The name Coverack is from the Cornish word gover for "stream".
In English we often add a -y ending to a noun to turn it into an adjective; for example "rock" becomes "rocky". For many of the nouns imported from French, we add "-ic" (acidic, magnetic, artistic...). The equivalent in Cornish is to add -ack or -ek to the end of the word. Thus meynek is "stony" (men is stone), stennack means "tinny" (sten is tin).
In September 1840, Customs Officers seized nearly 130 kegs of French brandy at Coverack and impounded these in the Customs House in Helford. However, the smugglers had customers that they were keen not to disappoint and therefore one night a large band of men broke the locks off the doors and raided the Customs House, seizing the majority of contraband, apart from 3 kegs which were left behind in recompense for the damage caused.
Cornish Heath grows in the sunnier areas along the path here.
The county flower of Cornwall is the Cornish Heath - a plant that most people (Cornish included) have never heard of let alone seen. The only place in England that the shrub grows is on the Lizard Peninsula and it looks fairly unremarkable until late summer when it produces the most beautiful tiny lilac-coloured flowers. It is easy to distinguish from other heather flowers by the dark ring around the ends of the pale flowers.
Flotsam that has been at sea a long time can become covered in goose barnacles.
Goose barnacles are alien-looking creatures, usually found on flotsam such as driftwood that has been at sea for a while. In mediaeval times, before it was realised that birds migrate, it was believed that goose barnacles hatched into geese just before the winter. The association is thought to be based on similarities in the colour and the long necks of the barnacles. Since there were no plastic bottles or wellies floating in the sea back then, they were only ever seen on driftwood and it was assumed that the wood was already covered in the barnacles, laid by geese, before it fell into the sea. This elaborate lifecycle was also exploited as a "loophole" in religious doctrine which forbade the eating of meat on certain days. As geese were deemed "neither flesh, nor born of flesh", they were exempt and could be eaten.
Bracken is a type of fern. Perhaps the easiest way to spot mature bracken plants is by their sturdy stem which acts a bit like the trunk of a tree with leaves going out horizontally from this. Other ferns leaves tend to grow directly out of the ground. Earlier in the year, bracken is recognisable by the fronds emerging from the ground singly rather than grouped in tufts.
Tidal range is mainly determined by 15 fixed points around the world’s oceans, known as amphidromes, around which water rotates. The further a coastline is from the nearest amphidrome, the larger the tidal range. This is a fair way in the case of Cornwall so the difference between low and high tide is around 5-6 metres on average. Consequently offshore rocks that are 20ft below the surface at high tide can lie just under the surface as the tide falls.
Water mint grows along the left side of the path.
Water mint is a wild species of mint which grows in damp places or even in water. It can be recognised by leaves and the strong mint smell when these are crushed. It produces a ball of lilac flowers in late summer.
Water mint will hybridise with spearmint and this creates peppermint (which itself is sterile).
Water mint and peppermint have high levels of menthol whereas the sweeter flavour of spearmint comes from a different chemical called corvone. Menthol creates a cold feeling on the skin by activating the sensory receptors in a similar way that chilli creates a heat sensation.
The speed with which the tide comes in or goes out follows a sine wave: slow at low tide, speeding up to the fastest at mid-tide (known as the "tide race", when currents are at their strongest) and slowing down again towards high tide. Thus high and low tides are also referred to as "slack tide" when tidal currents are at their minimum.
Whilst ships were returning to England, often on a voyage of several months, merchants would explore the markets to find the best port to land the goods. They had no means of communicating with the ships whilst at sea, so ships were often told to sail for "Falmouth for Orders". Falmouth, being the first large port on The Channel, provided a "holding pen" for ships with incoming cargoes whilst their final destination was being decided and communicated. The ships were often badly in need of repair and supplies from their journey across the Atlantic so during the wait they could be restocked and patched up. It is thought the practice and possibly also the phrase originated in the late 17th century, soon after the Royal Mail Packet Station was established at Falmouth which involved relatively fast communications with London. Falmouth is still a major refuelling port. Ships are required to use low-sulphur oil in the English Channel to reduce emissions.
If you come across a gorse bush covered in red threads, this is dodder - a parasitic plant. The red colour is because the dodder contains no chlorophyll. Instead of manufacturing its own food by photosynthesis, it pierces another plant (often gorse) and siphons nutrients from this. Its leaves have shrunk to tiny proportions for the same reason - they aren't needed to catch any sunlight.
Once a dodder seed sprouts, the dodder seedling only has 5-10 days of energy reserves to reach a host plant before it dies. It uses chemo-sensors (equivalent to taste and smell) to locate and home in on a green plant.
The name comes directly from mediaeval English and is thought to be unrelated to the verb "to dodder". It also has a range of folk names - some refer to the colour (e.g. fireweed and devil's guts), some refer to its parasitic nature (strangleweed and beggarweed) and others refer to its structure (wizard's net and witch's hair).
