The car park is on the site of the Tregantle Down Battery, constructed in 1892. It was designed to cover Whitsand Bay with high angle fire and was also the terminus of a military railway. It was abandoned in 1905 and the guns were removed in the 1920s. The battery remained in good condition until it was demolished in the mid-1970s.
The body of water you can see across the fields is the St Germans River (another name for the Lynher). The military railway ran out of the back of the car park and then curved around to the left across the middle of the nearest field - the clump of trees was part of the line. The railway then curved to the right to resume its course towards the river. It then followed the riverbank upriver to the quays at Wacker, where military equipment was landed on barges.
Clover is a native plant and a member of the legume (pea and bean) family. It is also sown as a fodder crop and as "green manure" as it improves soil fertility. The two most common species are known simply as white clover and red clover, based on the colour of their flowers, with the latter generally being a slightly larger plant. Red clover leaves also have a white V shape.
Cow parsley, also known by the more flattering name of Queen Anne's Lace, is a member of the carrot family. Over the last few decades, cow parsley has substantially increased on roadside verges: there is more than half as much again as there was 30 years ago. The reason is thought to be to an increase in soil fertility caused by a few different factors. In the more distant past, verges were grazed or the grass was cut and used for hay. Now when it is cut by mechanical devices, it is left to rot in place forming a "green manure". In the last few decades there has also been an increase in fertilising nitrogen compounds both from farm overspill and from car exhausts. Whilst this extra fertility is good news for cow parsley and also brambles and nettles, it is causing these species to out-compete many other wildflowers along hedgerows.
The frothy "cuckoo spit" that can sometimes be seen on the stems of plants in May and June is a foam produced from plant sap that a froghopper nymph uses to protect itself. This acts as a thermal and moisture-conserving blanket that also hides it from predators and tastes nasty for those that get too inquisitive. The association with cuckoos is simply that it can be seen in spring when cuckoos can be heard.
Froghoppers get their name as the adults jump from plant to plant. Some species can jump up to 70 cm vertically which is even more impressive relative to body weight than fleas. To put this in perspective, on the rollercoaster with the highest g-force in the world, riders experience an acceleration of just over 6 gs. A fighter pilot with a g-suit may experience acceleration of around 9 gs. Froghoppers exceed 400 gs of acceleration and that is self-propelled!
Plantains' ability to colonise compacted soils and survive trampling makes them useful for soil rehabilitation. They can also help to make grazing fields more drought-resistant. The high levels of tannins in plantain are disruptive to intestinal parasites in livestock so that the need for anti-worming medicine is reduced.
When a caterpillar is still developing, it grows a small group of cells - known as an imaginal disc - for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly. When a caterpillar pupates, it digests itself, releasing enzymes which dissolve all of its tissues into a soup leaving only the imaginal discs. These then act as seeds from which the adult butterfly is resurrected.
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.
Settlements in the valley date from mediaeval times with Kerslake in 1349 and Trethill recorded in 1393. Kerslake is thought to be from "cress" (presumably watercress) and "stream" (for which "lake" was sometimes used in mediaeval times).
A little further down the valley was a mill, originally recorded as Kestlake Mill in the 18th Century but renamed to Bagg Mill in the 19th Century. A mill pond was recorded on the Tithe map from around 1840, further down the valley from the ponds beside the road and now under tree cover.
As you walk down the hill, there's a nice view of Sheviock church. It's possible to take a diversion to the church by walking along the edge/verge of the A-road to the left then swapping to the pavement from the buildings on the opposite side, but note that the A-road has fast traffic so this may not appeal to everyone.
The first record of Sheviock Church is recorded in 1193, after being rebuilt, but it is likely that there was a church here for at least a century before this in 1086 when the manor of Sheviock was owned by Tavistock Abbey. Nothing survives from these, or any earlier churches, but in 1259 the church was once again rebuilt and also rededicated, and the west tower and font date from this period. The remainder of the church dates from the 14th and 15th Centuries and was restored during Victorian times. The church has an eye-catching large and colourful stained-glass window above the altar and there are three mediaeval tombs in the church of the Norman family that were Lords of the Manor of Sheviock.
