Bude is a small resort town on the northern part of the North Cornish coast. The Bedes, meaning wise men, attended the chapel on the rock and consequently the location was referred to as "Bede's Haven". In Cornish it was known as Porthbud. Locals pronounce it "bood" which probably stems from the Cornish version of the name.
In Victorian times, Bude was a popular seaside resort and many of the Victorian buildings remain. In more recent times, Bude has become famous for its Jazz Festival in August. There is a Tourist Information Centre in the main car park.
The elaborate stone building that you can see on the left is Bude Castle.
Bude Castle is located to the west of Bude town centre close to Summerleaze Beach, on an island of land between Bude Canal and the River Neet. The Victorian engineer and inventor Sir Goldsworthy Gurney built his home here in a location originally on the sand, challenged by the locals who said it couldn't be done. "Wait and see..." was Gurney's reply and the result (Bude Castle) is now a heritage centre which rests on an innovative concrete raft foundation.
Gurney invented limelight and his Bude Lights (oxygen-accelerated oil lamps) which were used to light the House of Commons for more than 60 years. His other achievements included extinguishing a mine fire known as "the burning waste of Clackmannan" that had been burning for 30 years by using a steam jet to smother it with a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide and subsequently a spray of water to cool the mine.
The 9 metre conical monument of polished concrete erected outside Bude Castle is named the Bude Light in dedication to Gurney, painted in the colours of sea, sky and sand and lit with fibre-optics which are a little more suited to both the outdoors and health-and-safety than his original lighting systems involving naked flames and pure oxygen.
This footbridge is known as Nanny Moore's Bridge.
Nanny Moore's Bridge is a footbridge that crosses the River Neet in Bude. The bridge was formerly known as Bude Bridge but renamed in the early 1800s after a widow who lived in one of the Leven Cottages next to the bridge. It was built originally for packhorses and carts as well as pedestrians and led to Efford Mill (which became the cottages). The end section is cantilevered so it can be lifted to allow boats through.
The widow known as Nanny Moore was an attendant (known as a "dipper") to the bathing machines on Bude beach in the early-mid 19th Century, when the Victorians had decided that bathing in the cold sea was good for one's health. Her role was to assist bathers in immersing themselves, especially when the temperature of the water sapped the courage of the more timid! She died in 1853 and is buried in St Michael's churchyard.
The bathing machine was a device, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, which purported "the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy". Bathers entered the small room of the machine whilst it was on the beach and once inside changed into their bathing suits. The device was then hauled out into the sea either by horses or strong locals. Once in the water, the occupants disembarked down steps from the sea side. It was considered essential that the machine blocked any view of the bather from the shore. Men and women were usually segregated, so nobody of the opposite sex might catch sight of them in their bathing suits, which (although modest by modern standards) were not considered proper clothing in which to be seen.
The protruding rocks on the left of the beach and river channel are where the ship Bencoolen was wrecked.
The Bencoolen was a ship wrecked off Summerleaze beach near Bude. On its way from Liverpool to Bombay, the Bencoolen - a 1415-ton cargo vessel - met gale force winds off the North Cornish coast on October 21st 1862, breaking its main mast and leaving the captain unable to steer. At roughly 3 PM the ship ran aground on Summerleaze beach, just metres from safety. The sea was too rough to launch the lifeboat, so the rocket brigade were deployed.
"In five minutes the rocket apparatus was put to work; the first rocket fell short, the next failed, the third fell over the ship where the despairing crew huddled on the poop. A man who rushed forward and clutched the line was washed overboard with it in his hand. A huge roller then broke over the apparatus rendering it useless."
"Within two hours from the time she struck, she was in fragments, and 24 men had drowned within a cable's length of the breakwater at Bude. Of the 33 crew, only six were rescued alive."
The figurehead that was recovered from the ship is on display at the Heritage Centre in Bude Castle. Timber from the ship was used to build many of the houses at the time and may have accelerated the expansion of Bude.
Bude Sea Pool is located on Summerleaze Beach. After "tragic happenings... through people bathing at low water", the Sea Pool was created in the 1930s in the bay known as "Saturday's Pit". The local newspaper stated it was now possible to "proclaim worldwide that there was absolutely safe bathing at Bude... In all probability precious lives will be saved". Due to budget cuts in 2010, Cornwall Council ceased funding for the pool and it is currently being run by a local charity appropriately named "Friends of Bude Sea Pool" (formerly SOS = Save our Sea Pool).
