Bossiney is a village on the north coast of Cornwall, now adjoined to the larger village of Tintagel which lies the the south-west. Only a large mound, next to the chapel, remains as evidence of the twelfth century castle at Bossiney. Almost certainly, the castle was built by Reginald, the illegitimate son of Henry I of England who made him Earl of Cornwall. According to legend, The Round Table of Camelot is supposed to be buried under the ruins of the Castle and on the eve of the summer solstice, the Round Table will appear when King Arthur and his knights are due to return.
Bossiney was one of a number of small parliamentary boroughs established in Cornwall during the Tudor period. Sir Francis Drake was elected MP for Bossiney in 1584 after giving his election speech from Bossiney Mound. War broke out with the Spanish in 1585 and his attention turned to their Armada.
Unlike places such as Padstow which remained largely undiscovered by tourists until the 20th century, Tintagel was extremely popular in Victorian times. When Tennyson published his Idylls of the King across the mid-late 1800s, Arthurian legend had a renaissance and this put Tintagel in the spotlight. This also coincided with the railway being extended into Cornwall.
By the 1890s the railway had been extended to Camelford and a hotel was even built which advertised itself as being "on the spot where Tennyson received his inspiration for Idylls of the King". Consequently the village of Tintagel has been heavily shaped by the tastes of the Victorian tourists and the kitsch element of Tintagel's tourist trade could well be a surviving remnant of this.
Cornwall has at least 8 different words for "valley".
The stream is a tributary of the Trevillet River which you'll encounter again as it crosses under the drive at Trevillet Mill, just before the confluence. The stream velocity is such that something floating past now might just about meet you again as you cross the river later in the walk. Before releasing any rubber ducks, note that the stream goes through a few pipes which may have grilles.
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
Lady's thumb, also known as "redshank", grows on moist, disturbed ground often along field edges and tracks. It is related to water pepper and has similar long leaves but the lady's thumb leaves have a dark blotch (hence the thumbprint basis of the name). Its flowers are also in bigger clusters of pink rather than the puny white strand that water pepper produces. It is edible but without the chilli-like heat of water pepper (which provides a more memorable way to tell them apart).
The plant has a plethora of local names in different parts of the UK but East Anglia deserves a mention for its baffling "saucy alice" and - an alternative suggestion for how the leaves got their markings - "devil's arse-wipe".
Halgabron is likely to date from the early mediaeval period but the first record is from 1302. The name is thought to be from the Cornish words for "marsh" and "crow" so the gist is something along the lines of "crow's marsh". Although the farm is up on a hill, the fields slope down to the stream so the marsh could have been here.
St Nectan's Glen is an area of verdant woodland near Tintagel, upstream of Rocky Valley along the Trevillet river. At the top of St Nectan's Glen is a 60ft waterfall known as St Nectan's Kieve (there is an admission fee to the waterfall). According to local legend, St Nectan is supposed to be buried under the waterfall, along with the treasure he collected. Pilgrims visiting St. Nectan's Shrine have used the Glen path since AD 500. There used to be a church dedicated to him, where there is now a Hermitage (with tea gardens during the summer). Once, it was said, a couple of witches lived in the chapel, and locals blamed every disaster on their evil ways.
You can often see small trout in the pools along this stretch of the river.
Small trout typically feed on invertebrates whereas larger trout generally feed on other fish but have been known to eat anything of a suitable size unlucky enough to fall into a river. In fact in New Zealand, mouse-shaped lures are sold for trout fishing!
The flooded quarry pits, farm ponds and pools in small streams in Cornwall provide ideal habitats for Freshwater Eels. Freshwater Eels have such an eccentric life cycle that it was a mystery for many years. The adult eels migrate from the lakes in which they grew up, across land, down rivers and 4,000 miles across the ocean to the Caribbean where they spawn and die. The larvae then drift for 300 days in the ocean currents from the Sargasso Sea to Europe. The tiny "glass eels" then migrate up rivers and across fields to find suitable homes.
Eels have been a popular food for centuries as their rich, oily flesh is very tasty. Due to overfishing, pollution and also changes in ocean currents, the Freshwater Eel is now a critically endangered species. Since the 1970s, the numbers of eels reaching Europe is thought to have declined by around 90% (possibly even as much as 98%). A research project has been started to breed eels in captivity. This is not straightforward as the eel is generally only able to reproduce after having swum 4,000 miles. The researchers have therefore developed an Eel Gym to help the eels find their mojo.
The word "kieve" is from a mining term for a wooden tub used for concentrating tin ore. After having the living daylights bashed out of it by teenage girls with lump hammers, the powdered ore would be swirled around, rather like a whirlpool, so the lighter fragments of unwanted rock could be skimmed off whilst the heavy crumbs of metallic ore sank to the bottom of the kieve. The word came from Middle English (kive) which itself is from Old English word for "vat" (e.g. used for brewing or textiles).
St Nectan was the eldest son of the 5th century Celtic king Brychan. Having received a vocation to become a monk earlier in his life, he and many of his relatives sailed to North Devon. Nectan settled by a spring at Stoke, in the then dense forest of Hartland, north of Bude, where he lived as a hermit. It is claimed he also spent some time in the Glen near Tintagel, which at about 30 miles south of Stoke, is not inconceivable.
