The beach and surrounding coastal land at Chapel Porth is owned by the National Trust who run the café and toilets in the car park. The beach is a narrow gully at high tide that opens out to a mile long expanse of sand at low tide. Due to the shape of the beach, it is very easy to get cut off by the rising tide. There are are a number of caves along the length of the beach arising from a combination of mining and erosion by the sea of faults in the ore-bearing rocks.
The name Chapel Porth arises from a mediaeval chapel and Holy Well, situated just above the gully to the right of the beach, with an enclosure and holy well dedicated to St. Agnes. By 1780, the remains of the chapel had been removed and the stone re-used elsewhere; the holy well remained until 1820. There are still some remains of the mediaeval enclosure, in the form of earth banks, and a small building (probably a tool shed or powder store), built from the remains of the chapel.
In 1928, the SS Eltham - a steam-powered cargo ship - was found on Chapel Porth beach with a hole in the hull and no crew, no log book and no cargo. It is thought the the crew's flares failed and they were lost at sea. A smashed lifeboat was washed ashore in another cove. The ship was known to be on its way from Swansea to France with a cargo of coal. How the ship came ashore with no cargo and a relatively small hole that looked like it had been made at the point where it ran around is still a mystery. A boiler from the ship is still visible at low tide on Chapel Porth.
An annual festival called "Bolster Day" is held at Chapel Porth, starting in April and culminating on 1st May. Giant puppets are used to re-enact the Cornish legend of the young girl, St Agnes, who slays Bolster - the fierce giant, who was rumoured to eat children and overcame the Knight, Sir Constantine and a procession of local dignitaries and heroes. Bolster's Blood has given its name to one the ales brewed by the Driftwood Spars pub and brewery.
Cornwall's iconic engine houses were built to house huge beam engines - a type of steam engine with a pivoting beam. This configuration was particularly suited to powering pumps to stop the quarry pits and mines from flooding as water trickled into them from above. Inside the engine house, steam from a boiler would push up a piston, causing the beam to tilt downwards, pushing the pump down into the shaft. The steam would then be shut off and cold water would be used to condense the steam within the piston back into water, creating a partial vacuum. Atmospheric pressure then pushed the piston back down into the vacuum, raising the beam and lifting water out of the shaft. The valves to apply the steam and cold water were mechanically automated, maintaining a steady rocking motion of the giant beam.
The engine house beside the coast path near Chapel Porth is known as the Towanroath Pumping Engine House and was built in 1872. It was used to pump water from the 600 ft deep Towanroath shaft adjacent to the engine house. The shaft was used to access a vein of tin just below sea level.
The headland is known as Tubby's Head and there is a blowhole in the headland which emits a plume of spray during a large swell.
An Iron-Age fortification is situated on Tubby's Head near Chapel Porth. The flat area on the top of the headland is separated from the mainland by a metre-high bank approximately 20 metres long. The exact function is uncertain: it could either have been a promontory fort or possibly a defended landing area as there is a flat rock by the waterline which could have served as a natural quay.
The pyramidal cages and coarse grilles covering mineshafts allow bats to be able to roost in the shafts. Shafts which are fenced and completely open are one of the favourite nesting places of the Cornish chough. Therefore resist the temptation to drop stones down the shafts otherwise you may unknowingly be stoning bats or chough chicks to death.
Although Cornish choughs nest predominantly in the far west of Cornwall, they do sometimes venture up this way to feed.
If you think you've seen a chough, take a photo if possible and email choughs@cbwps.org.uk to report the sighting. This will help the "Chough Watch" team keep track of the growing population.
Heather can grow in soils which have concentrations of metals normally considered toxic to other plants and they are also tolerant of salty (high sodium) environments on the coast. Their symbiosis with fungi restricts metal uptake through their roots.
During Victorian times, ravens were exterminated by farmers and gamekeepers throughout much of the UK but retained a stronghold in the southwest. Their nests, constructed of robust twigs, can be seen along the cliffs in Cornwall.
St Agnes Head is home to a large breeding colony of kittiwakes.
Kittiwakes are a member of the gull family, recognisable by their black legs and black wing tips. During the spring and summer, the birds form colonies on cliffs or rock stacks. After August, they move offshore for the winter to feed. Unlike herring gulls, which have been able to adapt their shoreline scavenging to urban rubbish tips, kittiwakes feed solely on fish and have been declining in some areas, possibly due to overfishing.