The cliffs at the far end of the pool are known as the "Bude Fish Bed".
The cliffs at the northern end of Bude Sea Pool are known as the "Bude Fish Bed". They are so named because they are some of the most fossiliferous in the area. There is a black shale layer just over 4 metres thick which contains the fish fossils and also some crustaceans.
Next to the sea pool on Summerleaze beach is a long rock known as Coach Rock. At the bottom of this is a metal cross, erected in 1840. This is a Half Tide Cross and lives up to its name when the water is level with arms of the cross, marking the tide being half in, or out, depending on whether your cider glass is half full or half empty.
The six-oared elm boats known as Pilot Gigs were general-purpose work boats, but one of their uses was to transport the pilot to and from a ship, which resulted in the name. The first boat to meet a ship gained the business of transporting the captain (and thus being paid) and thus a "race" came into being, with different boats competing for business. Today, Gig Racing is of a recreational nature, but the boats are still built to the exact well-documented specification of the originals. Elm wood is highly resistant to water, so much so, that town water mains were made of elm before the widespread availability of iron.
The beach sand and sandstone around Bude was used as a source of lime to improve the fertility of the acid soils further inland.
"the quantity which is every season carried away from different parts of the coast for the purpose of manure almost exceeds belief. From Bude, in the parish of Stratton, it has been ascertained that in one day as many as four thousand horse loads have been taken."Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall 1818.
The remains of an iron tramway is sometimes exposed on Summerleaze beach. This was used to transport horse-drawn tipping wagons. Some of the sand was used to reclaim land near the recreation ground. Beach sand was also used as ballast for empty vessels once they had unloaded cargo at Bude. The collection of sand ended in 1941.
Crooklets is a sandy beach with pebbles near the top and areas of rocks either side. There is a beach at all states of the tide. As the tide goes out, Crooklets merges with Summerleaze beach. There are some ridges of rock between Summerleaze beach and Crooklets interspersed with areas of sand.
On a really low tide once the sea recedes beyond Wrangle Point, Crooklets merges with the Mear Cliff beaches to the north and eventually Northcott Mouth beyond these.
Two of the most common jellyfish you're likely to see in Cornwall don't have a sting that is noticeable by humans:
Two to watch out for which are common and sting are:
Much less common, but also noteworthy for its nasty sting, is the Lion's Mane Jellyfish which is large (around 50cm across), reddish brown with thick frilled arms and a mass of hair-like tentacles. Also, if you see something that looks like a purple-and-pink inflatable pasty, it's a Portuguese Man o' War which is technically not a jellyfish but nevertheless has a very nasty sting.
Sea foam (also known as "spume") is formed due to organic compounds known as surfactants present in seawater. Under turbulent conditions, the surfactants form persistent bubbles which float to the surface, stick to each other through surface tension and are driven onshore by the wind. The surfactant compounds themselves arise from processes such as the offshore breakdown of algal blooms.
On beaches, sea foam can conceal deep pools and gullies with an apparently flat, uniform surface. Tread carefully, especially on beaches you don't know well, to avoid walking off the edge of a precipice or vanishing into icy cold water.
A few different factors all combine to vary the colour of the sea:
A glass in your hand might lure you into thinking otherwise, but pure water is faintly blue. The main wavelengths that the chemical bonds in water absorb are either in the infra-red or ultra-violet, and not in the visible spectrum, which is why a glass of pure water does not look coloured. However one fairly obscure harmonic of the vibrations in the water molecule corresponds to the wavelength of red light and so water very weakly absorbs the red from white light, giving it a very slightly blue tinge. If there is enough water, both the blue tinge and reflection of blue light by any suspended particles make it look blue.
Another factor is that the surface of the ocean acts as a mirror and reflects the colour of the sky and this is why it may appear grey under a cloudy sky. Under a blue sky, this intensifies the blueness.
In shallow water, the sand which is golden in Cornwall due to fragments of seashell, reflects yellow light and this combines with the blue from seawater to generate colours from green to turquoise. The ocean also sometimes appears green due to the presence of planktonic plant life.
The Cornish language has a word glas (often appearing in place names as "glaze") which is the Swiss Army Knife of sea colour descriptions. It means blue, or green, or grey.
Some of the tourism literature used to say that the green colour of the sea in Cornwall was due to copper dissolved in the water. This is total nonsense. In order to be visible, the concentration of copper salts have to be incredibly high which would never happen with an entire Atlantic Ocean to dilute it. The highest copper levels are found in estuaries fed by rivers into which mines drain. Here there is at most in the order of a few micrograms per litre and this is carefully monitored by the Environment Agency.
