St Neot's Town Mill is evident from the worn millstones standing against the walls. Opposite the millstones are two granite blocks with slots to support the timber frame that was used inside the mill to hold the large vertical cog connected to the mill wheel which drove a smaller horizontal one powering the millstones.
The London Inn in St Neot was originally a coaching inn on the route to the capital. Before the A38 was constructed in the 1830s through the Glynn Valley, the main road from Bodmin to Liskeard was via St. Neot. The hill leading east is still locally known as "London Bound".
Bindweed can normally be spotted in June to September from initially its trumpet-shaped flowers and on closer inspection, being wound around anything and everything. As well as being a nightmare for gardeners and farmers, in the wild it can have a negative effect on biodiversity by choking other native wildflowers and out-competing them for sunlight, moisture and nutrients.
Oak Apple Day is celebrated in St Neot on 29th May each year. The celebration was started in 1660 when King Charles II returned to the throne and created as a public holiday, which continued until 1859. Traditional celebrations to commemorate the event often entailed the wearing of oak apples (a type of plant gall) or sprigs of oak leaves.
In St Neot, the celebration involves a procession through the village to the church and an oak branch being erected on the church tower, followed by a barbeque at the Vicarage. Failure to wear the correct vegetation (red oak before noon and a sprig of "Boys Love" after noon) results in a punishment of being stung by nettles.
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
Lots of dandelion plants lurk amongst the grass and may get a chance to flower in April before the field is grazed.
To make wine from dandelion flowers, pour a gallon of boiling water over a gallon of flowers and steep for 2-3 days in a covered container, stirring occasionally. Then boil, add 1.5kg sugar and allow to cool. To the basic liquor, citrus is often added (lemon/orange juice and zest) which gives some acidity, and chopped raisins or grape concentrate can be used to give more body to the wine. Ferment with a white wine or champagne yeast.
The path here is graded "silver" so if the section up the steps from the lane or here between the hedges is starting to get overgrown, it's worth reporting to the Council for cutting to prevent it getting worse.
To report an overgrown path, on the directions screen in the app tap on the ☰ menu next to the direction number for the problematic path (or tap on the direction number on the map screen to get the ☰ menu) and select Report Footpath Issue. The app will use the direction number to work out the parish and path number at that location and then create an email to Cornwall Council’s Countryside Team so they can contact the relevant Parish Council. If possible, take photos and attach them to the email as that will help the countryside team to see how bad it is and prioritise it.
Footpaths in Cornwall are graded "gold", "silver" and "bronze" (bronze paths are normally dead-ends that don't link up with other paths).
For parishes that take part in the Local Maintenance Partnership, gold paths are normally cut routinely once or twice each year. Routine cuts on gold paths are typically done in May/June, and any second cuts are usually in July - September.
Paths graded as silver are cut at the discretion of the Parish, so these in particular need to be reported to the Parish Council (via the Countryside Access Team - countryside@cormacltd.co.uk - who have the contact details for each parish council) if they start to become overgrown. Also gold paths which happen to be in parishes who don't participate in the scheme are less likely to get a routine cut, but the Countryside Team can cut these themselves if they get badly overgrown.
The reason that you can cut yourself on a blade of grass is that grass leaves contain minute particles of silica (glass). As well as deterring some animals from grazing, these particles also help to give the stems more rigidity.
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.
Tremaddock was first recorded in 1201 as Tremaddoc although the "tre" being in Cornish indicates that it might date from the early mediaeval period. It is thought that the rest of the name may be based on a personal name.
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.
There are over 30,000 miles (more than the distance around the earth) of hedges in Cornwall, many of which are based on distinctive local styles of stone walling. Consequently, often what a Cornish person calls a "hedge", most people from outside the county do not recognise as a hedge, resulting in some foreign translation needed for walk directions.
Around 50% of the hedgerows in the UK have been lost since the Second World War. Although intentional removal has dramatically reduced, lack of maintenance and damage from mechanical cutting techniques such as flailing are still causing deterioration of the remaining hedgerows.
Some Cornish hedges are thought to be more than 4,000 years old, making them some of the oldest human-built structures in the world that have been in continuous use for their original purpose. They act as vital miniature nature reserves and wildlife corridors that link together other green spaces. This supports hundreds of species of plants and tens of thousands of insect species, many of which are vital pollinators for arable crops.
The bridleway is hedged with a mixture of broadleaf trees which include sycamore.
Sycamore seeds contain a biochemical compound known as hypoglycin A which is poisonous to horses. If a horse eats large numbers of sycamore seeds, this can cause a muscle condition known as Atypical Myopathy. In the most extreme cases, the horse can die from a heart attack.
