Trevose Head is named after Trevose Farm near Mother Ivey's Bay. In 1302, this was recorded as Trenfos and is thought to mean "farm by the wall". Walls were obviously needed to keep livestock away from cliff edges.
Trevose lighthouse is situated on the north west extremity of Trevose Head. Built in 1847 of granite quarried from the headland, the lighthouse tower is 27 metres tall, and has a range of 20 nautical miles (37 km). Between 1912 and 1995, the lighthouse flashed red (since then it's been white). Up until 1995, the lighthouse had a keeper; now it's automated. Between 1913 and 1963, a fog horn developed by Lord Rayleigh was in use here. This consisted of a 36 foot long rectangular trumpet. Walking along the coast path on a foggy day was not for the faint-hearted back then!
Until electric lighting was introduced, the light for a lighthouse was produced by burning a thin oil such as paraffin. However this wasn't burnt on a wick like domestic lighting. Instead, a pressurised system was used, typically powered by a hand pump, to force the oil through a nozzle to create fine mist which instantly vaporised in the heat from combustion. This mixture of paraffin gas and air burnt rapidly, generating a bright light. As well as header tanks in the lighthouse itself, larger storage tanks were needed nearby.
Trevose is at a corner on the Cornish peninsula, so a lot of shipping traffic passed close by. During the first World War, a number of cargo ships were sunk by German U-boats lurking off Trevose Head, or mines laid in the area. Two of the ships sunk here towards the end of the war were cargo ships carrying coal from South Wales.
The Poldown was a 1370-ton steamship. On 9 October 1917, she was on her way from South Wales with a cargo of coal, when she struck a German mine and sank.
The Anna Sofie was a large cargo ship of 2577 tons. On 23 July, 1918 she was returning from Northern France to South Wales when she was torpedoed by U55, just off Trevose Head. Four days before sinking the Anna Sofie, the U55 had sunk the Carpathia (the liner that rescued survivors from the Titanic in 1912).
The approximate position of the Anna Sophie was recorded on Admiralty charts. However, when divers eventually located and dived the wreck, they had a surprise: this was the Poldown with its cargo of coal. For many years, another shipwreck alongside Diver Rock was known about, but its identity was unclear. Once the Poldown had been correctly identified, there were suspicions that this one might be the Anna Sofie. This was finally confirmed by a number found on a steam valve.
The concrete remains on Trevose head are thought to be linked to a wartime observation post and bombing range in the bay. There was an air station at Crugmeer during WW1 and an airfield at St Merryn during WW2 so it is possible that elements of the remains date from both periods.
Kestrels are easily spotted when hovering, watching their prey. Whilst hovering, kestrels have the extraordinary ability to keep their head totally still, even in strong winds.
From the headland there are good views of the lifeboat station and the rocks around Barras Bay. The headland on the opposite side of the bay with the tower is Stepper Point, forming one edge of the Camel Estuary. The tower (known as the "Pepper Pot") is a daymark used by shipping for navigation.
The first lane that the footpath crosses leads to the Padstow lifeboat station.
The Padstow Lifeboat was relocated to Mother Ivy's Bay in October 1967 due to river silting at Hawker's Cove. The current lifeboat, known as the "Spirit of Padstow", was brought into service on July 17th 2006. Things have moved on a little from Padstow's original lifeboat rowed by hand: this one is controlled using touchscreens, has a top speed of 25 knots and is capable of towing 7 tonne ships. It has a crew of 7, including a doctor.
The "herringbone" style of walling built with tightly packed alternating diagonal slate courses, is unique to Cornwall's heritage.
Traditionally, hedges (stone boundary walls) were built with whatever was cleared out of the fields, whilst buildings were constructed from stone that was quarried and cut. On a long wall, the herringbone sections are often between "towers" of flat-laid slate (built from the larger and squarer stones) which helped to prevent the wall slumping sideways.
Mother Ivey's Bay is named after a white witch who is said to have cursed the land of a local fishing family who didn't share their catch with the starving inhabitants of Padstow and instead ploughed the fish into their fields as fertiliser. Since then, mysterious deaths have allegedly occurred for people digging in the cursed fields. David Cameron is reported to have stayed in the cursed house for his summer holiday in 2008, some years prior to the Brexit referendum.
The area around Trevose Head and Constantine Bay is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) for both geological and biological reasons. Wild asparagus grows on the cliffs of Dinas Head, and Shore Dock at the base of the cliffs. The cliffs are also important breeding grounds for fulmar, razorbill and guillemot.
