St Breward church claims to be the highest in the county. The tall tower can be seen easily, for many miles around. The church dates from the Middle Ages (1278).
If you are crossing a field in which there are horses:
The yellow flowers here in later summer are not dandelions.
There are several quite common plants (catsear, hawkbit and hawksbeard) which all have yellow flowers similar to dandelion. Their main flowering period is later in the summer (late June and through July) than dandelion which itself peaks in April-May. If you want to have a crack and figuring out exactly which you are looking at, the leaves offer a good clue.
Catsear is the most common, especially along the coast, and is the easiest one to tell apart as the leaves are hairy (hence the name).
Hawkbit and hawksbeard both have non-hairy, deeply toothed leaves like dandelion but the leaves are narrower than dandelion. Hawksbeard has very well-defined "shark teeth" along most of the stem leading to the solid patch of leaf on the tip that all three have - these teeth are as wide as the widest part of the leaf. In hawkbit, these teeth are so tiny that the stem is nearly bare for about half its length.
One other plant with flowers similar to the dandelion is the sow thistle but this is easily recognised by its spiky thistle-like leaves.
Rabbits have a number of wild predators including foxes, polecats and stoats. Buzzards and weasels will also take young ones. Domestic cats are also capable of tackling a full-grown rabbit. Rabbits have evolved to be able to detect predators early and then run very fast. The location of their eyes on the sides of the their head gives them almost 360 degree vision and they can also can turn their ears 180 degrees to pinpoint the location of a sound.
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
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.
Cow pats can often be spotted (and therefore avoided) by the tuft of ungrazed grass surrounding the cow pat know as the "ring of repugnance". If it is left undisturbed, cows will avoid the area around a cow pat for a couple of years, allowing a bright green (well-fertilised) hummock of grass to form.
The biological reason that the repulsion exists is to prevent cows from ingesting parasites from other cows. The reason that we find it repulsive too is due to our biological "wiring" to protect us from parasites.
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.
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.
Mosses' lack of deep roots mean they need to store their own supply of water during dry periods which is why they are found in shady places that are not dried-out by the sun. This also applies to moss on trees - it rarely grows on the south-facing part of the trunk which can be used as a crude form of compass when navigating.
Water pepper grows along the lane, especially near the stream.
Water pepper, as the name implies, grows on wet ground such as on the margins of lakes (it's also known as marsh pepper). It's relatively late to appear, not really getting going until June.
Water pepper leaves can be used as a herb and has a lemony flavour similar to sorrel followed by heat which is a little like chilli. Its used in Japanese cuisine, particularly with fish. The young shoots are used to garnish sushi or sashimi.
One of the birds that you're likely to see in this area is the robin.
The Cornish name for the bird is rudhek from rudh = "red" (in Cornish, "dh" is pronounced like the "th" in "with"). Cornish place names like Bedruthan, Ruthern and Redruth are all based on the colour red.
The hawthorn tree is most often found in hedgerows where it was used to create a barrier for livestock, and in fact haw was the Old English word for "hedge".
The farm on the hill on the right is called Cargelley.
Cargelly was first recorded in 1332. OS maps show the name as Corgelly or Cargelley. The name is thought to be based on the Cornish words for fort (ker) and small wood (kelli). The location overlooking the valley would be consistent with some kind of hillfort being situated there in the Iron Age. Field names here such as "The Round" also support this but no physical remains have been found.
The settlement of Newton was first recorded in 1371 as Niwaton. The name is mediaeval English for "new farm".
From the farm lane, there are excellent views of Roughtor, to the right.
Rough Tor is the second highest peak on Bodmin Moor. It is pronounced "row-tor" because the local dialect word "row" meant "rough". The summit of Rough Tor is encircled by a series of rough Neolithic stone walls which link natural outcrops, to form a tor enclosure. Also on the summit are the foundations of a mediaeval chapel, built into the side of one of the larger cairns.
Conifer needles contain a waxy coating to retain more water and their shape reduces wind resistance. Both of these help them to colonise exposed upland areas where (unfrozen) water is more scarce. The needles are also less prone to snow damage as snow slides off the young outer needles and only accumulates where needle growth is dense. Conifers do shed their needles but typically keep them for 2-3 years before doing so to economise on the energy needed to create new leaves.