The chapel in Trethevy dates from mediaeval times, first recorded in 1457 mentioning a chapel dedicated to St Piran. Most things dedicated to St Piran occur further west in Cornwall but the association here dates back at least to Norman times when the Domesday book records that the nearby manor of Tregrembri was owned by the monks of "St Pieran". After the dissolution of the monasteries during the Tudor period, the chapel was used as a farm building. This continued until 1941 when its owner gave it back to the Church of England and it was rebuilt in 1942. The first mass was held in the chapel on 8th February 1944 and he died later that day.
St Piran's Well at Trethevy is recorded in 1880 and included a hand pump behind it to draw water. The pyramidal slate structure above the well is relatively recent, built in the mid-20th Century. This was built onto the slate support for an open-fronted hut for a cart which formerly stood next to the well.
Ferns produce 2 different types of leaf (although they often look quite similar). The normal leaves are used for photosynthesis of sugars just like in other plants. Ferns also produce a special kind of spore-bearing leaf which can often be identified from the dots on the underside. In hart's tongue ferns, these are really obvious.
The Trevillet River runs for approximately 3 miles from its source on the downs near Condoldon Barrow, down the steep valley situated between Condoldon and the line of hills at Trethevy. The river has a population of Brown Trout and there was once a trout farm, breeding Rainbow Trout, at Trevillet Mill. The Cornish name for the river is Duwy meaning "dark river".
The simplest design for a waterwheel is known as an undershot wheel where the paddles are simply dipped into flowing water. This works well in large rivers where there is a strong current.
However, in hilly areas with smaller streams (such as Cornwall), the overshot design is more common where the water is delivered via a man-made channel (leat) to the top of the wheel where it flows into buckets on the wheel, turning the wheel through the weight of the water. An overshot design also allowed the mill to be located slightly further away from the main river which had obvious advantages during floods.
On the rock face beside the waymark, about half way down Rocky Valley near Trewethett Mill, are some labyrinthine stone carvings. The age of the carvings is unknown: some historians think they could be as early as bronze age, others think they are much more recent.
When you reach the rock, the (dead-end) path leading off to the right offers a nice viewpoint over the waterfalls.
A bird you may well encounter in the bushes along the coast is the stonechat.
Stonechats are robin-sized birds with a black head and orange breast that are common along the Cornish coast all year round.
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.
The rocky island at the end of the headland on the far side of the bay is Lye Rock.
Lye Rock, facing into the bay at Bossiney is barely attached to the headland of Willapark and will soon (in geological terms anyway!) become another rock stack like The Sisters. It has a seabird colony that once housed the biggest Puffin colony in Cornwall. In 1948 there were estimated to be 2000 puffins here. By 1982 there were none. There is still a sizeable guillemot and razorbill colony and some cormorants too.
Bossiney Haven is a secluded cove, just north of Tintagel. There is no beach at Bossiney at high tide, but when the tide is fully out, there is a beach of golden sand which stretches around the other side of the headland (known as Benoath Cove) from the main inlet (Bossiney Haven). This makes it a lovely place to swim or paddle on a warm summer's day. There is also good snorkelling to the far left of the beach where a kelp-covered reef lies, and also to the far right when the tide is right out. The beach is not patrolled by lifeguards and combined with the steep steps down, it's not ideal for young children.
Rocky Valley, on the way out of Tintagel towards Boscastle, has been formed by the Trevillet river carving its way through the slate bedrock, and was mentioned in travel books as a place of exceptional beauty as early as 1897. The river cascades through woodland, before opening out into a canyon which meets the coast.
The gully to the beach at Bossiney Haven is a holloway thought to date back to Mediaeval times. Up until the end of the 19th century, it was the route used by trains of donkeys hauling sand up from the beach for use in fertilising the fields.
Sandeels are small slender fish found shoaling around the beaches in Cornwall. If you put on a mask and snorkel, you're almost guaranteed to see some, often swimming around your feet.
The name is confusing as sandeels are not eels, just long, thin fish (like barracuda, but a lot smaller!). The sand part is because they burrow into the sand if alarmed. There are two main types present in Cornwall: Lesser Sandeels are the small ones you're likely to see by the shore, Greater Sandeels are chunkier and about the length of your foot; they can sometimes be seen shoaling in deeper water, occasionally joining in with a shoal of Lesser Sandeels.
Sandeels are a vital part of the food chain, supporting many sea birds including puffins and larger fish such as sea bass. Consequently they are a favourite bait for anglers, and in Cornwall a curved iron bar known as a vingler was traditionally used to snag buried sandeels.
Sandeels eat zooplankton and are therefore snookered by Global Warming causing phytoplankton to bloom early resulting in the zooplankton being undernourished. Industrial fishing for sandeels for use in fertilisers (e.g. "fish, blood and bone") has also damaged the population.
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!
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.