Tamarisks, also known as salt cedars, are able to withstand drought, soil salinity, and salt-water spray and therefore thrive in mild coastal areas such as the Cornish coastline. Their ability to accumulate salt and then excrete this through glands in their leaves prevents less salt-tolerant plants from growing around their base.
In October 1895, the "Jessie McClew" was on its way from Wales to Hayle with a cargo of coal when the wind increased to a severe gale. On the way around Trevose Head, the vessel was driven ashore at Booby's Bay. The crew managed to launch a lifeboat and made it to some rocks on the shore where they were rescued by a small band of locals.
Against the rocks of Booby's Bay is the shipwreck of the SV Carl.
The wreck of the SV Carl lies against the rocks of Booby's Bay, next to Constantine Bay. The SV Carl was in Cardiff docks when war broke out in 1914 and was impounded. In 1917 it broke free in a storm whilst it was being towed to London to be broken up for scrap. An eyewitness account was recalled in 1966:
The Carl went aground on the outer reef... Two Admiralty tugs came from Devonport to try to refloat her. They got her off the reef, but as soon as they had done so, the towing hawser on each tug parted, Carl went ahead out of control and grounded on the inner reef. She was there examined by salvage experts...who found no damage whatever to the hull. The Admiralty tugs therefore had another try to tow her off, but once more both ship’s towing harnesses parted. Carl broke her back and became a total loss. But for the unusual misfortune of both towing hawsers parting on two successive attempts Carl would in all probability have been salvaged.
In 1917, work began to salvage the materials from the 60ft ship for scrap metal, but the wreck became covered in sand which put an end to the salvage work. The remainder lay buried beneath the sand with only the occasional part (often just part of the anchor) protruding until the huge storms of early 2014 stripped more than a metre of sand from the beach, exposing the wreck in an excellent state of preservation from being under the sand. One of the three steel masts is amongst the wreckage and is still largely intact.
Waves pounding into a cave compress the air inside. This can often be seen venting quite explosively from a cave as a blowhole. Inside the cave, the force from the air being rapidly compressed and decompressed gradually fractures the rock. Eventually this is unable to support the weight of the roof of the cave. Once this collapses, the sea washes away the soil and smaller stones leaving just the largest boulders which are slowly smoothed by the wave action.
The rocks off Trevose Head have been the cause of many shipwrecks, and are the main reason that the lighthouse was built. The single large rock, a couple of hundred metres off Dinas Head, is known as The Bull. The group of rocks just over a kilometre offshore are known as The Quies, though were recorded as the "Cow and Calf" on maps of 1720, continuing the bovine herd further out to sea.
Gorse is a legume, related to peas and like other members of the pea family it's able to get its nitrogen from the air. It's also tolerant to heavy metals in the soil and to salt. This makes it able to grow in Cornwall's harshest environments: moorland, coast and mine waste tips.
Like other members of the pea family, gorse produces its seeds in pods. The seeds are ejected with a popping sound when pods split open in hot weather. This can catapult the seeds up to five metres. The plants are able to live 30 years and survive sub-zero temperatures, the seeds can withstand fire and remain viable in the soil for 30 years.
Gorse seeds each contain a small body of ant food. The seeds also release a chemical which attracts ants from some distance away. The ants carry the seeds to their nests, eat the ant food and then discard the seeds, helping them to disperse.
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.
Gorse is also known (particularly in the Westcountry) as furze from the Middle English word furs. This itself is from the Old English word fyres, closely related to the Old English word for fire.
Before the Industrial Revolution, gorse was valued as a fuel for bread ovens and kilns as it burns rapidly, very hot and with little ash. It was in such demand that there were quite strict rules about how much gorse could be cut on common land.
In more recent times, due to reliance on fossil fuels, this is now out of balance and gorse has increased in rural areas which have been abandoned agriculturally.
As gorse ages, it accumulates more dead material. The spiky, springy nature of the plant even when dead means air can circulate well through the dead material and when this dries out in the summer, it substantially increases the risk of fires. As gorse seeds have evolved to withstand fire, controlled burning can be used to used to keep the gorse at a young age where uncontrolled fires are less likely.
Gorse is present as two species along the Atlantic coast and size is the easiest way to tell them apart: Common Gorse bushes are up to 10ft tall whereas Western Gorse is more of a mat - less than 1ft tall. Common Gorse flowers in spring whereas Western Gorse flowers in late summer - early autumn.
In 2005 a man had to be rescued from a 10ft deep patch of coastal gorse by helicopter. Whilst mountain biking home along the coast from a bar, with the assistance of a not insignificant amount of alcohol, he managed to catapult himself into the bushes where he remained stuck for 2 days before being found by a passer-by. She asked if he needed help, to which he replied "can you ring the RAF?".