At the top of the hill is a prehistoric enclosure known as Berry Castle containing the circular remains of 9 huts. The enclosure was created by standing a ring of stones in a circle and then banking earth around these.
The purpose of enclosures within ramparts varied quite considerably. Some were built as forts to defend from marauding invaders such as the seafaring Scandinavians. Others were defences built around small villages either as a status symbol/deterrent or for the more practical purpose of preventing domestic crimes such as theft of property by occupants of neighbouring villages. There were even some which were probably just a confined space used to stop livestock escaping!
There are spectacular displays of bluebells in May, starting in these woods, but the next area of woods is even better still!
When photographing bluebells, the flowers that look blue to your eye can end up looking purple in photos.
The first thing to check is that your camera isn't on auto white balance as the large amount of blue will cause the camera to shift the white balance towards reds to try to compensate.
Another thing to watch out for is that the camera's light metering will often over-expose the blue slightly to get a reasonable amount of red and green light and the "lost blue" can change the balance of the colours. You can get around this by deliberately under-exposing the photo (and checking there is no clipping if your camera has a histogram display) and then brightening it afterwards with editing software.
95% of all plant life on Earth, including trees, relies on a symbiotic relationship with fungi. It is thought that without fungi, land plants could not have developed at all. Fungal mycelium often grows around or actually within the roots of plants and give the plant access to water and nutrients it couldn't otherwise obtain easily from the soil. In return, the plants provide the fungi with sugars produced through photosynthesis.
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.
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.
Due to their flocking behaviour, sheep have gained a reputation for not being intelligent but actually this is more about being nervous of being eaten. In a study, their intelligence was found to be on a par with cows: they can recognise human faces, learn a name given to them etc. This may even extend to problem-solving: in Cornwall we've seen them escape into a neighbouring field by operating a kissing gate and in West Yorkshire there are reports of sheep that have worked out that they can cross a cattle grid by rolling on their backs with their feet in the air.
The river at the bottom of the steep valley is a tributary of the River Fowey, known as Trenant Stream.
Trenant Stream runs off the moor east of Colliford Lake and collects water draining from the large lake near Whitebarrow which was once Park Pit - the old china clay works. The stream ends in a confluence with the River Fowey just below Golitha Falls.
To make blackberry wine, combine 2kg blackberries + 4 litres of boiling water in a plastic container with a lid. Once the water has cooled to lukewarm, mash blackberries and add red wine yeast and pectic enzyme (blackberries contain pectin so this is needed to stop the wine being cloudy). Cover for 4-5 days then strain through muslin.
Transfer the liquid to a demijohn and add 1kg of sugar. Top up with a little more water to make it up to a gallon. After fermentation, the wine should clear by itself; in the unlikely event that it doesn't, use some finings. Rack off from the sediment and bottle; it's worth allowing the wine a year or two to mature as it massively improves with age. As a variation, you can add 500g of elderberries and increase the sugar content for a more port-like wine which will need a couple of years longer for the elderberry tannins to mellow out.
During mediaeval times, the rivers around St Neot were diverted to extract alluvial tin.
The first method to extract tin was known as "tin streaming" which reached its peak in the 12th Century, though continued until the mid 20th Century.
Alluvial deposits occurred where a river had eroded the tiny crystals out of mineral veins. Due to tin being so heavy, the crystals had become concentrated on the bottom of the stream as the lighter rocks around them were washed away. Over time these deposits were buried in gravel and sand, and eventually soil.
Using quite elaborate banks and channels, the river was diverted to wash away the soil and gravel, leaving the heavy tin-rich rocks behind which could be dug out once the river was diverted away.
One side-effect of all this industry was that the topsoil, sand and gravel washed downriver caused the silting of many river estuaries and once-thriving mediaeval river ports literally dried up and were superseded by sea ports.
Once the relatively rich alluvial deposits had been used up, mostly by the 18th Century, mineral veins were instead mined directly.
The tin was brought into St Neot for smelting, using the river as a source of power.
Next to the sign for the holy well is an enclosed niche in the wall containing a stone. It is likely that this was a mortar stone (in the sense of "pestle and mortar") used to crush tin ore prior to smelting it in the blowing house which was situated behind the mill during the 17th Century. The crushing was mechanised by lifting wooden poles with metal heads which would then drop onto the ore and crush it against the stone - hence the process was known as "stamping". There are three cupped areas in the stone into which the metal "stamp heads" would have fitted. A leat was run from the river to drive the waterwheel which powered both the stamping mechanism and the bellows for smelting.