Because bluebells spread very slowly, they're considered to be an indicator of ancient woodland sites. In areas where trees are not very old, the fact there are bluebells around can indicate that there has been a wood on a site for a very long time. Even if there are no trees there at all, bluebells tell us that there was woodland there some time in the past. The bluebells along the coast are a relic of the gnarled oak woodland that used to grow here before it was cleared for grazing. There is still a patch of the ancient oak woodland left along the coast at Dizzard.
Some plant nutrients such as phosphorus tend to be more abundant near the surface of the soil where decaying organic matter collects. Bluebell seedlings start life at the surface so these are OK but as bluebell plants mature and send their roots deeper into the soil to avoid winter frosts, they have a phosphorus problem. They have solved this by partnering with a fungus that extends from their root cells, drawing in minerals from the soil in return for some carbohydrates from the plant.
Bluebells are extremely poisonous, containing a number of biologically-active compounds and were used (probably with varying success) in mediaeval medicine. The sap was used as a glue for book-binding as its toxicity repelled insects. It was also used to attach the fletchings onto arrows.
In Elizabethan times, starch made from the bulbs was used to stiffen collars and cuffs in clothing. The ruffs that were highly fashionable at the time would have needed a lot of starch to prevent them flopping. The toxins in bluebell sap might also have had the desirable property of preventing the starch encouraging the formation of mould.
In folklore, the bluebell is a symbol of constancy, presumably based on the fact that they flower in the same place every year. It was said that anyone who wears a bluebell is compelled to tell the truth. This could be the origin of the "…something blue…" that a bride should wear on her wedding day.
According to folklore, it's unlucky to bring bluebells into a house and also unlucky to walk through bluebells as it was thought that the little bells would ring and summon fairies and goblins.
In Old Cornish, both bluebells and marigolds were known as lesengoc which translates to "flower of the cuckoo". In Modern Cornish, the marigold has remained more-or-less the same but the bluebell has been changed to bleujenn an gog ("plant of the cuckoo"). The association between bluebells and cuckoos exists in Welsh ("bells of the cuckoo") and Gaelic ("cuckoo's shoe"), and in some English folk names such as Cuckoo's Boots and Cuckoo Stockings. It is thought that the association is due to the time that bluebells flower coinciding with the time that the call of the cuckoo is first heard.
Bluebells are also known by folk names based on their shape including Lady’s Nightcap and Witches’ Thimbles.
Other common names for the bluebell include "wild hyacinth" and "wood hyacinth" as they are related to the hyacinth family. Their Genus name Hyacinthoides also means "hyacinth-like".
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.
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.
A rare genetic mutation occurs in bluebells which results in about 1 bluebell in 10,000 being white rather than blue.
Three-cornered leeks - which have white bell-shaped flowers and are very common - are often misidentified as "white bluebells". The easiest way to tell them apart is that 3-cornered leeks smell strongly of onion. Their flower stems are also triangular (hence the name).
The Puffin population in Cornwall has declined dramatically from a population of many thousands at the start of the 20th century to around 30 birds by the year 2000. Puffins are long-lived birds that only produce one egg per year so anything which quickly kills off a lot of the adults has a catastrophic effect on the population. Their demise is likely to be due to lack of food (in particular sandeels) though it's not completely clear how much of this is due to overfishing (and associated damage to the marine habitat by e.g. beam trawlers) and how much is due to the timing of plankton blooms being affected by climate change (resulting in lack of sandeel food).
Wagtails are easily recognised from the tail pumping behaviour that their name suggests. Despite being very conspicuous, the function of this curious behaviour is not well understood. It is possibly a signal to predators that the wagtail has seen them, so there's no point trying anything.
Two of the wagtail species are easy to confuse as they are both grey and yellow.
Grey wagtails nest close to fast-running streams as they feed on aquatic invertebrates. They have pink (skin-coloured) legs.
Yellow wagtails are more often found in open fields and have black legs.
The third kind of wagtail more often seen in urban environments - the pied wagtail - is easy to distinguish due to the lack of yellow: it's entirely black-and-white.
The Roman milestone beside the road at Trethevy dates from the 3rd Century when Volusian was Emperor of Rome. It was subsequently repurposed a gatepost and had been drilled for iron gate fittings. It was rescued in 2008-2009 and moved to its present location.
St Piran was born in Ireland in the 6th century. According to legend, he had miraculous powers and a group of kings grew afraid of his powers. They, somewhat unsportingly, tied a millstone round his neck and threw him into the sea. However due to his powers, the millstone floated and he was washed ashore at Perranporth.
Saint Piran is the patron saint of tin-miners and is generally regarded as the national saint of Cornwall. St Piran's flag - the white cross on a black background - is said to represent the black tin ore and white molten metal. Celebrations on St Piran's Day (5th March) involve lots of alcohol and gave rise to the expression "drunk as a Perraner".
A striking red fungus you may see in the woods that forms cup-like structures on decaying wood is appropriately named scarlet elf cup. There's also a very similar looking ruby elf cup but since telling them apart requires studying the hairs on the outer surface of the cups under 400 times magnification with a microscope or by DNA analysis, that's probably better left to the elves.
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