Primrose seeds are quite large and therefore, due to their weight, don't travel far from the plant. This causes a clump of primroses to spread out very slowly over time and means it takes a long time for primroses to colonise new areas. This makes large carpets of primroses a very good indicator of ancient woodland where they would have had many hundreds of years to spread out.
A spring located above the quarry is known as Lady Well. The name suggests it was regarded as a holy well and there are records of one of the vicars using the water for baptisms in the church.
The stream is a tributary of the St Germans River and the lower part of its river valley (just after the stream crosses under the main road) has been flooded by rising sea levels, creating a tidal creek known as Wacker Lake.
Some of the bluebells in the woodland are Spanish invaders.
Spanish bluebells have been planted in gardens and these have hybridised with native bluebells producing fertile seeds. This has produced hybrid swarms around sites of introductions and, since the hybrids are able to thrive in a wider range of environmental conditions, the hybrids are frequently out-competing the native English bluebells. Sir Francis Drake would not be impressed! The Spanish form can be fairly easily recognised by the flowers on either side of the stem. In the English form, they are all on one side. In general, the English bluebells also have longer, less-flared flowers and are often a deeper colour. However, the easiest way to tell the difference between native and non-native bluebells is to look at the colour of the pollen: if it is creamy-white then the bluebell is native; if it is any other colour such as pale green or blue then it's not native.
Trees need a lot of water. A large oak tree can absorb around 450 litres of water per day, most of which is released into the atmosphere as water vapour through transpiration. Trees therefore help to reduce flooding from heavy rain in low-lying river floodplains and also reduce erosion from runoff.
The early purple orchid gets its common name from its spring flowering time - it appears at a similar time to bluebells although it lasts a bit longer. It has a Latin name meaning "virile" which is in keeping with the word "orchid" coming from the Greek word for testicle (on account of the shape of the tuber).
When a tree is injured, it exudes resin - a thick, sticky liquid which hardens and seals up the wound. The resin also contains anti-fungal and insecticide chemicals to protect it from parasites and pathogens. Frankincense and myrrh are both examples of resins.
The path is lined with wild garlic in spring.
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.
Crafthole Reservoir which was dammed in 1900 to provide a water supply to Torpoint (not Crafthole which is uphill of it). It was managed by South West Water and formed part of the public water supply until just after the Second World War. It is now stocked with carp and managed by the South West Lakes Trust for coarse fishing. A number of springs feed both the lake and into the stream that the walk has been following.
The settlement of Crafthole dates from mediaeval times when it was centred around a triangular grassy plot, forming a village green, which has since been built over. A market and fair were granted in 1314 which presumably took place in this area. The name is a mangling of the English word "croft" and possibly either "hill" or "hollow".
The small cross in Crafthole was originally in the middle of the road, but was moved in the 1950s after being hit by a bus. Due to it being positioned both beside the market area and on the road, there is difference of opinion as to which of the two the cross marked.
In mediaeval times, golf balls were made from wood. In the 17th Century, the "featherie" was created, made from leather and stuffed with feathers. In the mid-1800s, balls moulded from sap were the first to be mass-produced. They could also be heated and re-cast if they went out of shape from being hit. However people noticed that battle-scarred balls that had been used a long time seemed to fly more consistently. Golf ball manufacturers began etching different protrusions on the surfaces in attempts to improve the aerodynamics. The potential of a ball of elastic bands was discovered by a bored golfer waiting for a friend to finish work and by the 1890s, these were being coated in sap to make golf balls. In the early 1900s, it was found that indentations (rather than protrusions) on the surface resulted in better aerodynamics.
