The parish church in Warbstow was originally Norman, but largely rebuilt in the 15th century. However its site on a small hill, surrounded by a circular bank, strongly suggests that the churchyard is Celtic in origin.
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.
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.
Nearly three-quarters of the UK starling population has been wiped out in recent times, and starlings are now on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. The cause of this decline is a combination of changes to farming practices and grassland management (such as use of pesticides reducing the insect population), and a lack of nesting sites in urban areas.
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 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.
The first record of the settlement of Youlstone is from 1326 as Yoldeton. This is an Old English name (ye olde ton) meaning "the old farm". Higher Youlton is from the same origins.
The cross by the farm was found at Higher Youlton in 1976 where it had been buried upside-down and used as a gatepost. It was moved to Youlstone farmyard in 1996 and set on a new base stone.
There are over four hundred complete stone crosses in Cornwall and at least another two hundred fragments.
In the mediaeval period, stone crosses were sometimes placed by the road or path to mark the route to the parish church. Farms and hamlets were usually linked to the church by the most direct and level route. Crosses were also placed along routes of pilgrimage. Both of these have evolved to become some of today's Public Rights of Way.
The cross beside the stream was found in use as the bridge over the stream and rescued by the St Ives Old Cornwall Society in 1938. According to one source, it was originally located at Warbstow Bury but the stream forms a parish boundary so this being the original location seems reasonable.
Foxgloves have a life cycle which spans two years. The seeds germinate in spring and during their first year they produce a "rosette" of large, velvety green leaves with toothed edges. These are particularly noticeable from October onwards once other vegetation has died back. The leafy foxglove plants remain dormant throughout the winter, ready for a quick start in the spring.
The first record of Trewonnard is from 1318. Other than the tre meaning "farm", the meaning of the rest of the name isn't certain. It may possibly formed from the words woon meaning "downs" and ardh meaning "high". It definitely looks like "farm on the high bit of the downs" from the stream!
The settlement of Higher Scarsick was first recorded in 1303 as Overarescasek. The name is thought to be from the Cornish words ros (meaning either moorland or a hill spur/promontory) and kasek (meaning mare).
The remnants of a "try your brakes" sign is because this is a Public Byway.
Public byways are rights of way down which motor vehicles may be driven depending on how brave you are and how expensive your car is to fix. You are also permitted to use a horse-drawn carriage, should you own one. Byways tend to be surfaced in an ad-hoc manner either with gravel or occasionally with a smattering of tarmac, but still leaving plenty of room for a good crop of grass to grow down the centre. They are conventionally marked using red waymarks or a "Public Byway" sign. There are 130 miles of byways in Cornwall.
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.
Christianity in Roman Britain began in the 4th or 5th century AD. However there were no known cities west of Exeter, so the spread into Cornwall is likely to have been very limited. The majority of Cornwall is likely to have remained Pagan until "The Age of Saints" - the late 5th or early 6th century - when the Irish missionaries including St Piran and St Petroc settled in Cornwall.
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.
If you are crossing a field in which there are horses:
The lake at the bottom of the field sometimes attracts herons.
Herons nest in tree-top colonies known as "heronries" where they make a large nest from twigs. It is not unusual for a single tree to contain as many as 10 nests and the overall colony can reach over a hundred nests. The herons re-use their nest for as many years as possible until it gets blown away by a storm. It is unwise to stand beneath a heronry as the birds defend their nests by regurgitating half-digested fish on those below!
This area of Cornwall represents the border between Celtic Dumnonia and Anglo-Saxon Wessex. Consequently, along this route there is Anglo-Saxon influence (placenames like Warbstow and Fonston) interspersed with traditional Celtic names (Trewonnard, Treneglos, Treglith etc). Northeast of the River Ottery, fewer names beginning with "Tre-" exist whilst further southwest the names ending in "-stow", "-ton" and "-cott" become sparser.
The settlement of Nether Scarsick was first recorded in 1303 as Nethere Rescasec. It was quite common in mediaeval times to use "nether" for "lower" and "over" for "higher" in place names.
Although it's obvious that you should ensure any gates that you open, you also close, what about gates you find that are already open?
If the gate is fully open then leave it alone as it may well be providing livestock access to a water supply, and by closing it you could end up killing them.
If the gate is ajar or swinging loose and not wedged or tied open then it's likely that the gate was left open by accident (possibly by another group of walkers). Properly closing the offending gate behind you will not only bring joy to the landowner but you can feel good about saving lives in a car swerving to avoid a cow in the road.
If you encounter a gate doubly-secured with twine that can be untied or a chain that can be unfastened, it's normally there because naughty animals have managed to undo the gate themselves at some point (e.g. by rubbing against the bolt), so retie/fasten it afterwards.
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
A short distance downriver, the streams on this walk join the Canworthy Water (river) which itself which joins the River Ottery at the settlement of Canworthy Water.
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 otter's semi-aquatic nature has been well known since ancient times, in fact the words "otter" and "water" both derive from the same original word. It has been reported that Bodmin Moor acts as an interchange for commuting otters as the rivers Camel, Delank, Fowey and Inny all have sources or tributaries in a quite a small area.
During the 1960s, the otter population crashed in the UK due to the widespread use of pesticides such as DDT which leached into the waterways and poisoned the otters. However, due to predominance of dairy farming in Cornwall during this period rather than the more pesticide-reliant arable, the county remained an otter stronghold. The Tamar Otter Sanctuary near the Devon border was a key part of the otter conservation movement which has been a remarkable success. It is thought that otters have now re-colonised all the areas in the UK that they were wiped out from during the 20th Century.
Warbstow is a parish in north-east Cornwall alongside the River Ottery. Warburghstow was mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1086. The original manor house of Downinney stood at one end of the village green, but only the Norman door, porch, and an upstairs window have survived.
The name for the parish of Warbstow is taken from the nun, St Waerburgha, who was daughter of a 7th century Anglo-Saxon king. Her relics, at Chester, were an object of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. The church has been dedicated to St Waerburgha for at least 1000 years, presumably by the Saxon settlers.
Beech trees are planted along the hedge and drop beechnuts onto the road.
The word "beech" is thought to have the same origins as "book" as beech (most probably the bark) was used as a writing material in which to carve runes by Germanic societies before the development of paper. This is still apparent in modern German where the word for "book" is buch and "beech tree" is buche.
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