The huge granite crags either side of the valley are known as Devil's Jump.
Granite is pretty hard stuff. It ranks at 7 out of 10 on the Mohs hardness scale. It's harder than normal steel but not quite as hard as hardened steel (which is 7-8). Cutting on granite worktops is therefore not a good idea as knife blades become blunt quickly.
The river appears not to be named on any maps but is mentioned in some places as the "Hannon River". This may be a corruption of Henon - a small settlement that the walk passes through later on. The river is a fairly major tributary of the Camel, collecting water from Stannon Moor and beneath Roughtor. It is joined by the overflow from Crowdy Reservoir at the top of the valley.
In 1988 at the water treatment works at Crowdy Reservoir, aluminium sulphate (which is used in very small quantities to remove suspended particles as part of the water treatment process) was accidentally poured from a tanker into the wrong hatch. Rather than going into a storage tank it went directly into the drinking water for 20,000 - 30,000 people and resulted in Britain's worst mass poisoning incident. One the contamination was discovered, the water supply was flushed into rivers feeding into the River Camel which resulting in the deaths of 60,000 salmon and trout. Fortunately the fish population has recovered since then and the Camel river system now has very good water quality and fish stocks.
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.
Some perennial grasses spread via underground stems, cloning genetically-identical copies of themselves. This way, a single plant can spread to cover an area of over a hundred metres across and live for hundreds of years.
Betony is a grassland herb, common on the coast, with pretty purple anthers that stick out from the plant. The name is derived from the ancient Celtic words bew (meaning head) and ton (meaning good) as it was used as a cure for headaches. From Roman times onward, it was believed to be a cure for a number of things (the Romans listed 47!) including drunkenness. Even as late as the 1800s, Richard E. Banks stated that you should "Eat betony or the powder thereof and you cannot be drunken that day" and John Gerard (1597) said that "It maketh a man to pisse well". Betony was also used to ward away evil spirits (hence it is planted in a number of churchyards) and also to make a dark yellow dye for wool.
As you approach the gateway on the far side of the field, there are nice views of Devil's Jump crag on your left.
Bracken has been used as a fuel for centuries but is of interest as a modern biofuel due to its very high calorific value. Normal firewood produces around 15-19 gigajoules of heat per tonne of material (depending on moisture content - drier is more efficient hence kiln-dried logs). Elephant grass can produce around 18 GJ/t and bracken can deliver 21 GJ/t. At least one company has piloted creating compressed fuel briquettes from bracken in a similar way to elephant grass.
Thistle flowers are rich in nectar and provide an important food source for bees and butterflies. The common thistle was ranked in the top 10 nectar producing plants in two different UK plant surveys. The seeds also provide an important food source for small birds such as goldfinches. The plants themselves are eaten by the caterpillars of the Painted Lady butterfly.
The farmland with trees nearby in the valley is an ideal habitat for magpies.
Since members of the crow family will eat the eggs and chicks of other birds, there has been concern that magpies might have an effect on the songbird population. However, an extensive study by the British Trust for Ornithology using 35 years of data found that the presence of magpies appeared to have no measurable effect on songbird numbers. It is thought that availability of food and suitable nesting sites are probably the main factors limiting songbird populations. Hedgerows are a particularly important habitat.
The farm dates to mediaeval times and was recorded in 1422 as Tor. It is thought to be a reference to the crags of Devil's Jump.
Tors started out as a lump of granite beneath the surface, which cracked vertically into squares and then part-way through horizontally to form something resembling a stuck-together stack of square pancakes. Millions of years of weathering then gradually rounded these off and widened the cracks between the layers to result in a more burger-like appearance.
In some cases the horizontal cracks didn't go all the way through so the layers are still joined (the skewer through the brioche bun to stretch the burger analogy to its limit). In the cases where they did fully separate, a massive rocking stone such as the famous Logan Rock at Treen could be created, or the whole lot could collapse into a pile of huge rocks.
The "basins" on the tops of some of the tors are also the result of repeated freezing and thawing of water which has collected on the surface.
The word is from the Celtic language but is likely to have come from the Latin turris, meaning "tower", derived from a similar word in Ancient Greek.