The HMS Scylla was a frigate built in Devonport in the late 1960s. After three decades of active service, which included being rammed in the Icelandic Cod Wars of the 1970s, the ageing frigate became increasingly difficult to maintain and was withdrawn from service in 1993 after steering difficulties resulted in collision with an oil tanker. She was sunk in Whitsand Bay in 2004 to form the first artificial reef of its kind in Europe. Over 270 marine species have been recorded on the artificial reef and it has become a popular dive site, although there have been diver fatalities which have been attributed to poor visibility caused by the dredging of silt from the Tamar Estuary.
The huts on the cliff at Tregonhawke arose from a farmer allowing local families to pitch tents on the cliff and then tea huts for a nominal rent. No planning regulations existed at this time, so huts sprang up wherever someone could dig a small terrace into the cliff slope. Water was initially obtained from a spring but the landowner soon provided a water supply with stand pipes at intervals along the path. During the Second World War, people from Plymouth bought huts here to escape the bombing.
In 1979, a policy was drawn up by the council limiting the changes made to chalets in order to avoid the cliff degenerating into a modern housing estate and much of this was incorporated into conditions of the leases. In 2003, the land was put up for sale and a management company formed by the leaseholders bought the land with the objective to keep the landscape as natural as possible.
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.
The current Eddystone lighthouse was designed by Trinity House civil engineer James Douglass, using the design principles that John Smeaton had pioneered on the previous lighthouse. The granite was quarried from the De Lank quarries on Bodmin Moor, transported down the railway which is now the Camel Trail, and carved in Wadebridge, along the road that became known as Eddystone Road. As each layer was completed, it was checked for its fit with the layer above and then sent out to the Eddystone rocks by sea. Douglass designed a special ship, called the "Hercules", to transport and lift the three ton blocks of granite into position. The lighthouse was completed in 1882 and is 95ft tall.
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
Buttercups produce a toxin called protoanemonin, which is at its highest concentration when flowering. It is thought that buttercups may be partly responsible for Equine Grass Sickness. Fortunately the toxin is quite unstable and drying of the plant in haymaking leads to polymerisation into non-toxic anemonin. Buttercups are also toxic to dogs, cats and humans. They have a bitter taste which puts dogs off eating the plants but pollen can collect on fur and be ingested, particularly by cats when they clean themselves. A man in France who drank a glass of juice made from buttercups suffered severe colic after four hours and was dead the next day!
The red soil results from the weathering of sandstones which contain rust-coloured iron compounds formed from chemical reactions of the iron with water and air. Similar orange-red iron compounds are responsible for the Red Rivers in Cornwall where dissolved iron from the mines enters the river water. Iron is the 4th most common element in Earth's crust after oxygen, silicon, and aluminium. The reason that there wasn't an Aluminium Age rather than the Iron Age is that aluminium is really difficult to separate from the oxygen that also makes up the aluminium compounds in rocks. Iron is still pretty challenging to reduce to its metallic form from its ore which is why copper and tin were used before this in the Bronze Age.
The salt-laden breeze coming off the sea dries out leaf buds and inhibits growth so the plants end up growing most vigorously in the lee of the wind. In the direction facing the prevailing wind, the growth is therefore more compact and stunted whereas in the lee of the wind, the branches are much more straggly. The result is that the trees appear to point away from the prevailing wind. Where there are no obstacles interfering with the wind direction, the shape of the trees can be used as a compass. Prevailing winds come from the southwest, so in general, trees in Cornwall point northeast.
Foxgloves are reliant on bumblebees for pollination and bumblebees are much more active when the weather is good. Partly, as an insurance policy against bad weather, foxgloves have evolved to stagger their flowering over several weeks, starting with the flowers at the base of the stalk and working up to the top, where the higher flowers protrude over other vegetation that has grown up in that time.
Whereas many plants rely mainly on bitter chemicals to avoid being eaten by herbivores, thistles have gone one step further and evolved spikes. Grazing livestock will understandably avoid them which allows them to accumulate in pastureland and become a nuisance. One thistle plant produces thousands of seeds dispersed by the wind which can remain viable in the soil for up to 10 years.