Just above the beach are the remains of a saltworks which has been dated to the second century AD. The site consisted of a building which contained two ovens with stone-lined flues. These were used to boil seawater, which was held in earthenware troughs made from local clay. Fragments of the earthenware can be seen in the eroding cliff. A few of the fragments are from domestic pots but most are from the vessels used in salt production.
Inland from the salt factory are hut circles - the remains of prehistoric round houses, and remnants of field systems from the same era. Finds of pottery around these indicate that the area had also been occupied in both the Iron Age and Bronze Age, and some finds of stone tools suggest that occupation may go back as far as Mesolithic times.
The offshore rocks in the distance are part of The Manacles reef.
The Manacles reef stretches for a mile and a half out to sea and has numerous submerged rocks just below the surface which are all covered at high tide apart from one. The reef has been named "the grave of 1000 ships"; over 100 have certainly been lost here, which is more wrecks than any other comparable reef on the south coast of England. The name "Manacles" is thought to be a garbling of Meyn Eglos meaning "church stones" and may either refer to St Keverne church or the gravestones of over 1000 people who have drowned here.
The proverbial silver lining is that the shipwrecks and surrounding reefs provide a good habitat for marine life and consequently the reef has some of the best diving in Britain. In 2013, The Manacles was designated a Marine Conservation Zone as the wide range of habitats it provides support species such as spiny lobsters and sea fan anemones.
The Mohegan was a 7,000 ton luxury liner and was on her second voyage from London to New York in October 1898. As she passed along The Channel, she accelerated up to full speed and kept close to the coast of Cornwall but took the wrong bearing. Some of the crew were suspicious as they noticed that the Eddystone Lighthouse seemed too far away and the coast was too close. The Coverack coastguard also noticed and attempted to alert the captain by firing warning rockets. However, the Mohegan maintained her course.
Just after the guests had sat down to dinner, there was a horrible grinding sound as the ship hit Vase Rock at full speed, ripping off the rudder and tearing open the hull. She continued, out of control, and ploughed into the Maen Vose where she began to sink rapidly. Within minutes, only the funnel and tops of the masts were visible. Out of the 157 aboard, 107 perished and are buried in a mass grave in St Keverne churchyard. The majority of the survivors were rescued by the Porthoustock lifeboat.
A magnificent staircase was salvaged from the wreck and is now in the Coverack Youth Hostel.
In May 1899, The American ocean liner SS Paris was off course and would have hit the Manacles if a pilot boat had not been nearby and warned the ship to take evasive action. Instead, the Paris ran aground at Lowland Point. The collision was described by an off-duty captain amongst the passengers: "I heard a tremendous crash, and, as a steamboat man, I knew we were on the bottom and that if she slipped from the rock we would be in Queer street."
Fortunately, the sea was calm and no-one aboard was hurt. After the call for "All hands on deck", a passenger recalled: "Many came on deck in their night clothing. One man wore his drawers and his wife's fur cape, but his appearance caused so much smiling that his wife sent him down to dress, which he did in the music room, to the equal amusement of all."
The passengers were all safely rescued from the ship which was lodged upright on the flat rocks. If it weren't for the warning from the pilot boat and the ship had hit the offshore rocks of The Manacles, it is likely that she would have sunk with great loss of life.
Attempts were made to refloat the liner, using six powerful tugs to pull the ship off the rocks, but these were unsuccessful. Finally, a German firm successfully refloated the ship for a fee of a quarter of a million pounds, which would be in excess of £25 million in today's money.
The Glenbervie was a British-owned iron sailing ship which in January 1902 was carrying a consignment of pianos and high quality spirits including 600 barrels of whisky, 400 barrels of brandy and barrels of rum. The sailing ship lost her way in bad weather and ran aground at Lowland Point. All 16 crewmen were saved by lifeboat. Much of the alcoholic cargo was also rescued. The grounded ship was photographed by the Gibson family from the Scilly Isles.
In March 1932, the coaster Ocklinge set off from Falmouth to Port Talbot with a cargo of iron ore. Shortly after leaving the harbour, the captain mistook the Manacles light for the Lizard lighthouse and mistakenly altered his course. The result was that the vessel hit the rocks at Lowland Point at full speed. Attempts were made to refloat the ship by jettisoning some of the iron ore cargo and towing with a tug. However, in the increasingly strong wind and swell, the ship had to be abandoned. The captain attempted to conceal his mistake by destroying the navigation log and making false statements in a formal investigation by the Board of Trade but was found out and his licence was suspended for his negligence. Lumps of iron ore are still evident amongst the pebbles along the beach.
The path passes a fenced viewing area overlooking Dean Quarry.
Dean Quarry first opened in 1890 to extract Gabbro - a hard volcanic rock. This is crushed into a gravel of varying grades for use in aggregates for road building and sea defences. The gabbro was loaded onto ships docked alongside the purpose-built quay. The quarry operated until 2005 and then the buildings fell into decay. At the time of writing, there is a plan to re-open the quarry in order to build the sea defences for a large offshore wind farm in Swansea Bay.
