seeds ripen between June and August. The seed capsule has teeth at the end which fold back when the seeds are ripe, allowing them to escape when it is shaken by the wind (known in botanical circles as "the pepper pot mechanism"). Each seed weighs only one thousandth of a gram, allowing it to be carried as far as possible by the wind. Nevertheless many end up falling quite close to the parent which is why red campion often occurs as a cluster of plants.
The genus name for campions - Silene from the often-drunk Greek woodland god Silenus whose name derives from the Greek word for saliva. The name is thought to be based on the froth on the female flowers used to trap pollen although its habitat preference including semi-shade within woodland also fits fairly well.
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 roots of red campion contain saponins (soapy compounds) which protect the plants against microbes and fungi. These compounds make it easier for large molecules such as proteins to enter cell membranes. This has the potential to increase the effectiveness of immunotherapy against cancer by allowing immunotoxins to enter the cancer cells more easily.
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