Insects are the most diverse group of organisms with around 900,000 known living species. This makes up 80% of all the world's known species. However it is thought that even today there are still more unknown species than known ones with estimates of the total number of insect species in the range 2 - 30 million.
Bramble flowers produce a lot of nectar so they attract bees and butterflies which spread the pollen between plants. One study found the bramble flowers as the fifth highest nectar producers out of the 175 species studied. Brimstone and Speckled Wood butterflies are particularly fond of bramble flowers.
Trewint is thought to be from the Cornish for "windy farm" (the Cornish word for wind is guyns which sounds closer than it looks written down). The settlement was first recorded in 1292 but is likely date back to early mediaeval times.
Nettle fibres have been used to make clothing since at least the Bronze Age (textiles made from nettle fibre were found at a Bronze Age site in Denmark). During the First World War, almost all German army uniforms were made from nettles to avoid a shortage of cotton. In more recent years, some European countries have started modern commercial production of nettle-based textiles. A textiles student who produced "nettle knickers" for her university project commented that the fibres are coarser than cotton so it is probably more suited to workwear than underwear.
The large trees on the opposite side of the field are oak and ash
Ash trees are often easy to spot by the knobbly twigs all over the ground beneath the trees. They also have distinctive rows of quite small leaves.
The name buzzard is from mediaeval English buisart which itself came from the Old French word buson. It is based on the Latin word for hawk or falcon buteo hence its scientific name is Buteo buteo.
The first of these stiles has a top bar that lifts to make it a little less high to climb over.
The huge wayside cross in the field is known as Tresinney Cross.
Tresinney Cross is a round-headed wayside cross in the parish of Advent. The cross is over 8ft high and has stood since Norman times beside the ancient path to Advent church.
There are over four hundred complete stone crosses in Cornwall and at least another two hundred fragments.
Crosses were sometimes used to mark sites of chapels and holy wells or as a signpost for the tracks that led to them. Often churches were later built at this holy site, resulting in the cross being within the churchyard or close by.
Advent (St Adwenna's) Church is located in the parish of Advent on the north-west edge of Bodmin Moor, near Camelford. The church is dedicated to Adwen, one of the children of the legendary 5th Century Celtic king Brychan. It is notable for its high, eight-pinnacled tower which houses a ring of six bells. The church building you see today at Advent is mostly mediaeval with some Norman remnants - the greater part of the building dates from the 15th century. The interior was rebuilt when a snowstorm brought the roof down in Victorian times. The circular shape of the graveyard at Advent church suggests it dates back to Celtic times.
Scholars speculate that the Celtic Cross (a crucifix with a circular ring) developed from the sun cross (a cross inside a circle), a common symbol in artefacts of Prehistoric Europe, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods. When Christianity came to the Celtic regions, Christians extended the bottom spoke of this familiar symbol, to remind them of the cross on which their new Saviour was crucified.
The settlement of Tresinney was first recorded in 1320 as Tresyny. A book on Cornish Place Name Elements suggests that the "res" in the name might have been from the Cornish word ros meaning "hill spur" as the settlement is located on a topographical peninsula between 2 streams. Our suggestion is that the name may also possibly derive from the Cornish word enys - for island - which was also used at Ninnis Farm near Truro to describe it being surrounded by streams on three sides, although in this case it could also apply to the small island of land between the three roads.
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.
Until 2005 it was thought that grasses evolved around 10 million years after the dinosaurs became extinct, based on the earliest fossil of a grass-like plant. Consequently the BBC went to great effort to find filming locations with no grass for its ground-breaking computer animation series "Walking with Dinosaurs". Since then, fragments of a grass plant related to rice and bamboo have been found in fossilised dinosaur dung. Also the fossil remains of a rodent-like creature which appears to have grass-eating adaptations suggests that grasses could have been around as far back as 120 million years ago.
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.
Green dock beetles can sometimes be seen on dock plants. They have a metallic shimmer which can produce colours of gold, blue, purple, violet or red in sunlight. The sheen is produced by a stack of microscopic reflective layers which create interference patterns in light causing different colours to appear at different angles. As the beetles mature, melanin (the "sun tan" chemical produced in humans to protect skin from the sun) pigments the layers and causes them to become reflective.
