A large stone pit for a water wheel can be seen beside the river on the path from the first of the two waymarks. This was associated with Wheal Vyvyan mine that operated in the valley. A 3D model of it has been published on the internet.
Waterwheels were used in the mining industry as the preferred source of power (vs donkeys) before the availability of steam engines. Their use continued during the Industrial Revolution as a cheap source of power where there was an easily-accessed source of water, that didn't require expensive coal to be imported.
The power from waterwheels was put to a number of uses including pumping water from underground tunnels and crushing ore. They were also used to raise ore from a mineshaft. In this case, ore barrels needed to be wound downwards as well as upwards. The problem was solved by having two sets of water buckets facing in opposite directions on either side of the wheel so water could be directed into one or the other. A braking mechanism was also needed so when the barrel hit the bottom of the shaft, the wheel didn't keep unravelling cable and create a tangle.
Bluebells are very vulnerable to trampling. The reason for this is that when their leaves emerge in the early part of the year, they are powered by the stored sugars in their bulbs. Sunlight is very limited at this time of the year and even more so in the shady places where they grow. In order to survive, they then need to photosynthesise flat-out to store enough starch in the bulb for next year's growth. If a bluebell’s leaves are crushed, it cannot photosynthesise and and doesn't have enough reserves left in its bulb to grow new ones. It's therefore important to stick to footpaths in bluebell woodland and best to take photos with a zoom lens from there as wandering around in the bluebells to take photos will inadvertently kill them.
Bracket fungi can be recognised by tough, woody shelf-like growths known as conks. Some species can live for a very long time and are often coloured with annual growth rings.
Trewardreva fogou, also known as the Piskey Hall, is located on private farmland with no official public access although some people have reported that the farmer has allowed them permission to view it provided they follow the countryside code. The fogou consists of a 8.5 metre long tunnel walled with stone but may have extended further in the past.
Wheal Vyvyan was a tin and copper mine (on land owned by the Trelowarren Estate belonging to Sir Richard Vyvyan - hence the name). The origins of mine are thought to be fairly ancient and on a small scale but the main intensive working period from which the wheel pit dates took place between 1827 until the mine closed in 1864. Around 80 men worked underground and there were stamping mills near Ponjeravah and at Polwheveral where another 30 men and boys were employed. Because copper ore is less heavy and more crumbly than tin ore, part of the processing involved breaking copper ore by hand as the mechanical approach used for tin would create a fine powder from which it was difficult to recover the copper. A dozen young women were therefore employed to do the rock breaking work.
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.
The first record of the settlement of Constantine is in the 1086 Domesday survey as "Sanctus Constantinus". In the 16th Century it was recorded in a more Cornish language form as Langostentyn (but basically still "Constantine churchyard"). The Domesday survey records that the settlement included land for four ploughs.
The two granite slabs forming the upright posts on the outside of the lychgate are thought to be halves of a large cross base that may have originally supported the churchyard cross.
There are records from 1283 of the church here changing ownership but nothing of the building from the Norman period remains. The present church was built in the 15th Century and was restored between 1859 and 1901.
There is some evidence of activity in Constantine in the Early Mediaeval period before the arrival of the Normans. A Celtic monastery is recorded at Constantine, possibly from the 6th Century. Also a fragment found in 1975 dates from the 10th or 11th Century. Three Roman coins (unfortunately now lost) were recorded as being found in the church but it's not clear if these were brought here after Roman times.
Honesty is recognisable by its four-petal purple flowers and serrated leaves in spring and flat, circular, translucent seed pods in late summer and autumn. It was originally from eastern Europe and southwestern Asia but has been naturalised in the UK for hundreds of years and is also found in many temperate regions of the world. The name "honesty" arose in 16th Century Britain and is thought to be a reference to the translucency of the seed pods. The Genus name - Lunaria - likens the seed pods to moons and for similar reasons it is known as "silver dollars" in the USA. Despite its exotic appearance, it's a member of the cabbage family.