Between the two species, some gorse is almost always in flower, hence the old country phrases: "when gorse is out of blossom, kissing's out of fashion" (which is recorded from the mid-19th century) and "when the furze is in bloom, my love's in tune" (which dates from the mid-18th century). Common gorse flowers are bright yellow. Western gorse flowers are very slightly more orange - more like the colour of the "yolk" in a Cadbury's creme egg. Also like creme eggs, gorse flowers are edible but are significantly better for use in salads and to make a tea, beer or wine.
Common gorse flowers have a coconut-like scent but rather than fresh coconut, it is reminiscent of desiccated coconut or the popular brand of surf wax, Mr Zoggs. However, not everyone experiences the smell in the same way: for some people it's very strong and for others it quite weak. One complicating factor is that Western Gorse flowers don't have any scent, so you need to be sniffing a tall gorse plant to test yourself.
Flower scents are volatile organic compounds which drift though the air and has evolved as an advertisement to pollinating insects that nectar is available. Squeezing the flowers releases these compounds onto the surface where they can evaporate and therefore intensifies the smell. Similarly the warming effect of sunlight helps the compounds to evaporate faster and so the smell is more intense on sunny days.
Gorse flower wine can be made using 5 litres of gorse flowers stripped from the stems and simmering these in 5 litres of boiling water. Once the flowers are removed, 1.3kg of sugar should be dissolved in the hot water and allowed to cool to room temperature. Then add 500g of chopped raisins and juice and zest of 2 lemons and ferment with white wine yeast and yeast nutrient. Although flowers are present year-round, they are best picked in spring (April and May) when they are most profuse and fragrant.
The large black birds nesting on offshore rocks, known colloquially as the cormorant and shag, are two birds of the same family and to the untrained eye look pretty similar. The origin of the name "shag" is a crest that this species has on top of its head and the cormorant doesn't. The cormorant is the larger of the two birds with a whiter throat. The shag's throat is yellow, and mature shags have a metallic green sheen on their feathers which cormorants lack.
A number of prehistoric flint tools have been found in the Booby's Bay and Trevose Head area. The flints were likely to have been from pebbles washed ashore from the offshore chalk deposits that run under the Celtic Sea, possibly from the Haig Fras reefs approx 100 miles to the west of Trevose Head. The flint tools are thought to date from around 6500 BC. In that period, sea levels were much lower and Trevose head would have been a couple of miles inland and forested.
Alexanders are a member of the carrot family and grow along roadsides in places similar to cow parsley. The leaves are more solid than the lacy cow parsley leaves and the flowers are yellow rather than white. The name arises because the plant was introduced to the UK by the Romans and was known as the "pot herb of Alexandria". It is also sometimes known as horse parsley.
Alexanders are very salt tolerant so they thrive in Cornwall's salty climate. They are just as likely to be found along coastal footpaths as along country lanes. New growth appears in the autumn so during the winter, when most other plants are dormant, it is a dominant source of greenery along paths and lanes in exposed coastal areas.
Another place that alexanders are commonly found is near the sites of mediaeval settlements, in particular religious settlements where they were cultivated by monks as a vegetable. In mediaeval cuisine they were used as an alternative to celery (which was a more bitter plant back then). It was traditionally one of the "pot herbs" that were added to stews and the dried seeds can also be used as a spice. Alexanders were particularly useful during lean winters as its new growth is available in the late Autumn, before many other spring greens.
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).
On April 18th 1918, the cargo ship Runswick, carrying coal, was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Despite the damage, she didn't sink. The crew were transferred to another vessel which proceeded to tow the Runswick. However, the towing hawsers broke and she drifted onto The Quies, off Trevose Head, and sank. The wreck lies between the innermost two islands and is now festooned with sea life including Cup Corals, Jewel Anemones of different colours, Dahlia Anemones, Sea Squirts, Starfish and Spider Crabs.
In April 1901, the cargo steamer Whinfield was bound for Cardiff with a cargo of Iron ore. As the ship approached Trevose Head, a fog descended which concealed the lighthouse. Disoriented, the ship ended up deviating inland of its intended course and struck the Quies off Trevose Head. Fortunately the crew managed to escape in a lifeboat before the ship went down. A court somewhat harshly found the captain's seamanship to be substandard and suspended his licence for 3 months, arguing he could have dropped a plumbline to establish he was inshore of his intended course and averted disaster by veering seaward.
Stonechats are robin-sized birds with a black head and orange breast that are common along the Cornish coast all year round.