In July 1885, the SS Cheerful left Falmouth for Liverpool with a cargo of two tonnes of Cornish tin ingots. On the way along the North Cornish coast, she collided with the HMS Hecla off St Agnes Head in a very dense fog. The Cheerful sank within four minutes. Thirty-six of the passengers were rescued by the Hecla, but nine went down with the ship, and three more perished shortly after being picked up. The wreck was salvaged in 1994 and a small piece of the cargo is now on display in the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth.
At the outcrop, you can optionally take a diversion to the right to visit the NCI St Agnes Head lookout, making your way back down to the coast path to continue the walk.
Follow the coast path until you eventually pass through a gap in a wall (with a National Trust "Newdowns Head" sign facing in the opposite direction) and reach a fork in the path.
The coastal lookout on St Agnes Head was built by the National Trust in 2008, replacing an earlier lookout at the same location which was built in 1926 but had become unsafe. The lookout is run by volunteers from the National Coastwatch Institution who reopened it in 2007, 16 years after its closure as a Coastguard lookout. The volunteers on watch, unless engaged in an emergency, welcome walkers and non-muddy dogs to see inside the lookout.
The National Coastwatch Institution was set up to restore visual watches along the UK coastline after two Cornish fishermen lost their lives within sight of an empty Coastguard lookout in 1994. The first station - at Bass Point on The Lizard, where the fishermen had died - opened in December 1994. The organisation, staffed by volunteers, now runs 50 lookout stations around England and Wales.
Trevaunance Cove is a shingle beach at high tide and is popular with surfers as its north-facing position means that the prevailing southwesterly winds are offshore. As the tide goes out, the central area of the beach is sandy. To the right, large areas of rock are revealed with numerous rock pools, and at low tide it is possible to clamber over the rocks to reach Trevellas Cove. On the left side of Trevaunance Cove are the remains of the old harbour wall and beyond this there are caves, arches and rock stacks along the cliffs.
The original name for the settlement of St Agnes was along the lines of Breanek or Bryanick, a Cornish name which may mean either "Agnes hill", or more mundanely "pointed hill". Either way, this is likely to refer to St Agnes Beacon. Since prehistoric times, the area was a centre for mining copper, tin and arsenic.
The large rectangular stones scattered along the left side of the beach are the remnants of the harbour wall, of which a small part is still standing at the far end.
Since the 17th century, there have been many attempts to create a harbour for St Agnes - all with limited success. From 1632, the lords of the manor of Trevaunance made three separate attempts to build a harbour. Their third harbour was washed away in 1705 together with their family legacy. The harbour was rebuilt in 1710 by others and lasted 20 years before being levelled in 1730 by the Atlantic waves. In 1798, a new harbour was constructed which was to last for over 100 years. This supported a fishing industry and allowed for the export of copper ore and the import of coal from South Wales for the smelters at the mines. St Agnes remained a busy port until the collapse of the harbour wall in a storm in 1915/16, after which it was never rebuilt.
In 1802, a pilchard fishing industry was established from the harbour at St Agnes, reaching its peak around 1830.
Pilchards are from the same family of oily fish as herring and mackerel, and are also high in omega-3 fatty acids and provide a range of minerals and vitamins. Some historical texts rave on about how amazingly healthy and radiant the Cornish peasants were when pilchards were a main component of their diet.
The Driftwood spars is located beside the road to the beach at St Agnes. The building was converted over the years from a number of buildings dating back to the 17th Century, including a tin mining warehouse, chandlery, sail making loft and fish cellar. The name is derived from the huge timber beams (spars) that are said to have come from ships wrecked along the coast. The pub started its own micro-brewery in 2000 and since then, the beer has won national awards. All the proceeds from their Red Mission beer go to the Cornwall Air Ambulance.
During late winter or early spring, if you encounter a patch of plants with white bell-shaped flowers, smelling strongly of onions, and with long, narrow leaves then they are likely to be three-cornered leeks. Once you're familiar with their narrow, ridged leaves, you'll be able to spot these emerging from late October onwards.
All parts of the plant are edible by humans and the flavour of the leaves is relatively mild so they can be used in recipes in place of spring onions or chives. They are at their best for culinary use from November to April. By mid-May, they have flowered and the leaves are starting to die back.
The long leaves can be mistaken for bluebells or daffodils which are both poisonous but do not smell of onions. However, fingers that have previously picked 3-cornered leeks also smell of onions and so mistakes have been made this way.
The area to the right of the path was once a small mine known as Wheal Primrose. As you reach the memorial garden, this area was another mine known as West Kitty. These were later amalgamated with Wheal Friendly on the opposite side of the road (Rocky Lane) to form a larger complex. A tin stamping (ore crushing) mill was situated near the road.
The chimney was part of the Polberro Mine workings.