A DEFRA survey recorded over 300,000 cows in Cornwall (a lot of moo is needed for the cheese and clotted cream produced in Cornwall) so there's a good chance of encountering some in grassy fields, but also on open moorland and sometimes for conservation grazing on the coast path too. Around 70% of agricultural land in Cornwall is used for grazing and agricultural land occupies over 70% of Cornwall's land area.
The first of the firing ranges was constructed before the First World War. The earliest record of one is from 1896 and two are recorded on the 2nd Edition OS map from the early 1900s. There are now seven ranges which cover rifles, pistols and live grenades. Hence sticking to the paths and keeping dogs on leads is extremely wise.
Tregantle Fort was the largest of the land forts built as part of a programme in the 1850s-60s to protect Plymouth docks against a potential invasion from France. The fort fell out of use after the First World War but was reopened in the lead-up to WW2 and was used by American troops training for D-Day. It is now primarily used as barracks and for its rifle ranges.
In January 1934 a trawler named "The Chancellor" was on its way back from fishing to Plymouth when dense fog descended and the lookouts failed to see approaching land. The boat went aground at Withnoe Point in Whitsand Bay and the crew fired flares, sounded sirens and even burnt clothing to attract attention. The distress signals were seen and the Rame Life Saving Corps managed to rescue all aboard by climbing 500ft down Freathy Cliff with rocket lifesaving equipment.
The Birdsfoot Trefoil has yellow flowers tinged with red that look like little slippers and appear in small clusters. They are followed by seed pods that look distinctly like bird's feet or claws. Common names referring to the flowers include "Butter and Eggs", "Eggs and Bacon" and "Hen and Chickens", and to the seed pods, the delightful "Granny's Toenails".
It is a member of the pea family and is poisonous to humans (containing glycosides of cyanide) but not to grazing animals and can be grown as a fodder plant. It is the larval food plant of many butterflies and moths including the common blue and silver-studded blue, and an important nectar plant for many bumblebee species.
During winter, from November to March, winter heliotrope is visible along the edges of roads and paths as carpets of rounded heart-shaped leaves.
Winter heliotrope is native to Sardinia and North Africa. It was introduced to Britain in 1806 but only the male plant. The female plant has subtly different flowers with more rays.
Whitsand Bay (without an "e" and extending from Rame Head) shouldn't be confused with Whitesand Bay (with an "e" and at Sennen Cove) despite the origin of both names being the same.
At high tide, there are several small beaches along Whitsand Bay, with Tregantle beach being the largest (but restricted when the firing ranges in the fort above are active - indicated by red flags). At low tide, the beaches join into a three mile strip of sand.
The dandelion-like flowers along the coast are most likely to be catsear, also known as false dandelion. Catsear is very salt tolerant, not only growing along the coast but actually in sand dunes. The easiest way to recognise it is by the hairy leaves, hence the name. If you can cope with the texture, the leaves are edible and are much less bitter than dandelion leaves.
Another way to tell them apart is when they are flowering. Although dandelion flowers over quite a long period, the most profuse flowering is in April and May whereas catsear's intense flowering period is in late June and through July. Catsear has neater flowers than dandelion with squarer edges to the petals (but still toothed). The stems supporting the flowers are also solid, in contrast with the hollow stem of the dandelion.
Biologically, there is no clear distinction between ducks, geese and swans (geese and swans are one lanky subfamily of ducks). Dark-coloured ducks get the equivalent of "grey hairs" with age - their feathers gradually turn white.
The species of duck that you're most likely to encounter is the mallard. Mature males have striking iridescent green heads and dark bodies whilst females look totally different - a brown and white pattern which offers much better camouflage. However, both have a common feature that is unique to mallards - an iridescent blue patch on their wings.
In situations where ducks need to watch out for predators, they can sleep one half of their brain at a time, keeping one eye open for danger. In safer circumstances, ducks will sleep fully.
Male ducks (drakes) have a penis which falls off every autumn and regrows the following spring. The length each year depends on the amount of competition for females and varies up to a maximum of the duck's whole body length.