The name stitchwort dates from mediaeval times when it is likely to have been believed that it had powers to cure an exercise-induced stitch. Other common names for Greater Stitchwort include "star-of-Bethlehem" (due to the shape and perhaps Easter flowering time) and "poor-man's buttonhole" for budget weddings. It is also known as "wedding cakes" but that may be more due to the colour than anticipation of what a buttonhole might lead to. The seed capsules can sometimes be heard bursting open in the late spring sunshine which gives rise to names such as "snapdragon" and "popguns".
Crocosmia was first recorded in the wild in 1911 and since then has spread, particularly along the west coast of Britain. It is extremely invasive and classified as a "Critical Risk" by Plantlife. In western Ireland the spread is even more extreme, with miles of roadside verges obliterated of any other plants. It is now a criminal offence to cause it to grow in the wild.
Fern fronds form in a coil (known as a crozier or fiddlehead) with the delicate tip protected in the centre. As the outer parts begin to photosynthesise, the sugars they produce cause more water to be drawn into the leaf, causing it to expand and gradually unfurl.
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 satellite dishes on the skyline are part of Goonhilly Earth Station.
Goonhilly Earth Station was set up in the 1960s for telecommunications. Its first dish, Antenna One (also known as "Arthur"), was built in 1962 to receive TV from the Telstar satellite and was ready for the first day of broadcasts. In 1969, the sound and images from Apollo 11 were broadcast to the world from here as Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the Moon.
It went on to become the largest satellite earth station in the world for a while, with over 60 communications dishes and 25 in use at any one time. During the 21st Century, it has been repurposed for space exploration.
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.
Celandine roots have numerous knobbly tubers and when these break off, a new plant can regrow from the tuber. Digging animals such as rabbits and squirrels can therefore help to spread celandines. In some parts of the world they have become an invasive problem where their dense mat of leaves chokes out native species which have not evolved to compete with them.
The blackbird is a species of thrush. The name "blackbird" is mediaeval, first recorded in 1486. Since most of the crow family is also black, plus many seabirds, the choice of this particular species for the name is thought to be due to its size. Up to the 18th Century, larger birds such as crows were referred to as "fowl" and the term "bird" was only used for smaller species.
Herons can sometimes be seen fishing in the creek.
Herons nest in tree-top colonies known as "heronries" where they make a large nest from twigs. It is not unusual for a single tree to contain as many as 10 nests and the overall colony can reach over a hundred nests. The herons re-use their nest for as many years as possible until it gets blown away by a storm. It is unwise to stand beneath a heronry as the birds defend their nests by regurgitating half-digested fish on those below!
The little egret - a white member of the heron family - can be seen on many of the creeks in Cornwall and yet is only a very recent settler in Britain. The birds first appeared in Britain in any number in 1989 and the first to breed was in 1996 in Dorset.
A granite quay was built here at the start of the 19th Century by Charles Scott (hence "Scott's Quay"), and used to export stone from the nearby quarries and ore from the mines too. The original quay stuck out more into the river (visible as seaweed-covered blocks at low tide) and was designed to reach into the creek far enough for vessels to dock in the river water below the mudflats when the tide was out. The stone for the quay itself may have come from a small quarry on the other side of the track into the field. It's possible that less fancy stone was required to build the quay whereas the material being transported from the quarries to the north could be sold for a good price.
In tidal rivers, the discharge of freshwater and friction with the riverbed effectively "holds back" the rising tide. The further up the tidal region of the river, the shorter the interval between low and high tide and the faster the rising tide comes in when it eventually does.
The track is thought to have been built at the same time as Scott's Quay in order to transport granite to it from the quarries.
The jay is a member of the crow family recognisable by the flash of electric blue on their otherwise brown body. Their natural habitat is woodland, particularly oak.