Polberro Mine is situated on the hillside above St Agnes and was said to produce the finest tin ore in Cornwall. This included very pure tin (known locally as "diamond tin") that needed little processing. By 1750 the mine was operating as one of the largest in Cornwall, with so much tin ore produced that there were not enough packhorses in the St Agnes area available to carry it. By the early 1800s it employed around 450 people and produced 30 tonnes of tin ore per month. Its extensive operation was described by the local newspaper in 1843 as "...a surface of upwards of 200 acres, and contains 24 shafts, 9 of which are now in full working, with 3,000 fathoms of levels...".
Public byways are rights of way down which motor vehicles may be driven depending on how brave you are and how expensive your car is to fix. You are also permitted to use a horse-drawn carriage, should you own one. Byways tend to be surfaced in an ad-hoc manner either with gravel or occasionally with a smattering of tarmac, but still leaving plenty of room for a good crop of grass to grow down the centre. They are conventionally marked using red waymarks or a "Public Byway" sign. There are 130 miles of byways in Cornwall.
The overgrown scrub area on the left remains from a large area of mine workings which formed part of Polberro Mine. There are many old mineshafts here (some of which were considered "old" in the 1880s).
The large chimney is part of the remains of Trevaunance Mine.
Wheal Trevaunance began as a copper mine and was already very productive at the start of the 19th Century. From the 1840s, the mine gradually switched over to tin and continued to operate throughout the 19th Century, eventually merging into Polberro Consols in the 1890s. The mine closed before the First World War. The large chimney was for a pumping engine.
The house opposite is named Wheal Sparrow. There were several small mines dotted around St Agnes beacon.
Many Cornish mines have names starting with Wheal, and it is a common misconception that Wheal meant "mine". In fact, Wheal simply meant "workplace". The word for "mine" was bal and the women who worked on the surface were known as Bal Maids.
During Georgian and Victorian times, many teenage girls were employed in Cornwall as "Bal Maidens" (sometimes shortened to "Bal Maids"). Whilst the period may conjure up images depicted in Jane Austen novels, young ladies were somewhat less sappy in Cornwall. The girls would break ore-bearing rocks with a heavy pointed hammer to separate the ore from the surrounding rock. The ore was then broken into granules (a process known as buckling) by bashing it with a lump hammer. It was recorded in 1851 that there were more than 6,000 women and girls working at Cornish mines.
During the Second World War, the 10th Light Anti-Aircraft Practice Camp, Royal Artillery was built on St Agnes Head which included an anti-aircraft battery as well as an army camp. It was known locally by the more snappy name "Cameron Camp", from the name of the landowning estate. After the war, the camp was used for housing but this was all levelled in 1971 and has been reclaimed by the heather. Concrete foundations of the gun emplacements are present in the cliff-top car park.
The vegetation here is sculpted by the winds coming off the sea.
The salt-laden breeze coming off the sea dries out leaf buds and inhibits growth so the plants end up growing most vigorously in the lee of the wind. In the direction facing the prevailing wind, the growth is therefore more compact and stunted whereas in the lee of the wind, the branches are much more straggly. The result is that the trees appear to point away from the prevailing wind. Where there are no obstacles interfering with the wind direction, the shape of the trees can be used as a compass. Prevailing winds come from the southwest, so in general, trees in Cornwall point northeast.
Due to the low vegetation on the headland here, even the tufts of grass point northeast.
The land furthest in the distance is the Penwith coastline between St Ives and Zennor. In front of this is Godrevy Head and the lighthouse can be just about made out on the island offshore of this. Closer still are the islands off Portreath.
Wheal Cotes is an area of mine workings between Chapel Porth and St Agnes, now preserved and owned by the National Trust. Wheal Coates is reported as working from 1815-1914, although small-scale extraction of copper and tin has occurred in this area since prehistoric times. The surviving buildings date from the 1870s when deep underground mining began on the site. The complex consists of a cluster of buildings at the top of the cliff with another engine house mid-way down the cliff next to the Towanroath mine shaft. Both tin and copper were extracted here and it is said that in its heyday, Wheal Coates employed around 140 miners.
The building located downhill slightly from the two engine houses at Wheal Cotes was a calciner furnace used to roast the tin ore. A long flue connected this to the chimney at the top of the site.
The granules of ore were heated in a furnace to remove impurities such as sulphur and particularly arsenic. By heating the ore in air, the arsenic impurities could be driven off as a vapour. As the impurities escaped as gasses, the particles of ore melted into grey crystalline lumps of tin oxide known as "black tin".
