The earliest known record of Feock is in a twelfth-century document where the settlement is referred to as "Fioc"; it is also recorded in 1264 as "Ecclesia Sancte Feoce". The name is taken from a Celtic saint to whom the parish is dedicated, but little is known about, although is generally assumed to be female.
There are two types of ivy leaf. Those on creeping stems are the classic ivy leaf shape with 3-5 triangular lobes - they grow towards shade to find a tree to climb up. However, more mature ivy plants grow aerial shoots with a completely different (teardrop) leaf shape. These are the shoots that bear the flowers and fruits and are typically located in a sunny spot such as on an upright ivy bush or top of a rock face. The reason for the different shapes is that the larger, multi-lobed leaves are able to catch more light in shady areas whereas the smaller, stouter leaves are more resistant to drying out.
Every part of the dandelion plant is edible and is high in Vitamin A and higher still in Vitamin K. The leaves can be eaten in salads, though their bitterness is not to everyone's taste. However, the bitterness can be reduced by blanching: drop the leaves into boiling salted water and remove after a minute and quench in ice-cold water to prevent the leaves from cooking.
St Feock's Holy well can be found on the track to La Feock Grange. Beside the track is a cast-iron pump and bucket stand dating from Victorian times and a flight of granite steps lead down the Holy Well, set into the bank of the neighbouring field. The well is thought to date from mediaeval times but was remodelled to add the stone house with a slate roof, some time around the late 19th Century.
Before Christianity, the Pagan Celtic people of Cornwall worshipped wonders of the natural world. Where clean, drinkable water welled up from the ground in a spring, this was seen as pretty awesome. The sites were seen as portals to another world, and is why fairies are often associated with springs. Where the springwater dissolved minerals, for specific conditions (e.g. deficiency in a mineral) or where the minerals present had antibacterial/fungal properties, the water appeared to have healing powers.
The trees along the edge of the field provide perches for crows to survey the area for food.
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 Carnon river has its source near the A30 and passes as a small stream through Chacewater before joining a tributary from the Poldice valley at Twelveheads. The Great County Adit drains from the mines into the river here and further drainage from Wheal Jane enters downstream. As a result, the river is still quite polluted with dissolved metals from the mines including cadmium, arsenic, copper and zinc which are toxic to most aquatic invertebrates and fish. The river currently fails the Water Framework Directive for invertebrates which is likely linked to the high levels of metals within the river. However, aquatic vegetation is diverse as this is less sensitive to dissolved metals.
Arsenic is a chemical element that is part-way between a metal and non-metal, known as a metalloid. In the natural environment it reacts with oxygen to form an oxide which readily dissolves in water to form arsenic acid. This is able to leech into groundwater and cause contamination. Deeper in the ground where sulphur is more available than oxygen, arsenic is found as sulphide compounds.
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.
Plants such as gorse and heather which are able to grow in soils contaminated with heavy metals such as mine waste tips are known as metallophytes.
There was a concern that if the plants accumulated the metals, whilst themselves being unharmed by them, these might still pass into the food chain e.g. via rabbits eating the plants and then onto buzzards eating rabbits etc.
However, a study of plants from the Carnon Valley found that gorse and heather do not accumulate large quantities of trace metals or arsenic in their tissue. A separate study for a PhD thesis found that for some metals such as zinc, the amount in the plant's tissues (though far lower than in the soil) increased steadily with the levels in the soil. However for certain heavy metals such as lead and copper, the amount measured in gorse tissues appeared to barely increase at all with increasing levels in soil.
Therefore it's thought that there are unlikely to be harmful effects of rabbits eating gorse and heather both directly to the rabbits themselves and indirectly to the food chain of other wildlife.
During the 18th Century in Oxford, the Wesley brothers began practising their rigorous holy lifestyle which was mockingly referred to as Methodism by their peers due to their methodical practices. John Wesley began open-air preaching to recruit followers to his movement and formed small classes for each community where followers would receive ongoing religious guidance. Wesley always advocated the practise of Methodism as an extension of the Anglican faith and encouraged his followers to attend the parish church regularly. Nevertheless, senior figures within the Church of England feared the effects (or perhaps popularity) of Methodist practices, suggesting that an overdose of the Holy Spirit might be unhealthy for weak minds.
The settlement of Penpol at Feock was first recorded, spelt as it is today. The name is from the Cornish words common in place names, pen and pol, and taken together mean something along the lines of "head of the creek".
During winter, from November to March, winter heliotrope is visible along the edges of roads and paths as carpets of rounded heart-shaped leaves.
Despite only having the male form in the UK (is and therefore unable to produce seeds), it can spread vegetatively through its network of underground roots. A small fragment of root can give rise to a new plant which allows it to colonise new locations. Within less than 30 years of its introduction it had been recorded in the wild in Middlesex. Roughly a century later it has become one of the most common plants along roads and bridleways in Cornwall.