Like squirrels, jays collect and bury acorns as a winter food store. Once jays were the main means by which oaks colonised new locations as a population of 65 jays can bury (but not always find again afterwards) half a million acorns in a month. Jays prefer to bury their acorns in open ground which is an ideal spot for a new oak tree.
The first record of a settlement of Polwheveral is from 1296 as Polweverer. The name means "lively stream" in Cornish which is consistent with the boulder-strewn stream bed.
The first record of the settlement of Ponjeravah is from 1591 as Ponsaravith. The pons part of the name is from the Cornish for bridge. Before the current bridge (built in the 19th Century) there was a 16th Century bridge here. Since the name is likely to date from Early Mediaeval times, some sort of bridge is likely to have been here for a long time before that.
A fogou is a drystone underground passage found in a few Iron Age settlements in West Cornwall. Their purpose is not known. One theory is that they were used for food storage whilst another is that they had a ceremonial use.
The word derives from the Cornish word for cave (mogow which became vogou). This also gave rise to a dialect word for cave - "vug" - which has been assimilated into mining terminology to mean a natural cavity in rock.
Like its domesticated relatives, wild garlic grows from a bulb. To distinguish it from other wild plants from the onion/garlic family (such as the three-cornered leek), the species sometimes just called "wild garlic" (Allium ursinum) is often known by the name ramsons or broad-leaf garlic. The scientific name (meaning bear leek) is because the bulbs are thought to be a favourite food of brown bears on the European mainland.
Unlike their more versatile narrow-leaved cousins the three-cornered leeks, ramsons grow mainly in shady places such as woodland. Their broad leaves are solar panels that have evolved to capture the weak winter light early in the year before the trees are in leaf. They are an indicator that woodland is ancient and has provided a shady environment over a long period to colonise.
Despite the pungent smell, the leaves of wild garlic are quite delicate in flavour so can be used quite large quantities in cooking or more sparingly within salads. They are at their most fiery early in the season. As well as a garlic flavour, the leaves have a slight (though not excessive) bitter note which can be balanced against sweet flavours (e.g. tomato or roasted pepper) or salty flavours like bacon to cut through a rich sauce.
Wild garlic is best harvested in early spring before it flowers and the leaves start to die off. Unlike domestic garlic, the leaves are generally used rather than the bulb, which is very small. Note that there are some lilies that look very similar and are poisonous! If it doesn't smell strongly of garlic/onions, then it's not wild garlic and should be avoided. A schoolboy error is to rub the leaves between fingers where the smell lingers so a subsequent poisonous lily leaf could be misidentified.
Wild garlic can be preserved as a frozen paste for use as a cooking ingredient throughout the year. Simply whizz up roughly chopped leaves in a food processor with enough olive oil to make a fairly thick paste and then freeze this in an ice cube tray (or slightly larger silicone moulds if you have them). Standard cooking olive oil will do for this (it's a waste to use extra-virgin as the powerful garlic will mask its flavour). Turn out the frozen blocks into a bag and keep in the freezer. They can then be used as garlic "stock cubes", added just before the end of cooking.
Wild garlic has been found in settlements dating as far back as the neolithic period which given its springtime abundance and aroma is not that surprising. Its culinary use was eventually overtaken by domesticated garlic which first arrived with Mediterranean traders and had the advantage that the bulbs could be stored for relatively long periods.
If cows eat wild garlic, this flavours their milk. Whilst this is definitely not what's wanted for tea or cornflakes, the butter made from it is more useful. This means of producing garlic butter became popular in Switzerland in the 19th Century.
All plants in the onion family are poisonous to dogs including wild garlic. This is one of the reasons that feeding dogs human foods (many of which contain onion such as gravy powder) is not good for them. Garlic is extremely toxic to dogs and cats and the consumption of even a small amount can lead to severe poisoning. Keep dogs away from wild garlic and wash their paws if they come into contact with it.