Northcott Mouth marks the southernmost end of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which runs to the Devon border. The beach is pebbly at high tide but as the tide goes out, ridges of rock and then a large expanse of sand is exposed which eventually joins up with the neighbouring beaches forming a continuous corridor from Sandymouth to Bude. The upended strata forming ridges along the beach trap seawater, creating a number of rockpools at low tide. The tidal range here can reach roughly 7 metres so be careful not to get cut off by the incoming tide.
The shipwreck that can be seen at low tide at Northcott Mouth at the northern end near Menachurch Point is of the SS Belém. The ship ran aground on the 20th November 1917 and 33 men were rescued. The Belém was a steam-powered cargo ship, originally built in Germany in 1890, and had recently been bought by a Portuguese freight company. The visible remains include the propeller shaft and the boilers. Another section of the propeller shaft was used as the support for the barrel on Barrel Rock, on the end of Bude Breakwater.
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.
A cordial can be made from blackthorn blossom by dissolving 100g of sugar in 1 litre of warm water mixing one large handful of blossom, scaled up to produce the quantity you require.
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.
Skylarks are the most common member of the lark family in Britain and are often known simply as "larks".
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".
You may see migratory birds passing overhead on their way to the Maer Lake wildlife reserve which is roughly a quarter of a mile inland from the track.
Maer Lake is owned jointly between the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and the Cornwall Birdwatching and Preservation Society. It consists of 25 acres of wetland meadow with open water and provides an internationally-acknowledged resting and feeding site for migrating birds. Note there is no access inside the reserve; viewing is strictly only from the private road above the reserve.
A transatlantic internet cable from the USA to Spain and the UK comes ashore at Crooklets beach. The cable laid by Google, named "Grace Hopper", has a capacity of 352 terabits per second. As well as improving the UK's connectivity to the USA, this also provides a fast link for Google's data centre in Madrid via the other section of the cable that comes ashore at Bilbao. The internet traffic within the cable is strongly encrypted to prevent submarines doing anything naughty.
The breakwater at Bude is located on the south of Summerleaze beach where the River Neet enters the sea. The original breakwater was built in the 1820s as part of the canal construction work and was shorter than the current one. It was destroyed in a terrible storm in February 1838 and was replaced by the existing breakwater in 1843. The metal support for the Barrel on Barrel Rock at the end of the Breakwater, was once the propeller shaft of the SS Belem, wrecked at Northcott Mouth.
The word "tee" is from the Scottish Gaelic word taigh meaning "house" and is related to the coloured circles known as a house in the sport of curling. Teeing off was originally done within a circle of one gold club length from the hole. A mound of sand would be placed somewhere within this circle and the ball rested on top. In 1892, an Englishman patented a rubber-topped wooden peg which was sold as the "Perfectum". In 1899 an American dentist designed "an improved golf tee" consisting of a wooden cone containing a rubber sleeve to hold the ball but this didn't seem to catch on. Peg-based tees were adopted widely by the 1920s.
In 1869, John Sainsbury and his wife opened a grocery shop in Drury Lane, London. Sainsbury's trading ethos was "Quality perfect, prices lower" (stated on their Islington shop in 1882) and this proved immensely popular - by 1922 it had become the UK's largest retailer of groceries. The trading ethos also led to Sainsbury's pioneering the concept of supermarket "own brand" products, undercutting established brands on price. When J. Sainsbury died in 1928, his dying words were "keep the shops well lit".
The infamous Bude Tunnel is alongside Sainsbury's.
The 230ft plastic tunnel from the road to Sainsbury's Car Park made it into the national news after it was ranked as Bude's top tourist attraction on Tripadvisor where it is listed alongside the Taj Mahal as one of the wonders of the world, a "religious experience" and "human miracle". What started out from a few people with a sense of humour has snowballed into a social media phenomenon which has now reached cult status with hundreds of Tripadvisor reviews and even has a "Public Relations Manager for Bude Tunnel" on Tripadvisor who responds to reviews. For Christmas 2018, the tunnel was lit with thirty thousand LEDs to produce a spectacular light show.
The confluence of rivers Neet and Strat occurs upstream of Bude at Helebridge. From this point downstream, there has been controversy over whether the river should be called the Neet or the Strat. Historically the residents of Stratton seemed to prefer the name shared with their settlement whereas some Bude residents referred to the "Strat" as a "vulgarism". This has never been formally resolved, and on Ordnance Survey maps, the river is now diplomatically known as the "Neet or Strat".