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.
The route meets the River Fowey a short distance downriver of the confluence.
The upper reaches of the Fowey river system run through 2 Sites of Special Scientific Interest and the Fowey valley is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The river has populations of sea trout and salmon as well as brown trout which make it popular with fly fishermen.
Autumn colours are the result of two different chemical processes - one that gives rise to yellow leaves and one that results in red leaves. They depend differently on temperature so a cold autumn tends to produce more yellow colours whilst a mild autumn produces more red. In both cases, the length of time the colour has to develop is limited by the leaves not being blown off the tree by wind. Much of Cornwall is pretty exposed and breezy so sheltered valleys offer the best chance of good autumn colours.
This stretch of river is a short distance downriver from Golitha Falls and there is a continuous corridor of woodland along the river from Treverbyn bridge (near where you eventually exit the woods) up to the Golitha Falls car park at the top of the National Nature Reserve.
Trout are members of the Salmon family who all have an extra tiny (adipose) fin on their back towards their tail, that most other fish don't have. No-one is quite sure what the purpose is of this fin but a neural network in the fin indicates that it has some kind of sensory function.
When you reach the gate, a short diversion to the left along the lane ahead is the mediaeval Treverbyn bridge.
The old bridge dates to 1412-13 and is thought to have incorporated the arch of an earlier bridge which was described as "threatening total ruin" in 1412. The Bishop of Exeter granted an "Indulgence", providing a pardon of 40 days penance for their sins to all who contributed to the bridge's repair.
On its way to the bridge, the lane passes over the leet for Treverbyn mill which dates from the 18th century and was still being used to grind cattle feed when it was surveyed for listing.
Himalayan Balsam is a tall plant with very pretty pink flowers that can often be seen lining footpaths in the summer and early autumn. It was introduced as an ornamental species in 1839 and unfortunately the plant is now a major ecological problem. It can grow from a seed to 9ft high in a few months, forming dense thickets and wiping out other plant species. It is also extremely invasive as the seed pods open explosively, launching around 800 seeds per plant up to 7 metres and the seeds are also adapted to travel by water. It is a nuisance on riverbanks as its roots are shallow and allow the sediment to become easily eroded into the river. It can be identified by its bright pink flowers and it has a characteristic sweet smell.
An equation developed by the military for carrying load in the battlefield can be applied to estimate calories burned when walking.
On the flat, someone who weighs 10.5 stone burns around 100 calories per mile (this increases with weight - e.g. about 123 for 13 stone).
Going uphill this increases (to around 184 for our 10.5 stone walker climbing a 10% gradient) and going downhill this decreases (e.g. to around 75 for a 10% gradient downhill).
The decrease going downhill is less than the increase going uphill, so undulating terrain burns more calories than on the flat (about 118 for an average 5% gradient and about 159 for an average 10% gradient).
Also, once the gradient downhill increases beyond about 10%, you start to use more calories to hold your weight. By the time the gradient has reached 32 degrees downhill, you're burning as many calories as on the flat.
In fields used for grazing, docks are not necessarily a problem. Their deep roots help to hold the soil together and they provide a good source of minerals (such as selenium and zinc) for livestock. Their bitterness is due to tannins, which are also helpful to livestock for preventing bloat and parasites.
A beef cow produces around 30kg of dung per day. As dairy cows need to eat more to produce milk, they also produce roughly double the amount of dung which adds up to around 20 tonnes per year.
Cow dung is high in nitrogen compounds which makes it a useful fertiliser but depending how this is spread on the fields (e.g. sprayed as a liquid), harmful ammonia can be released into the air and run into watercourses. Large tanks of slurry can also decay anaerobically releasing methane so storage mechanisms are being re-examined in light of climate change.
Lesser celandines flower along the lane in spring.
Another name for celandine is pilewort as the tubers of the plant are said to resemble piles. Based on the "doctrine of signatures" (i.e. a plant that looks a bit like something must be a cure for it), the resemblance suggested to mediaeval herbalists that celandines could be used to cure haemorrhoids. This was done by applying an ointment containing crushed celandine leaves to the relevant area. Since celandine contains a poisonous compound, some attempts to ingest celandine in an effort to cure piles have not gone too well.
Many hoverflies have colour patterns that mimic stinging bees and wasps so predators avoid them even though they don't sting. They are quite convincing con-artists and when caught will push down their abdomen in a simulated stinging action to keep up the illusion.