The River Camel runs along the valley to the right.
The River Camel runs for 30 miles from Bodmin Moor to Padstow Bay, making it the longest river in Cornwall after the Tamar.
The name "Cam-El" is from the Cornish meaning "crooked one". It is documented that only the upper reaches of the river, above Boscarne, were originally known as the "Camel". The section from Boscarne to Egloshayle was known as the "Allen" and below this, it was known as "Heyl".
The ford crosses the river that you crossed earlier on the walk near Devil's Jump. A few metres downstream from the ford is the confluence with the River Camel.
The River Camel runs for 30 miles from Bodmin Moor to Padstow Bay, making it the longest river in Cornwall after the Tamar.
The River Camel is classed as a SSSI and Special Area of Conservation (SAC) under the EC Habitats Directive. The river is a breeding ground for otters, Atlantic salmon and bullhead (a small fish that looks a bit like a blenny but is more closely related to lionfish and scorpionfish).
The valley with Devil's Jump has been recorded as the "Hannon" valley but is probably more correctly Henon valley after the settlement of Henon. Henon itself was recorded in 1201 as Hethenant. The name is thought to be from the Cornish words hetch (meaning either "barley" or "peace") and nans (valley). "Peaceful valley" is probably the most likely gist as the north-facing position of Henon is not a good location for arable crops.
Carwether Village is the remains of a mediaeval hamlet, covering about one hectare of a hillside to the north of St Breward. It consisted of three longhouses, several ancillary buildings and some paddocks or garden plots. The buildings are arranged randomly along the valley side. Traces of ridge and furrow cultivation can be seen and the settlement is surrounded by an extensive strip field system.
In mediaeval times, the Anglo-Saxon "stitch meal" technique was adopted in some parts of Cornwall. This involved dividing arable and meadow land into long strips called "stitches". Villagers would be allocated a (usually disconnected) set of strips so that the "best" fields were shared around as evenly as possible. The long, thin shape was ideal for ploughing with oxen. A typical stitch was one furlong in length and one acre in area, which could be ploughed by a team of oxen in a day.
A similar, but not identical, system of strip fields known as "burgage" plots was also used in mediaeval times but these were associated with a row of houses along a road in a settlement. The burgage plots were effectively very long, thin back gardens that also contained about an acre of cultivatable land.
Looking across the barren granite landscape of Bodmin Moor, it may seem strange that so many settlements can be found here from the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods. About 10,000 years ago, Bodmin Moor was almost entirely covered in forest, and the Neolithic tribes would have lived in forest clearings. During the Bronze Age, the majority of forest was cleared for farmland. The burning and grazing, over several thousand years, has resulted in poor soils which are naturally quite acidic due to the granite rocks. This, together with the exposure to the wind, is why the few trees on the moor today are generally stunted.
The seeds of common gorse are the source of the chemical used to identify people with the rare "hh" blood group. The red blood cells in the vast majority of people (in blood groups A, B, AB and O) have a material called "H substance" on their surface. It turns out that the chemical extracted from gorse binds remarkably specifically to this and cells from the "hh" blood group (that have no H substance) are left alone.
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.
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.
Hematethy was first recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086 as the manor of Hamotedi. The name is thought to be from the Cornish word havos meaning "summer dwelling". The implication is that settlement was initially a summer camp that gradually became a year-round dwelling. Eventually it became an extensive manor with a mediaeval chapel. Map evidence suggest that the original settlement might have been at Lower Hematethy and the larger Hematethy came into being during Victorian times.
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.
The common earthball is a woodland fungus that looks a bit like a scaly white or pale yellow potato and its external appearance could be confused with a small puffball fungus.
Earthballs have a slightly different approach to release their spores than puffballs. When mature, puffballs have a central opening in the top through which the spores puff out. With the earthball, the surface of the cap ruptures when the spores are ready to release.
Since puffballs are edible and earthballs are poisonous, it is a common offender for stomach upsets arising from misidentification. This might seem strange as puffball flesh is pure white whereas the internal earthball flesh is dark (purple/brown/black) when mature. The potential for confusion arises because when very young, the earthball flesh is pale.