The name Montbretia is after "Coquebert de Montbret" - a French botanist who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt in 1798 but died there at the age of 20. The Latin name Crocosmia has Greek origins, meaning "saffron scent". This is based on the the smell of the dried leaves. The crocuses which produce saffron are also members of the iris family.
Where tracks met in a T-junction, this presented a challenge for horses and carts as these didn't have a tight turning circle. The triangular islands often visible on junctions of tracks and small lanes today were formed by the cartwheels cutting the corners of the junction. Eventually these cut corners were formalised as surfaced tracks with a grassy triangular island in the centre.
All parts of the alexanders plant can be eaten and it is a good source of iron and vitamins A and C. The flavour has been described as somewhere between parsley and angelica. However, foraging alexanders is not recommended unless you are experienced at identifying it because novices can confuse it with hemlock (the most poisonous plant in the UK - just a few leaves from this can kill you).
Most waymarks you'll encounter are yellow, which is the convention for marking public footpaths, of which there are over 2000 miles in Cornwall. Permissive paths often use other colours such as black, white or green. Red and blue are reserved for byways and bridleways, respectively.
The settlement of Chycoose was first recorded in 1378, spelt "Chiencoys". The name is from the Cornish word chy for cottage and cos for wood. It's possible that the mediaeval version was an attempt to write down chy-an-cos which literally means "cottage of the woods".
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 large holly tree has some good examples of leaf shapes of varying spikiness levels.
Anyone who has sat on a holly leaf will know how prickly they can be but the leaves particularly on larger holly bushes often vary considerably with less spiky leaves nearer the top.
Holly is able to vary its leaf shape in response to its environment through a chemical process known as DNA methylation which can be used to switch genes on and off. If its leaves are eaten by grazing animals or trampled by walkers, the holly will crank up the methylation level to produce really spiky leaves on these stems. Conversely on the stems where the leaves are able to grow old in peace, the holly will produce versions that are flatter and therefore more efficient at catching the light. An individual leaf can last up to five years.
Lichens grow on the branches of the trees on the left.
Lichens often grow on sick or dying trees so some gardeners assume that the lichen might be harming the tree. In fact, it's purely because these trees have fewer leaves so there is more light available for the algae inside the fungus to photosynthesise. It's too dark under many healthy trees for the lichen to grow.
The word "bramble" comes from bræmaz - a word of Germanic origin meaning "prickly". The study of brambles is involved enough to be considered a discipline of its own and is known as batology (from baton - the Ancient Greek word for blackberry).
Ahead is the Bissoe Valley, through which the River Carnon runs.
During the 1760s, the Poldice Deep Adit was extended to drain more of the mines in the Gwennap area and by the 1770s the network was known as the Great County Adit. Further branches were added during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It eventually consisted of nearly 40 miles of underground tunnels, providing drainage to over 60 mines. In 1839, it discharged over 14.5 million gallons per day into the Carnon River. Although it is unmaintained, it still drains many of the abandoned underground workings today; in the summer of 1980, the flow was measured at half a million gallons per day.
According to folklore, it's unlucky to bring bluebells into a house and also unlucky to walk through bluebells as it was thought that the little bells would ring and summon fairies and goblins.
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 stream is called Tallack's Creek and collects water from Carnon Downs. The first mention of the name Carnon Downs was in 1683, after a period when both Cornish and English were spoken in the county. The name reflects this as the first word, "Carnon", is from the Cornish meaning "rocky". In earlier times, a Cornish word such as ros, hal or goon would have been used rather than the English word "downs".
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.
Sycamores leaves can sometimes be seen with black dots. This "tar spot" fungus reduces the efficiency of the leaves slightly but overall seems not to harm the tree significantly. The fungus overwinters on fallen dead leaves and its spores are released in spring to infect new leaves.
Since its reintroduction, sycamore has spread widely as the seeds are extremely fertile and able to grow just about anywhere where the ground is sufficiently wet. In particular they can grow within the shade of the parent tree, creating dense cover that crowds-out other species. In some areas it is regarded as an invasive weed.
Goosegrass produces lots of small white flowers in summer which are quite noticeable in hedgerows, particularly in July. The sticky seeds then form in late summer - early autumn. The seeds germinate immediately so the seedlings can get started before the winter. They then overwinter as small (frost-resistant) plants, ready for a growth spurt in April once the weather warms up.
Since the 1960s, consumption of milk in the UK has fallen from around 5 pints per person per week to around 3. The recent rise in popularity of veganism has also contributed to a drop in demand for dairy products. However, these downward trends have been partly offset by milk solids used in processed foods including chocolate and also a growth in cheese consumption in recent years.