A thick outer bark on a tree helps to protect it from frost damage during the winter. The bark, which is often textured to trap air, and forms an insulating "buffer zone" that shields the living part of the tree, keeping this above freezing when there are sub-zero temperatures outside. The mass of dense wood inside the tree also acts as night store heater, absorbing heat during the day which is gradually released at night.
The inner bark of the tree carries sugars created by photosynthesis down from the leaves to feed the rest of the tree. The inner bark dies over time to produce the outer bark which protects the living part of the tree.
The hedges contain a mixture of broadleaf trees including sycamore, ash, hawthorn and hazel.
The first trees evolved about 360 million years ago which were a bit like tree versions of mosses. Seeds hadn't evolved at this point and so they reproduced via spores. After the arrival of the seed came conifers which were the dominant form of trees for nearly 200 million years. The flower evolved around 100 million years ago and following this, broadleaf trees appeared and eventually out-competed conifers in many habitats.
The cross is ancient and was moved here in the 1930s from Lampen Lane, downriver from the St Neot car park.
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.
Colliford Lake is the largest lake in Cornwall, covering over 900 acres and is over 100ft deep in some places. It was created in the late 1980s by damming a tributary valley of the River Fowey, as a reservoir to feed the water supply of South Cornwall. The lake and surrounding wetlands provide an important habitat for birds, and the Loveny nature reserve has been established to include the lake and surrounding moorland. The lake is a well-regarded brown trout fishery (for which fly fishing permits may be purchased, and is restocked with baby trout to supplement the wild population) and apparently also contains some huge carp.
The moorland area in the distance ahead is known as Goonzion Downs.
Goonzion Downs gets it name from the Cornish for "dry moor" as there are no streams in this area.
The downs are dotted with pits (known as shode workings) to extract tin ore from mineral veins close to the surface. Once the deposits could no longer be reached easily from the surface, larger quarries and shallow underground mines were dug to follow the tin ore deeper into the ground.
The track was once a road and is still classified as a public highway. There's even a bit of tarmac left in the next section beneath the trees.
The present church of St. Anietus is a fine 15th century building of granite, in the Perpendicular Gothic style. It retains much of its mediaeval stained glass in twelve of the windows. The only English parish church with more complete mediaeval glazing is Fairford in Gloucestershire but St Neot's is older, dating from the 1460s to the 1530s. The list of Vicars goes back to 1266 though there are no traces of an earlier building.
The Holy Well of St Neot is in the meadow a short distance along the lane starting opposite the Post Office.
The Holy Well of St. Neot is situated in a meadow beside the river, north of the village. There are many legends of St. Neot concerning the Holy Well. He is said to have stood daily in the well reciting the Psalter. The story goes that one day, by the revelation of an angel, he found three fishes in the well but was instructed never to take more than one fish. Some while later, he fell ill and his servant went to the well and took two fish which he cooked for his master. St. Neot ordered that the two fish be returned to the well where they were miraculously restored to life.
Grain for animal feed was ground using millstones made from readily-available Cornish granite which tended to shed pieces of grit that would make flour unfit for human consumption. Fine flour used for baking was milled using millstones made of imported French quartz or limestone.
There are several species of Woodrush in the UK that all look fairly similar. They are most noticeable in woodland where they often form dense mats - hence the name.
Woodrush has green pointed leaves which can be mistaken for bluebell leaves when there are no flowers to provide an obvious difference (woodrush flowers are unexciting small brown things that look a bit like grass seed). To tell the leaves apart, woodrush leaves taper steadily to a sharp point whereas bluebell leaves are relatively straight for most of their length and only taper near the end (like a broadsword). Bluebell leaves are also slightly blue-green whereas woodrush is a glossy vibrant green.
Lousewort is found on heathland and is recognisable in spring by its small pink flowers which have a "hood" above 3 lower petals.
The plant is semi-parasitic, taking nutrients and water from the roots of other plants and this is one possible explanation for the origin of the name.
The name is also associated with a belief that livestock would acquire lice if they ate the plant. Many mediaeval flora/fauna beliefs were based on jumping to a (often bonkers) conclusion based on visual resemblance, so it's possible that the hood shape of the flower was likened to a louse.
Squirrels are rodents, closely related to chipmunks and slightly more distantly to dormice. The word "squirrel" originates from an ancient Greek word meaning "shadow-tailed", referring to the bushy tail of a squirrel. A family group of squirrels is known as a "drey" (also the word for a squirrel nest). A group of unrelated squirrels is known as a "scurry", though squirrels tend not to hang out in groups.
Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK from the USA in the late 19th Century and within decades they had replaced the native red squirrel in most parts of the country.
Compared to red squirrels, grey squirrels are able to eat a wider diet (including acorns), are larger so can survive colder winters, and are better able to survive in the fragmented habitats created by urbanisation. They are also thought to be carriers of a squirrel pox virus which they usually recover from but has been fatal to red squirrels, although red squirrels are now also developing some immunity.
To date, culling of grey squirrels has not reversed their domination of woodland habitat and alternative approaches such as planting food with contraceptives are being explored as a means to control the population. The theory is that infertile squirrels can compete for food against fertile squirrels, whereas culling can create a glut of food resulting in a higher number of squirrels surviving which replace those that were exterminated. Natural predators such as goshawks or pine martens also remove more grey squirrels than red squirrels. This is because red squirrels are more savvy having co-evolved with the predators so for example they recognise the scent of pine martens and actively avoid areas with this.
Squirrels assess each of their acorns before burying them. If an acorn is too light (which suggests it might have a hole), the squirrel will eat it immediately rather than risking it going mouldy.
In order to later find the nuts that they've buried, squirrels need to be organised. Some species of squirrel have been studied and found to structure their hoards by type of nut e.g. burying all their acorns under one tree and all their conkers under another. This is equivalent to us organising all the veg onto one shelf of the fridge to make it easier to remember where to look for them.
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
Squirrels eyes are positioned on the sides of their head which allows them to spot predators approaching from behind them. When a squirrel spots a predator, its runs away in a zigzag pattern. This confuses many of their predators but unfortunately it doesn't work well for cars.
Young squirrels suffer a high mortality rate in the wild and less than one in three make it to adulthood. The ones that do, live on average for about 6 years, although a lucky one can live to about 12 years old. In captivity, where there are neither predators, cars nor cold winters to contend with, they can reach 20 years old.
By using their tail as a parachute, squirrels are able to survive falls from high trees. This allows them to attempt risky jumps between treetops that don't always work out. They are one of the few mammals that can (but not always) survive an impact at their terminal velocity i.e. if a squirrel jumped out of an aeroplane, it may well survive.
In urban areas in cold countries such as Canada, a black form of the grey squirrel is more common which is able to withstand the cold better both by retaining more heat and also having a slower metabolism. In wilderness areas where predators are more common, the black squirrels don't seem to do so well, perhaps because they are less camouflaged against trees than the grey ones.
Hazel is one of the smaller native trees, reaching only 20ft. When allowed to mature, the tree lives for about 70 years.
Catkins begin to form on hazel trees from November onwards and in February these reach full size and flower before the leaves appear. The word is from the Dutch katteken (meaning "kitten") as the catkins resemble small cats' tails.
Hazel has evolved to be pollinated by the wind. The catkins give the wind access to the pollen and the pollen grains themselves repel each other so they do not clump together and are individually carried on air currents. Insect-pollinated plants have instead involved sticky pollen that bees can collect more easily.
Until relatively recent times, most woodland included large amounts of hazel because it was the best tree for coppicing. This also considerably extends the life of the tree. Some hazel stools (the stump part that the shoots are cut from) are thought to be centuries old.
The rods cut from coppiced hazel shoots were woven into fences, used as thatching poles and as the foundation for wattle-and-daub walls. Baskets and traditional lobster pots were made from the thinner shoots. Hazel rods were also used to make clothes pegs and witches wands.
Hazel was once a popular firewood as it burns quickly and without spitting. It was also used to produce the charcoal used by blacksmiths and for smelting metals until coal became more widely available in the 18th Century.
Hazelnuts can be found beneath the trees in September and October and are a favourite with squirrels so you'll need to forage those that haven't already been nibbled. Once harvested, the nuts need to be dried before shelling and eating. Wash and dry the nuts first to reduce the chance of them going mouldy. Then lay them out on something where the air can circulate and dry them for 2-4 weeks. An airing cupboard is a good place. You can tell that they are ready when the nuts rattle in their shells. Once shelled, the nuts can be stored in a fridge or even frozen for a couple of years.
During the mesolithic (middle stone age) period, hazelnuts are thought to have been carried as portable food and this is thought to have led to the rapid spread of hazel to new areas seen in archaeological pollen analysis.
Less active woodland management has led to a decline in hazel as larger woodland trees gradually form a dense canopy that blocks out the light, out-competing the hazel. Grey squirrels have also contributed to the decline by eating so many of the nuts that fewer now successfully germinate.
Full page maps cannot be printed due to copyright and terms of use.