Fairly large mullet can sometimes be seen in the river.
Grey mullet are related to the perch family (which includes bass) and are surprisingly unrelated to the "red mullet" (which is in fact a type of goatfish). Mullet caught in the open sea are excellent eating fish and can be used in similar dishes to bass. However, those living in muddy water (such as the harbour) generally taste of mud. This can apparently be diminished by soaking them in acidic, salty water but the flavour is still described as "earthy".
The rock on the inside of Bude's breakwater is known as Chapel Rock. It is so named because a chapel stood there in mediaeval times which is believed to have been dedicated to St. Michael (in a similar fashion to the more well-known "mount" near Penzance).
Bude Canal runs from Helebridge, through the centre of Bude, to the sea lock near Summerleaze beach. The canal was built in the 1820s to carry sea sand and lime inland for use as fertiliser and the original canal system spanned 35 miles reaching Launceston. The canal closed in 1901 when competition from the railway, bringing cheap manufactured fertilisers, rendered it uneconomical. Today, roughly 2 miles of canal remain filled with water.
Leven Cottages is a small terrace situated next to the footbridge over the River Neet in Bude. Leven Cottages are the remains of Efford Mill, built in the late 16th century by the Arundells of Trerice as a tidal mill. A carved granite stone on Leven Cottage is inscribed "AJA 1589", (Anne and John Arundell).
The Brendon Arms, in a tardis-like fashion, has had five generations of landlord all called George Brendon. The first of these began as "the landlord" in 1872.
Ebbingford Manor in Bude was originally built in 1184, in a sheltered position set back from the coast. It was described in the fourteenth century as having "a reasonable road... granted for horses, cattle and carts to the salt works at Efford". The current building was built in the late 16th century and remodelled in 1758. In the 19th century, there was a further addition and some alterations.
During the English Civil War, the manor was used as an overnight resting place by Sir Bevil Grenville, leader of one of the Cornish Royalist columns, on the eve of the Battle of Stamford Hill in 1643. Almost exactly 300 years later, it again became a military resting place: this time for the American army during World War 2.
Many guides to crabbing mention changing water in a bucket containing crabs. There are two reasons why changing water frequently (every 10 minutes) is vital to keep crabs alive:
Crabs have gills and get their oxygen from the water. There is not much water in a bucket and the oxygen quite quickly gets depleted. Too many crabs in one bucket also depletes the oxygen too quickly.
The temperature of the sea in Britain rarely exceeds 19°C and most marine animals can only survive short periods at higher temperatures where their metabolic processes don't work efficiently. Crabs will avoid water warmer than 25°C (room temperature) as long periods in warm water will kill them. The small amount of water in a bucket has a small heat capacity (like in a nearly-empty kettle) and so will warm up quite quickly. Keeping the bucket out of the sun will also help to stop the water getting too warm before it is changed.
Increasing the amount of water will also help by holding more oxygen and staying cool longer.
A ball hitting sport documented in AD 945 in China seems to be more-or-less crazy golf, which would make crazy golf the "original" form of golf.
The form we know today is thought to have evolved from mini golf which was created for Victorian ladies for whom it was unbecoming behaviour to swing a club violently. The St Andrews Ladies' Putting Club, created in the 1860s, is thought to be the first mini golf course.
In 1916, a miniature golf course in America was created with the holes bordered with flower beds. Then, during the 1920s, a series of short-lived crazes culminated in the Crazy Golf craze of 1930 in which four million Americans played every night! The craze spread into Britain via London and by October of 1930 there were already 60 courses.
Summerleaze is Bude's town beach and where the canal and river Neet meet the sea, so swimming anywhere near the canal sea lock should be avoided due to strong currents. The beach is sandy at high tide and there is a beach at all states of the tide. At the tide goes out, the beach merges with Crooklets and seawater is retained in the sea pool for swimmers. There are some ridges of rock between Summerleaze and Crooklets interspersed with areas of sand.
Sometimes winter storms strip the sand from the beach and the remains of an iron tramway is exposed which was used to transport beach sand. This was originally built in the 1820s as a horse-drawn "plateway" (consisting of L-shaped metal plates rather than rails) and then replaced in the 1920s with more modern narrow-gauge rails but still horse-powered. The rails on the beach are thought to date from 1924.
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