The exhaust gasses were cooled and condensed to form a white powder deposited in the flues or purpose-built condensers. The white powder - arsenic - was collected and sold. A few grains of pure arsenic are enough to be fatal but the majority of arsenic workers managed to protect themselves by stuffing cotton wool up their noses and painting their faces and any other exposed areas of skin white with fuller's earth to prevent arsenic being absorbed through the pores of their skin.
The two engine houses in the upper area of Wheal Coates, nearest the isolated chimney, were used for hoisting the tin ore up from the mineshaft and for crushing it. These were the most modern of the engine houses still standing. One was built in 1880 and the other in 1910 when there was a last attempt to work the mine. The isolated chimney was part of the boiler system for these.
Hoisting devices were referred to as "whims" and before steam engines were available, these were powered by blindfolded donkeys turning capstans.
In order to be processed, ore-bearing rock mined from mineral veins needed to be crushed to a powder. In earlier times, millstones were used to grind down lumps of ore but later it was done using a process known as "stamping" where the ore was crushed by dropping heavy granite or metal weights to pound it against another hard surface (often a piece of granite known as a mortar stone - as in "pestle and mortar"). The crushing was automated first with waterwheels and later with steam engines. The process was far from quiet and could often be heard from a number of miles away.
Once rendered into a powder, the tin ore was separated from fragments of less useful rock, usually using water and taking advantage of the heavier tin ore sinking more quickly out of a suspension than the other minerals. The slurry was sometimes run slowly down an inclined wooden board: the heavier tin fragments would settle near the top and could be scraped off whereas the fragments of lighter rock could be discarded from the bottom, and the material in the middle could be recycled into the next batch. Conical structures (known as "buddles") with rotating brushes were also used. It's possible that the Cornish mining word for the waste sludge of rock fragments - gange - is the origin of the English slang word "gunge".
The final stage of tin production was a process known as smelting which produced the pure shiny metal which was known as "white tin". The smelting process used charcoal or coal as a source of carbon to chemically reduce the tin from the oxide to its elemental form, similar to the blast furnaces used for producing iron.
Particularly in the earlier years of mining, this was typically done in a specialised facility (known as a "blowing house") to which the concentrated tin oxide (known as "black tin") was transported from the mines. In Victorian times, reverberatory furnaces using powdered anthracite replaced the charcoal and forced-air furnaces powered by water wheels, and more smelting was done onsite at the mines.
The World Belly Boarding Championship (WBBC) started in 2002 as a memorial contest to a regular visitor with his wooden board at Chapel Porth. There are now over 300 people who take part in this delightfully eccentric and quintessentially British contest involving surfing, tea and baking. Surfing is rigorously old-school with no wetsuits, fins or other modern nonsense allowed. Under-sixties must compete in the "juniors" category, and prizes are awarded for prettiest surfboard, as well as "best surfing trick" and "longest ride" (amongst many others); there's also a bake-off. The WBBC takes place on the first Sunday in September at Chapel Porth.
The larger engine house in the upper area (with its own chimney) was built in 1872, at the same time as the pumping engine house further down the hill. The one up here was used both to raise ore from the mine and also to power a stamping mill to crush the ore.
The stamping mill installed in the 1870s was a Cornish design where heavy wooden vertical poles tipped with crushing stones were lifted and released by a rotating horizontal pole with protruding pegs to lift the vertical poles.
By the time the mine was re-opened in 1910, a new style of stamping mill had been designed in California. One of these, powered by a gas engine, was installed on the other side of the path from the old stamping engine. There are now just some remains of the foundations.
Californian stamps were developed in America during the gold rush and had a number of design improvements over the Cornish stamps from which they were derived. Rather than using square stamping heads, the Californian ones were round and the mechanism was designed to rotate them as they were lifted so that the wear on the head was evened-out. Californian stamps were also more rapid and could crush 50% more ore in the same amount of time as the traditional design and this led to their use in Cornwall too.
Vugga Cave is at the northern end of Chapel Porth, which can only be reached at low tide. The name is from an old mining term vug which the Chambers English Dictionary defines as "a Cornish miners name for a cavity in a rock".
The natural cave connects to a network of mine workings. Subsequently it was adapted into a mine drainage adit: at the far end of the adit is a waterfall where it connects to the Towanroath mineshaft, draining the water out of the shaft. The vertical shaft continues below sea level, which is now flooded.
Golden samphire is a plant that grows on cliff edges in similar locations to rock samphire. Like rock samphire, it has with thick, fleshy leaves but it is related to fleabane and part of the daisy family and so not closely related to rock samphire (which is part of the carrot family). It is usually a taller plant than rock samphire and has brighter green leaves (rock samphire has blue-green lives). Golden samphire easiest to recognise during the late summer when it's in flower. The golden yellow flowers have a large centre surrounded by a ring of petals - fairly similar in structure to a daisy.