You can make impressively green pasta with wild garlic and the garlic flavour goes well with most pasta sauces. Whizz up some wild garlic leaves with olive oil to make a thick paste (or retrieve some of this from the freezer and zap in the microwave to defrost). Whisk an egg and add roughly the same amount of your wild garlic paste as the egg. Now keep adding plain flour until you reach a stiff dough (stiffer than bread dough). Roll out fairly (but not excessively) thin keeping it coated with plenty of flour to stop it sticking. Roll it up into a Swiss roll and then cut at 1cm intervals with a sharp knife. Unroll all the strips into a floured surface first and then quickly drop them into boiling water. It will be done in just a minute or 2 (as soon as it floats) so get the strips in at the same time and have your pasta sauce made and ready to go before you cook the pasta.
In a small food processor, whizz approx 20g of Italian-style hard cheese (Parmesan or Pecorino). Optionally whizz in about the same amount of any toasted nuts (nice but not vital). Next whizz in 50g of wild garlic leaves. You can also add 10g lemon balm leaves if you have it growing in your garden. Add zest of a lemon, juice of half the lemon and whizz in a couple of glugs of olive oil to the desired consistency. Finally whizz in salt and pepper to taste.
Make your own super-quick fresh pasta with 200g plain flour, 4g salt, 1 egg and enough water to form a smooth dough. Use a good dusting of flour and roll out thin. Dust again, roll up into a Swiss roll and cut across at 1cm intervals to form spirals. Unravel each and drop the squiggles into boiling water. Done when it floats (about 2 min).
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.
Some of the earliest bee hives were made of wicker and covered in mud. During the Middle Ages, woven domes were made from grass known as skeps and the bee colony was kept in this. These provided no internal structure so bees would create their own honeycomb. Also since there was only one chamber, the bees were usually killed to harvest the honey and wax. In the 18th Century, multi-tier structures were developed where the honey could be harvested from one tier whilst the colony could live on in another tier. Also in the 18th Century, the first internal frames began to appear, allowing honey to be harvested more easily. During the 19th Century, the modern style of bee hive was developed.
Lesser celandines are common plants along woodland paths recognisable by their yellow star-shaped flowers. Despite their name, they are not closely related to the Greater Celandine. Lesser celandines are actually a member of the buttercup family and, like buttercups, they contain the poisonous chemical protoanemonin.
From December until the spring, celandine leaves are quite noticeable along the edge of paths. They have a shape similar to a "spade" in a pack of cards and are patterned with lighter green or silvery markings.
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.
Due to their early flowering period and prolific quantities in shady places, celandines are an important nectar source for pollinators emerging from hibernation such as a queen bumblebee.
On one of our walks we encountered a schoolteacher telling a group of children holding a celandine that they had found a buttercup. Children can correct their teachers by noting that that "normal" buttercups have wide petals that overlap whereas celandine petals are thin spikes with a large gap between each. Also whilst celandines are out from mid-February, buttercups are normally seen from mid-April and their peak flowering is in May and early June. Their flowering periods do overlap slightly in late April but by May, celandines are past their best.
The name celandine is thought to be derived from the Greek word for swallow, based on the arrival of swallows being a sign of spring. Another common name for celandine is spring messenger, based on the early flowering. This was presumably also the basis of the Victorian use as a symbol of "joys to come".
Celandine flowers close each night and open each morning. This is controlled by a circadian rhythm, so they really are "going to sleep" at night and "waking up in the morning". It is likely that this has arisen to protect the internals of the flowers from any frost during the night as they begin flowering in March when frosts are still common.
Celandine roots have numerous knobbly tubers and when these break off, a new plant can regrow from the tuber. Digging animals such as rabbits and squirrels can therefore help to spread celandines. In some parts of the world they have become an invasive problem where their dense mat of leaves chokes out native species which have not evolved to compete with them.
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.