Ducks can change gender. This happens for about 1 duck in 10,000 and more commonly from female to male than the other way around. It seems to occur in a flock of ducks where there is a significant gender imbalance where it gives the duck that changes a competitive advantage. It's likely that the female to male direction is a bigger evolutionary win because one male can fertilise multiple females.
Feeding bread to ducks is quite bad for them although not feeding ducks anything at all is potentially worse as many have now become reliant on being fed. White bread lacks many of the nutrients that ducks need but ducks will gorge on it to the point of ignoring other foods, effectively becoming junk food addicts. The problem is that by filling up on just this, they can become malnourished, deformed and even die. Some healthier things to feed ducks are leftover peas, sweetcorn, seeds, rice and salad.
The ferns with solid leaves are appropriately called hart's tongue as the leaf resembles the tongue of a deer. It is the only native species of fern that doesn't have divided leaves. The Latin name for the species means "centipede" as the underside of the leaves have rows of brown spore cases that form a pattern resembling centipede legs.
Hart's tongue ferns thrive in shady places and are tolerant of the lime used in mortar so are sometimes found growing in old walls. It's an evergreen so leaves can be seen all year round but there's usually a flurry of new growth in mid March when new leaves can be seen gradually unfurling over a number of days.
Skylarks are the most common member of the lark family in Britain and are often known simply as "larks".
Skylarks are one of the most widely distributed of all British birds, found from coastal dunes to mountain tops. In Cornwall, they can be seen both in coastal fields and on Bodmin Moor. The coastal heath is a particularly good habitat for them, being mild but with fairly short vegetation in which they can hunt for insects.
The phrase "to lark about" may have its origins in the aerobatics of the skylark. At the start of the 19th Century, young boys who played about in the rigging of ships were known as "skylarks". The use of "to lark" as a verb can be traced back as far as the early 19th Century. By the middle of the century, it had reach America where "larking about" is first recorded.
In late spring and summer, listen out for the characteristic song of skylarks hovering high above the ground. The rapid song takes place in quite a narrow frequency range but can contain more than 450 syllables used in highly variable patterns. This is the reason it sounds a bit like the "modem" devices used to transfer digital data as an audio signal.
The phrase "up with the lark", used to describe early risers, dates back to at least the 16th century. Skylarks are the first birds to sing in the dawn chorus, often whilst it's still dark.
The collective noun for larks ("an exaltation") dates back to "The Book of Saint Albans" printed in 1486 which provided tips on hunting, hawking, and heraldry. It also included "a murmuration of starlings", "an unkindness of ravens" and "a clattering of choughs".
During mediaeval times, skylarks were eaten and there are records of the food price for larks from the 13th Century onward. Larks were captured by dragging nets across fields at night, not unlike modern commercial fishing techniques.
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.
Lark shooting was a popular sport in Victorian times. Revolving mirrors were used to attract the migrating birds, which would hover over the mirror. There are records of over 1,000 birds being shot at a single mirror in a day. Despite being flagged as high conservation concern on the the IUCN Red List, at the time of writing in 2020, skylarks can still be legally shot in France and still are in large numbers.
The Eddystone Rocks, known locally as the "stone", were a major hazard for shipping along the South Cornish coast, particularly when headed for Plymouth. As well as wrecks on the reef itself, many wrecks occurred because mariners, fearing the Eddystone Rocks, steered wide to hug the French coast and then hit reefs off France or the Channel Islands. Before the first lighthouse was built here in 1698, over 50 ships a year were wrecked on the reef, with most lives lost. After only 5 years, the lighthouse was washed away together with 5 men including its designer in the great storm of 1703. The second lighthouse, also built from timber, lasted nearly 50 years but burnt down when a spark from the candle ignited the lantern. The three lighthouse keepers were rescued from the rock but one, aged 94, later died of lead poisoning from ingesting molten lead from the lantern roof when attempting to fight the fire.