The settlement at Devoran dates back to mediaeval times and the first record of it is from 1278 when it was spelled Deffrion. However, until the end of the 18th Century, Devoran consisted only of a few farms and tin streaming works. Stemming from its location on the confluence of two rivers, the name is thought to based on the Cornish word for water - dowr.
During the 19th Century, Devoran was engineered as an industrial settlement based around a port at the terminus of a new railway. A town was planned and built which included the Church, built in 1855. A major part of the trade was the export of minerals from the Redruth and Camborne area and the import of coal and timber for use in the mines. During the winter of 1876, a drainage system connecting several deep mines, which had fallen into disrepair, clogged and burst. The deluge caused unrecoverable silting of Devoran harbour and ended its days as a port.
Devoran church was built during Victorian times as the hamlet expanded into a small industrial town. The school, built in 1846, was soon in use for church services which continued for nearly 10 years until the church was opened in 1856. The bell was replaced in 1889 after the original was cracked during an over-enthusiastic New Year celebration.
In the early 1820s, a young man called John Taylor obtained the lease on abandoned mines in the Gwennap parish, and after re-working some of the old deposits, discovered what was at the time the richest copper deposit in the world. Initially, the ore was shipped from Portreath but the transportation fees started to grow as news of John Taylor's good fortune spread. This greed backfired, as in 1824, John Taylor built his own tramway through the Carnon Valley to Devoran, and Devoran began to take over from Portreath for servicing the mines in the Redruth and Camborne area.
The Redruth and Chasewater Railway was an early industrial line which evolved from John Taylor's tramway and eventually served many of the mines in the Camborne-Redruth area. The line ran to Devoran and Point Quay on Restronguet Creek and initially used horse traction. Later, steam locomotives were used but these terminated at Devoran. For shunting at Devoran and for the extension to Point Quay, trains were still hauled by horses. It was a single railway line all the way from Redruth with passing places. If two trains met between passing places, the drivers drew lots to determine who had to reverse.
A short one-way path to the right also leads to the right onto Narabo quay, if you want to explore this before continuing.
Behind Narabo Quay in Devoran are a series of walls which are now used to store small boats. Originally these were ore bins, and the railway ran over the top of them. The wagons discharged their cargo through the bottom, directly into them.
The Restronguet creek contains deposits of alluvial tin, buried beneath the mud on the surface of the creeks. This has been worked for centuries and this escalated to an industrial scale in the late 18th Century. Large opencast works were carried out on the surface between 1785 and 1812 and submarine mining also began around this time too. The remains of the engine house near the mouth of Tallack's Creek is from a mine that operated for just 5 years in the 1820s but yielded a profit of nearly £30,000 which is equivalent to around £3 million at the time of writing. In 1833, another mine was opened a short distance downriver in the Carnon shipyard, and another mine was opened in the centre of the creek in 1871 to extract tin ore that lay below 60 feet of surface mud. There are still substantial tin reserves beneath the mud and tin dredging was considered during the 1980s until the price of tin fell.
Until the port of Devoran was built in the 19th Century, Point Quay was the main docking point in the area and was the site of a customs house. A map of 1841 shows that the wharf had a smelting works so that ore could be converted to ingots for more efficient transport. The smelting process required a source of carbon to act as a chemical reducing agent and strip the oxygen from the oxide ores to produce the elemental metal. In the early days, charcoal was used for this, but by the 19th Century, coal was being imported in large quantities to fuel the steam engines in the mines, so it largely replaced charcoal for smelting. Smelting technology had also moved on by the 19th Century so that the traditional waterwheel-driven bellows of the "blowing houses" were replaced by reverberatory furnaces where the ore didn't come into contact with the fuel.
At the head of the creek are the remains of a tidal mill.
A tidal mill is an ancient form of tidal power based on a water mill. As the tide comes in, it enters a reservoir created for the mill through a one way gate, which closes automatically when the tide begins to fall. When the tide is low enough, the stored water can be released to turn a water wheel.
Bone mills used the power from a waterwheel to crush animal bones and produce bonemeal. The bonemeal was primarily used as a fertiliser to release phosphorus into the soil, which is a vital mineral for healthy crops. In the 20th century, fertilisers based on phosphate minerals, which could be mined cheaply, made bone mills uneconomical. However, the known phosphate reserves are expected to run out within a few decades and so organic phosphorus sources such as animal bones, and even urine, may become increasingly important for farmers.
Despite the illusion of being a French word, Restronguet is pronounced as if it contained no "u" and it was like any other Cornish place name: "re-stron-get", with the emphasis on the middle syllable. The reason is that it was originally a Cornish name, starting with ros, meaning "promontory". The other part has been suggested as coming from tron (literally "throne", also used to mean "elevated") and koes (meaning "wooded"). Alternatively it could be from the less glamorous stronk, meaning "dirty water". It's possible that the spelling gained its French appearance after the Norman invasion.