The name "stonechat" comes from the sound of their call which resembles stones being knocked together.
During the summer months, stonechats eat invertebrates. As temperatures drop and there are not so many of these about, they make do with seeds and fruit such as blackberries. Quite a few die in cold winters but this is offset by their fast breeding rate during the warmer months.
A similar-looking bird called the whinchat is also present in the summer but this can be identified by a white stripe across its eye. Both stonechats and whinchats can often be spotted perching on dead sticks or brambles protruding above gorse and heather, and consequently the term "gorse chat" or "furze chat" has been used locally to mean either species. For a long time, stonechats and whinchats were thought to be members of the thrush family but genetic studies have revealed they are actually members of the (Old World) flycatcher family.
Skylarks are the most common member of the lark family in Britain and are often known simply as "larks".
Skylarks are one of the most widely distributed of all British birds, found from coastal dunes to mountain tops. In Cornwall, they can be seen both in coastal fields and on Bodmin Moor. The coastal heath is a particularly good habitat for them, being mild but with fairly short vegetation in which they can hunt for insects.
The phrase "to lark about" may have its origins in the aerobatics of the skylark. At the start of the 19th Century, young boys who played about in the rigging of ships were known as "skylarks". The use of "to lark" as a verb can be traced back as far as the early 19th Century. By the middle of the century, it had reach America where "larking about" is first recorded.
In late spring and summer, listen out for the characteristic song of skylarks hovering high above the ground. The rapid song takes place in quite a narrow frequency range but can contain more than 450 syllables used in highly variable patterns. This is the reason it sounds a bit like the "modem" devices used to transfer digital data as an audio signal.
The phrase "up with the lark", used to describe early risers, dates back to at least the 16th century. Skylarks are the first birds to sing in the dawn chorus, often whilst it's still dark.
The collective noun for larks ("an exaltation") dates back to "The Book of Saint Albans" printed in 1486 which provided tips on hunting, hawking, and heraldry. It also included "a murmuration of starlings", "an unkindness of ravens" and "a clattering of choughs".
During mediaeval times, skylarks were eaten and there are records of the food price for larks from the 13th Century onward. Larks were captured by dragging nets across fields at night, not unlike modern commercial fishing techniques.
Almost all European countries have reported a rapid decline in lark numbers over recent years. In Britain, two-thirds of the population has disappeared in 30 years. This is thought mainly to be due to intensive agriculture and particularly the autumn sowing of cereals. When cereals were sown in the spring, the fields of stubble that remained after harvest provided an environment where larks could nest during the winter.
Lark shooting was a popular sport in Victorian times. Revolving mirrors were used to attract the migrating birds, which would hover over the mirror. There are records of over 1,000 birds being shot at a single mirror in a day. Despite being flagged as high conservation concern on the the IUCN Red List, at the time of writing in 2020, skylarks can still be legally shot in France and still are in large numbers.
Thrift is a tough evergreen plant which grows on sea cliffs and consequently it's the county flower of the Scilly Isles. To survive in this environment it needs to be able to withstand drought and salt-laden winds. Its long, thin leaves and hairy flower stems have evolved to minimise water loss.
The name "thrift" has been suggested to arise from the plant's tufted leaves being economical with water in the windy locations where it is found. It's common all along the Cornish coast and in April-June produces pale pink flowers, hence its other common name: "Sea Pink". The plant grows in dense circular mats which together with its covering of pink flowers gives rise to another less common name: "Ladies' Cushions".
Thrift is tolerant of metals such as lead and particularly copper in soil so it is able to colonise coastal mine tips. It has been suggested that the heavy metal tolerance may be partly down to not transporting much dissolved metal up the shoot of the plant (since thrift grows in a desiccating salty environment, there is less water to transport it than in many other plants). However thrift also has mechanisms to sequester metals and excrete them through its roots and leaves.
Thrift is known as a "hyperaccumulator" of copper: it can concentrate copper by over 1000 times more than other neighbouring plants. This makes it potentially useful to clean up contaminated land but this be done over many years. In principle it's even possible to mine for minerals by concentrating them in plants and then extracting them (known as "phytomining"). It's currently far from economical to do so for copper but for rarer high-value metals it may become economical, possibly in conjunction with chemical soil additives to increase bio-availability.
The "National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty" was founded in 1895 when snappy names weren't in fashion. Their first coastal acquisition was Barras Nose at Tintagel in 1897. Five years later, Tintagel Old Post Office was their first house to be acquired in Cornwall. The National Trust now owns over 700 miles of British coastline.