Adders are easily identified by the pretty diamond pattern along their backs. Also known as vipers, these are Britain's only venomous snake. Adders are a protected species, are not aggressive, and generally only bite if trodden on or picked up (unsupervised dogs or children may attempt the latter).
In the rare event of a bite, medication attention should be sought immediately. The smaller body sizes of young children or small dogs means the same amount of venom will have a greater effect in these cases. Although a bite is painful, no-one has died from an adder bite in over 20 years and the highest risk is to those with preexisting conditions or allergies.
On warm days from late April, you may be lucky enough to witness the "dance of the adders" (a pair of adders wrestling). This was once thought to be a mating display, but is actually a larger male attempting to drive away a smaller one.
Unlike many species of snake, adders don't lay eggs but give birth to live young as there isn't enough warmth available during the spring to hatch eggs. It usually takes the female adder two to three years to replenish the energy reserves to be able to breed again.
Victorian naturalists believed that female adders protected the young and would swallow them if they were in danger and regurgitate them later. No evidence has been found for any of this. As far as biologists been able to tell, the young adders are left to fend for themselves after they are born. The offspring often remain close to the parents for a few days before they gradually dissipate so it's possible this was misinterpreted as the parents protecting the young.
The name "adder" arose through a mistake. In mediaeval English, a word for any generic snake was a nadder. Through a process of misunderstanding known as "wrong division", the correct form a nadder became the incorrect an adder. Eventually the usage became restricted from any snake to just the snake also known as the viper.
The peregrine falcon can reach over 322 km/h (200 mph) during its hunting stoop (high speed dive) making it the fastest member of the animal kingdom. In 2005, a peregrine was measured at a top speed of 389 km/h (242 mph). The air pressure at this speed could damage a bird's lungs. However small bony tubercles on a falcon's nostrils guide the powerful airflow away, enabling the bird to breathe more easily while diving. In Cornish dialect, these falcons are known as "winnards" and local expressions include "shrammed as a winnard" (meaning chilled) and "rumped up like a winnard" (meaning huddled).
Lizards are cold-blooded so they need to bask in the sun to warm up to their "operating temperature" which is around 30 Celcius. They usually do so with an area of cover nearby which forms an escape route from predators. You're therefore likely to encounter them in sunny spots on footpaths and footbridges. Once they spot you, they will usually make a hasty escape - they can move pretty quickly once they are warmed-up. During winter they hibernate as in cold temperatures they are too slow to catch any food (insects, spiders etc. which are also less numerous over the winter).
During winter, from November to March, winter heliotrope is visible along the edges of roads and paths as carpets of rounded heart-shaped leaves.
Winter heliotrope is native to Sardinia and North Africa. It was introduced to Britain in 1806 but only the male plant. The female plant has subtly different flowers with more rays.
Despite only having the male form in the UK (is and therefore unable to produce seeds), it can spread vegetatively through its network of underground roots. A small fragment of root can give rise to a new plant which allows it to colonise new locations. Within less than 30 years of its introduction it had been recorded in the wild in Middlesex. Roughly a century later it has become one of the most common plants along roads and bridleways in Cornwall.
From mid November to January, the plants produce spikes with pale pink flowers. The scent of the flowers resembles marzipan i.e. almond and vanilla. The chemical responsible for the scent (4-methoxybenzaldehyde) has been found to attract pollinators whilst also repelling ants. It is a very similar chemical compound to vanillin (hence the vanilla-like scent).
The name of the plant is Greek for "sun direction" because the flowers turn to follow the winter sun.
The leaf shape of winter heliotrope is similar to its close relative butterbur, but the leaf edges are more rounded than butterbur and the leaves are evergreen whereas butterbur puts up flowers before it has any leaves. Both plants spread via rhizomes (underground stems) and their broad leaves can crowd out other plants making them potentially invasive.
Both Common Dolphins and Bottle-nosed Dolphins are quite frequently encountered off Cornwall. Bottle-nosed Dolphins are the species found in marine parks and are the saloon car of the dolphin world: quite large (adults are 7-12ft long), plain grey and tend to cruise at fairly low speeds though they can do short bursts of over 30km/h. Common Dolphins are their sports car cousins: a little smaller (adults are 6-8ft long) with a flashy hourglass-shaped "go faster" stripe of gold at the front and light grey at the back and can swim up to 60km/h. The considerable intelligence of dolphins includes the ability to learn new behaviours from each other and cooperate with other dolphins or even human fishermen to catch fish.
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