Lichens are a partnership of two different organisms: a fungus providing the "accommodation" and an alga or cyanobacterium providing the "food" through photosynthesis. The fungal partner provides a cosy, sheltered environment for the alga and tends it with mineral nutrients. However, the alga partner is more than simply an imprisoned food-slave: it is such a closely-evolved alliance that the fungus is dependant on the alga for its structure. If the fungal partner is isolated and grown on an agar plate, it forms a shapeless, infertile blob.
One in five of all known fungi form lichens. Studies suggest that many species of fungi that form lichens started out from ancestors that lived on organic waste. Fossils have also revealed that the symbiosis between algae and fungi dates back more than 400 million years roughly to the time when plants first evolved from green algae.
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.
You'll notice that there is lichen growing on many of the headstones in the churchyard. Of the 2,000 British species, over a third have been found in churchyards and more than 600 have been found growing on churchyard stone in lowland England. Almost half the species are rare and some seldom, if ever, occur in other habitats. Many churchyards are found to have well over 100 species.
Lichens obtain nearly all their nutrients from the atmosphere and therefore can be very sensitive to air pollution. As a general rule of thumb, healthy lichens means clean air, but more specifically, different species have been found to be sensitive to different pollutants. By identifying common species that exhibits change for a particular pollutant, lichens can be used as an early warning dashboard showing not only how much air pollution there is but also what kind.
Granite is the most common igneous rock found at Earth's surface and also the oldest - thought to be formed up to 300 million years ago.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum (a grain), in reference to its coarse-grained structure. Granite forms from a big blob of magma (known as a pluton) which intrudes into the existing rocks. The huge mass of molten rock stores an enormous amount of heat so the magma cools very slowly below the surface of the Earth, allowing plenty of time for large crystals to form.
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.
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.
Mosses are close relatives of the first plants to colonise the land 500 million years ago. They descended originally from freshwater algae but evolved an outer coating that protected them from the temperature changes and UV radiation that made life on the land more of a challenge than in the water. There are now estimated to be over 10,000 species of moss.
Mosses reproduce with tiny spores rather than seeds. Many mosses use wind to carry their spores and produce tiny stalks with the spore-releasing equipment on the top in order to catch the wind - these can be seen as thread-like structures standing up from the moss. These spore-releasing devices often have a ring of teeth around the edge (visible with a magnifying glass) to control the release of the spores, allowing them to be released gradually over a period of time to catch gusts of wind of different speeds and in different directions.
Sphagnum (peat) mosses use compressed air to launch their spores. To get an idea of the acceleration that the spores are launched with, an astronaut in a rocket launch experiences an acceleration g-force of about 3 g and the maximum in a fighter jet is about 9 g. Sphagnum moss spores are accelerated at 36,000 g!
Mosses don't have roots but instead have little rootlets known as rhizoids. Since there is no need to root into soil, mosses can grow on stones, tree trunks, buildings etc. This together with their wind-carried spores makes them excellent colonisers of barren land. The buildup of organic material from dead moss then provides an environment that other small plants can start to colonise.
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.
Some mosses are able to absorb 20-30 times their own weight in liquid. Moss was used in several ancient cultures as nappies: babies were carried in a moss-lined bag to prevent leaks. Moss has also traditionally been used to line hanging baskets which are very prone to drying-out. Areas of moss help to protect soil from erosion by runoff and rivers from sediment and flooding by capturing rainfall and giving it chance to soak slowly into the soil.
The Helford creeks are formed from an ancient river valley that has been flooded by rising sea levels. In total, seven creeks (Ponsontuel Creek, Mawgan Creek, Polpenwith Creek, Polwheveral Creek, Frenchman's Creek, Port Navas Creek, and Gillan Creek) connect to the main Helford River inlet between the headlands of Nare Point and Rosemullion Head. The creeks are an important area of marine conservation and contain eelgrass which provides a habitat for a variety of wildlife including seahorses.
Full page maps cannot be printed due to copyright and terms of use.