The tall trees along the left side of the lane are oaks.
The older an oak tree becomes, the more acorns it produces. A 70-80 year old tree can produce thousands. Acorns are high in carbohydrates and as well as being a staple food for squirrels, they are also a really important food for deer and make up a quarter of their diet in the autumn.
Wood from the oak has a lower density than water (so it floats) but has a great strength and hardness, and is very resistant to insect and fungal attack because of its high tannin content. This made it perfect for shipbuilding.
Lesser celandines are one of the first flowers to appear in springtime, and start flowering in late February with the peak in late March before the bluebells come out in April. They continue flowering through the bluebell period into early May so they are often seen together.
Ivy is rarely a threat to healthy trees. Ivy is not a parasite. Since it has its own root system, it absorbs its own nutrients. It simply uses a tree for support. The main risk to trees is during strong winds when the surface of the ivy can act as a sail which, together with the extra weight from the ivy, can cause a tree to fall.
Native oyster beds lie directly ahead in the main estuary.
Native oysters were overfished in the 20th century, and in the 1960s, pacific rock oysters began to be imported into Britain. Native oysters can be distinguished from imported pacific oysters by the shape of their shell. Pacific oysters have pointed shells (a bit like knobbly mussel shells) whereas the shells of native oysters are round.
The settlement of Harcourt was first recorded in around 1160 and was spelt "Harecrake". Also the quay on Restronguet Point now known as Marble Head Quay was originally known as Haracrack Quay, which is documented in a sale catalogue of 1783. It has been suggested that the name may be from the Cornish words ar meaning "beside" and crak meaning "sandstone".
The road to the right leads to Restronguet Point.
Restronguet Point still has the remains of two quays. The quay facing into Restronguet Creek known as Marble Head Quay was used to ship copper ore, brought from the Redruth area to Devoran on the railway and then moved along the creek using horses. Copper was shipped to the coalfields of South Wales to be smelted as 16 tonnes of coal were needed for every tonne of ore. A second quay, on the tip of the point, was used for a ferry service across the creek to both Weir Beach and the Pandora Inn. A ship's bell was used to summon the ferry from the other side of the creek.
The church at Feock dates from the 13th Century although may well be on the site of an earlier religious site. The bell tower is the only original part of the thirteenth century church and now contains three bells which were recast from one large mediaeval bell. The church was one of the last to give services in the Cornish language which was recorded as still being the case in 1640. The present church was rebuilt rather than restored in 1874, suggesting that it was in a derelict state and beyond repair by the 19th Century. However, the 13th Century font and some woodwork from the 16th century were salvaged from the previous church.
The wheel-headed cross in Feock churchyard is though to date to the 13th Century, when the Gothic style was being developed as it is more ornate than earlier crosses but less so than those that came later.
Britain lost most of its wild yew trees due to longbow production in the Middle Ages. Once the national supplies had been exhausted, Britain began importing yew wood from just about any European country that had any, rendering yew trees extinct or rare in many parts of Europe. Ironically, Britain now has possibly the world's greatest collection of yews and the majority of these are in churchyards where it was deemed inappropriate to fell them for longbows.
The yew trees in British churchyards are some of the oldest yew trees found anywhere in the world and yews can live for thousands of years: the Forestry Commission described them as "the toughest, most indestructible and longest lived tree we have". It is therefore possible that some of the ancient yews are older than the adjacent church buildings as Christianity took over many sacred places from the previous religious traditions: in AD 601, Pope Gregory advised his followers not to destroy places of Pagan worship but to convert them into Christian Churches.
The stocks was a form of punishment introduced in mediaeval times and was a common sight in most villages by the 16th Century. Many sets of village stocks were able to accommodate the ankles of multiple offenders seated on a bench. The last recorded use was in 1872 but it was never formally abolished and is therefore still a legal form of punishment in the UK although the acts carried out by passers-by in mediaeval times would not be. By Victorian times, it was mostly foot-tickling by mischievous children.
Grey mullet are related to the perch family (which includes bass) and are surprisingly unrelated to the "red mullet" (which is in fact a type of goatfish). Mullet caught in the open sea are excellent eating fish and can be used in similar dishes to bass. However, those living in muddy water (such as the harbour) generally taste of mud. This can apparently be diminished by soaking them in acidic, salty water but the flavour is still described as "earthy".
There are 33 designated National Landscape regions in England many of which were created at the same time as the National Parks. In fact the AONB status is very similar to that of National Parks.
A single Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) was established in 1959 and is itself subdivided into 12 sections. 11 of these are stretches of the coastline and the 12th is Bodmin Moor. In 2023, the AONBs in England and Wales were renamed National Landscapes to better reflect the similarity in their status to National Parks.
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