The National Trust now has over 4 million members and is the largest voluntary conservation organisation in Europe. In the UK, the National Trust has more members than all the political parties combined and the only organisation currently larger at the time of writing is the AA.
National Trust cafés serve around 4.5 million cups of tea per year which is enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool.
The National Trust owns 250,000 hectares of land, of which 10% is currently woodland. The organisation has made a commitment to increase this to 17% by 2030 by planting 20 million trees.
The National Trust is the largest owner of farms in the UK. It has around 2,000 tenants and over 600,000 acres of land. It has been calculated that 43% of all the rainwater in England and Wales drains through National Trust land.
The National Trust maintains a network of around 15,000 miles of paths on their land, roughly a quarter of which are public rights of way and the remaining majority are permissive paths.
Gulland is the most westerly and largest of the 3 rocky islands around the Camel estuary, lying between Stepper Point and Trevose Head. The name "Gulland" is likely to be a corruption of the Cornish word goelann meaning "gull", and the rock appears as "the gull rock" on map of 1576. It is reported to be used by seals as a nursery. Puffins can also sometimes be seen here and it is postulated this might be a small colony distinct from the larger colony on The Mouls.
The herring gull is the gull most commonly encountered in Cornwall, with a grey back and red spot on their yellow beak. They live for around 12 years and are highly intelligent birds with strong communication and social learning skills. This has allowed them to evolve strategies to obtain food more easily by stealing it from humans, either when briefly left unattended or by swooping and grabbing from unsuspecting hands.
Whilst their pasty and ice cream stealing antics in coastal resorts might give the impression there are lots around, the coastal herring gull population dropped by about 50% from 1970 to the mid 1980s and the decline has continued with another drop of around 50% up to 2020.
Part of the decline in coastal herring gull populations can be explained by a migration of birds inland to urban areas. Birds have been driven inland in search of food and roosting sites due to declining fish populations and lack of undisturbed coastal nesting sites. In urban areas, streetlights allow gulls to forage by night and there is no longer much competition from red kites, which scavenged the rubbish tips in the Middle Ages.
At the time of writing, a survey of the inland populations is being carried out to determine the relative size of these vs the coastal population and if these are stable. The first datasets from some of the devolved UK Nations suggest that is unlikely to explain the majority of the decline. Since the 1990s, 96% of the population in Northern Ireland died out predominantly from botulism. It's thought that birds seeking food on rubbish tips might be bringing this back to colonies.
The herring gull is an example of a "ring species". In Europe, the lesser black-backed gull and herring gull are distinct species, yet as you circumnavigate the globe, the populations become more similar until they merge in the middle as a single species.
Herring gulls are able to communicate nuances both by altering the frequency and timbre of their calls - conveying, for example, the relative severity of a threat in an alarm call. They also analyse and remember the personality of their neighbours, ignoring more skittish birds but taking action when a more trusted bird raises an alarm.
In Cornwall, cliffs erode at an average rate of between roughly 3cm - 30cm per year depending on the hardness of the rocks and location. In reality this often happens in infrequent sudden collapses rather than as a steady, gradual process. It was found that one massive storm in 2014 caused around 100 times the average amount of erosion. There are obvious implications from climate change leading to more frequent or more intense storms.
Oystercatchers are recognisable by their black-and-white bodies, their long, straight red beaks and loud, piercing call. In flight, the white markings form an image of a white bird towards the back of their otherwise black backs which may have evolved to confuse predators.
The long beaks are adapted to open shellfish - mainly cockles and mussels - "cocklecatchers" would be a more accurate name. They can also use their bill to probe for worms.
The white flowers along the coast in July and August which resemble a more compact version of cow parsley are the delightfully-named sea carrot. Unlike cow parsley, the flowers start off pink and become white as they open and sometimes have a single dark red flower in the centre. It's best to avoid touching the leaves of the sea carrot as they can make skin hypersensitive to ultraviolet light which can result in blistering caused by extreme sunburn.
The sea carrot is technically the same species as a wild carrot, from which the carrot was domesticated, but is shorter, stouter and more splayed-out than a wild carrot. The two converge the further north and east that you go in Britain: West Cornwall is therefore the pinnacle of sea carrot evolution.
Booby's Bay gets it's name from the seabird related to a gannet (the name itself is based on the Spanish word for "stupid" as the birds were easy to catch and eat) which are not native to the UK so it's probably actually gannets that gave rise to the name.
At high tide, the beach is little more than rock platforms, but as the tide goes out, a sandy beach is revealed. The wreck of the SS Carl is buried in the sand and sometimes exposed after winter storms.
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