Some estimates suggest the UK has up to half of the world's total bluebell population; nowhere else in the world do they grow in such abundance. However, the poor bluebell faces a number of threats including climate change and hybridisation from garden plants. In the past, there has also been large-scale unsustainable removal of bulbs for sale although it is now a criminal offence to remove the bulbs of wild bluebells with a fine up to £5,000 per bulb!
As the name suggests, Wood Sorrel grows in shady places and as it spreads slowly it is used as an indicator of ancient woodland. It is recognisable by a carpet of bright green leaves that look a bit like clover. It is said that St Patrick used the three-lobed leaves to illustrate the Holy Trinity and therefore it's one of the plants dedicated to him and collectively known as "shamrock". Around Easter, wood sorrel produces delicate white flowers which gives rise to its European common name of Alleluia.
The leaves and flowers fold up at night and reopen each morning, and they do the same during rain. This is a protection mechanism to avoid damage to the leaves when there is no solar power available, or pollen being knocked out of the flowers by the rain.
For such a widespread tree, the oak is surprisingly inefficient at reproducing naturally. It can take 50 years before the tree has its first crop of acorns and even then, the overwhelming majority of the acorns that it drops are eaten by animals or simply rot on the ground. Squirrels play an important part by burying acorns and occasionally forgetting a few which have a much better chance of growing than on the surface.
During periods of cold weather, spring flowers, such as bluebells, have already started the process of growth by preparing leaves and flowers in underground bulbs during summer and autumn. They are then able to grow in the cold of winter, or early spring, by using these resources stored in their bulb. Once they have flowered, the leaves die off and the cycle begins again.
Other species (such as cow parsley or dandelions) require warm weather before they are able to germinate and grow. With the warmer springs induced by climate change, bluebells lose their "early start" advantage, and can be out-competed.
The high levels of tannins in oak make large amounts of oak leaves or acorns poisonous to cattle, horses, sheep, and even goats, but not to pigs as they were domesticated from wild boar which were adapted to foraging in the oak forests, like deer. Acorns were also eaten by people in times of famine. The acorns were soaked in water first to leech out the bitter tannins and could then be made into flour.
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 noise that grasshoppers make is created by rubbing their hind legs against their wings. Crickets do something similar at night but just by rubbing their wings together.
Grasshoppers "sing" for a number of reasons which include staying connected socially and sometimes simply because they are happy. Bad weather leads to grumpy grasshoppers and less singing.
During Victorian times and earlier, small amounts of land in Cornwall were measured by the goad - a unit of nine feet in length, derived from the name of the staff used to drive oxen.
An area of two goads square (18ft x 18ft) was known as a "yard of ground" or "land-yard". This is confusingly not the same as a "square yard" (3ft x 3ft). In fact one land-yard was 36 square yards!.
Larger areas of land were measured by the Cornish Acre defined as 160 land-yards (or 5,760 square yards). A unit of land consisting of 4 Cornish Acres was known as a "Knight's fee".
St Breward is on the northwest side of Bodmin moor and the parish covers both Roughtor and Brown Willy. The name of the village is said by some to come from the 6th century Cornish Saint Branwalader. Others say it is from a 13th century bishop of Exeter. Previously the village was called Simonward which, according to legend, was the name of the brewer to King Arthur's household although that might have been concocted in the Old Inn after a few ales.
The Old Inn in St Breward dates back to the 11th Century when it provided shelter for the monks who built the neighbouring church, and claims to be Cornwall's highest Inn. There is an open fire in winter in the 11th Century granite fireplace. The pub was used as the setting for the TV comedy drama, Doc Martin, when the baby was born to the main characters.
Pond skaters are able to stand on the surface of water due to long legs and water-repellent hairs on their feet.
The weight on each foot is less than the combined cohesive forces between water molecules ("surface tension") around it. Their long legs space out their feet so that the dents in the water's surface from each foot don't connect.
However, in order to walk on water, pond skaters must exert extra force to propel themselves which if applied to the surface of the water would sink them. The very tips of the water-repellent hairs on their feet penetrate the surface of the water and these create swirling vortices like tiny oars. The vortices transfer momentum down below the surface of the water so the surface of the water doesn't need to take all the force.
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