After the Eddystone Lighthouse burnt down, the engineer John Smeaton designed its replacement - this time in stone - consisting of granite blocks held together with a quick-drying lime mortar of his own invention and modelled on the shape of an oak tree. The lighthouse took 3 years to build and was finally lit in 1759. The design was so effective that the lighthouse outlasted the rock on which is was built, and became the standard method of construction for lighthouses worldwide. After 127 years, the rock began to crack from the action of the waves and the lighthouse would sway when hit by large waves. After a new lighthouse was constructed on a different rock, the people of Plymouth raised money to have Smeaton's lighthouse dismantled and reassembled on the Hoe, where it still stands today. However the lighthouse base was so sturdy that it could not be dismantled and still stands on Eddystone Reef next to the new lighthouse.
Silas Finn, known locally as Finny, was an 18th Century smuggler who used to land contraband on the beaches of Portwrinkle, which were not well-known to the Revenue men. Various accounts of his story exist, but according to one, he was caught red-handed and was offered the choice of the hangman's noose or to assist in catching fellow smugglers. He reluctantly chose the latter and ended up betraying not only his close friends but also his sister. The local legend is that his restless ghost ("gook") still haunts the cliffs between Crafthole and Portwrinkle.
Jackdaws can be distinguished from other members of the crow family by their short black beaks and grey necks. They are smaller than all the other black birds in the crow family and are only slightly larger than jays.
Jackdaws are able to recognise eye gestures from humans (e.g. if someone looks at where a food item is hidden). It has been suggested that jackdaws may use this with other birds too and this may be the reason that they have a striking blue eye colour that is easily seen from a distance.
Jackdaws are very adept vocal mimics and have been known to sing virtually anything including opera and Madonna! They can be trained to copy the human voice but only for single words or short phrases.
Jackdaws also use a their calls in a democratic process to make group decisions for a flock such as whether to move location. If enough of the birds "vote" by making their voice heard, the entire flock will respect this and take off, even the birds that didn't vote for it.
Jackdaws have been found to share food and will share more of a preferred food than an unpleasant one. Although the sharing often takes place in courtship and parenting, the behaviour has also been observed in unrelated birds. It is thought that this pro-social behaviour might be a sign of reciprocity ("do unto others...") and possibly empathy.
Although fruit-flavoured ice deserts are known to have been consumed by the elite at least as far back as the 2nd Century, the use of cream to make a frozen desert is thought to have been developed in Italy in the 16th Century. By the 17th Century, "Cream Ice" was a popular royal dish in England.
During the Industrial Revolution, the ice cream machine was created and ice carried by ship from Norway was used to chill it until mechanical refrigeration was invented at the end of the 19th Century.
The ice cream cone is thought to be a Victorian English invention, first recorded in Mrs Marshall's Cookery Book in 1888.
"Cornish ice cream" is made with clotted cream and was popularised by Kelly's.
Kelly's Ice Cream began with an Italian who settled in St Austell in the 1890s. His son-in-law took over the business and had the first ice cream van - a horse and cart.
He changed his Italian surname (Calicchia) - and the name of the business - to "Kelly" as this was easier for English people to pronounce. The first motorised ice cream van was converted from a milk float in 1928. By the early 1950s they had a fleet of 40 vans all over Cornwall.
The business moved to Bodmin in the 1970s and, following large investment from a new parent company, by 2015 it had become the sixth largest ice cream manufacturer in Britain.
Red and Roe deer are the two truly native species of the six found in the UK and both have pointy, branching (rugose) antlers. The Red deer is the largest of the species and has a characteristic large white V on its backside whereas the Roe deer just has a small white patch.
The fallow deer was introduced by the Normans and has flat, elk-like (palmate) antlers and an inverted black horseshoe surrounding a white patch on its rear end.
In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, three "exotic" Asian species (munjac, sika and Chinese water deer) were introduced. These all have quite rounded ears whereas the European species all have pointy "elf-like" ears.
Roe deer, Fallow deer and Red deer are all present in Cornwall and the populations of all three species has increased substantially over the past decade, possibly by as much as a factor of ten. There are also a small number of munjac deer, but far fewer than in the rest of England.
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