In 1895, the Andola was on her way home with 2,000 tons of wheat from Seattle. She stopped in Falmouth to take on food and water but as she left Falmouth for Hull, there were strong winds from the East - in the direction she was attempting to sail. The captain tacked the ship against the wind from one side of The Channel to the other. Despite this, they could not make headway and realised from the Lizard lighthouse nearby that they were actually going backwards. Then it began to snow, which reduced visibility to just a few feet. The crew heard the bell on the Manacles buoy tolling and the captain ordered the sails be furled, but the evasive manoeuvre was not in time and the ship struck the Shark's Fin rock. The crew attempted to launch distress flares but these did not burn properly so the captain ordered the Ship's Boy to fetch some rockets. Whilst attempting to get the rockets, the boy dropped one of the smouldering flares into the locker containing the rockets! He panicked and shut the locker which exploded, injuring him and setting the ship ablaze. Fortunately, the ship had been spotted through the snow as it was running aground and the Porthoustock lifeboat was soon alongside and was able to save all the crew including the boy.
During a storm one night in 1809, two navy ships - the transport ship Dispatch and HMS Primrose - were wrecked on The Manacles. On the Dispatch, only 7 of the 75 men aboard survived, whilst on the HMS Primrose, the only survivor from the 125 men aboard was the drummer boy. 110 bodies were washed ashore and are buried in St Keverne churchyard. The remaining bodies were never recovered.
The carpets of yellow flowers on the coast in June and July are Kidney Vetch. The flowers are red when they open and then turn yellow, and appear to be on a woolly cushion. The plant gets its common name as it was used to treat kidney troubles. Its other name - woundwort - is because it was also used to treat wounds. It is the food plant of the small blue butterfly, which is consequently quite common on the coastal heath.
In May 1855, the barque John was carrying 263 emigrants to Canada and sank on the Maen Land; only 86 survived. The Exeter Evening Post reported that the ship "encountered a heavy gale of wind from the northeast to the westward of the Eddystone, and got closer in towards the land than the captain was aware of, for in making for the Blackhead-headland, he ran the ship upon a dangerous reef of rocks called the Manacles, situated a short distance from the coast, and between Deanna and Chunkall's Point (the extreme eastern part of Cornwall). It occurred between ten and eleven o'clock on Friday night, the wind blowing heavily at the time, and a tremendous sea lashing the coast. In a few minutes she was got off, but the captain found she was fast filling, evidently having stove in her bottom, and as the only chance of saving life, he ran her ashore, where she went down within 200 feet from the coast. The water was shallow, and the deck was above water, but the tide, which was about two-thirds flood, was fast running in, and would soon cover her up to nearly her main-top. A great number with the crew took to the rigging, but the bulk of the unfortunate passengers were swept off the wreck by the fearful seas that rolled over her, and in this way, it is understood that nearly 200 met with a watery grave."
The large rock just off the beach in the centre of Godrevy Cove is called Shag Rock.
The large black birds nesting on offshore rocks, known colloquially as the cormorant and shag, are two birds of the same family and to the untrained eye look pretty similar. The origin of the name "shag" is a crest that this species has on top of its head and the cormorant doesn't. The cormorant is the larger of the two birds with a whiter throat. The shag's throat is yellow, and mature shags have a metallic green sheen on their feathers which cormorants lack.
An account in the West Briton from November 1895 describes the wrecking of the Anne Elizabeth in Godrevy Cove near Lowland Point:
...an increasingly strong east wind prevented much headway being made, coming on to blow with hurricane force. The vessel commenced to drift and all day Monday was tossed about the Channel at the mercy of wind and waves. When daylight began to break on Tuesday morning the Manacles were discerned and additional sail was put on with a view to avoiding the land. But the velocity of the wind and the swirl of the tide prevented the barque from answering her helm, and just before seven she struck with a tremendous force against ... the iron bound coast, between the Manacles and the Lowlands about five miles from Coverack. Entertaining fears for their safety, the steward, carpenter and four seamen embarked in a small boat, and together with the vessel were hurled towards the coast. Getting between the wreck and the surf beaten shore, the boat was swamped and lives of its occupants were drowned. A seaman named Hatman Hansen was rescued. By this time the Coverack Rocket apparatus ... placed on a waggon, drawn by three horses ... five miles over the roughest roads possible to imagine, steep, zigzag paths, strewn with huge boulders, having to be traversed at high speed ... was on the scene, and with commendable alacrity a line was thrown over the vessel and by means of a breeches buoy, the survivors, who were huddled together in the forecastle, were saved. So heavy was the sea that in each instance it was feared that the men would be washed out of the buoy. Soon after the rescue, one of the dead bodies was washed ashore. Attempts to restore animation by Dr. Leverton-Spry and others proved ineffective.
A little further along the coast, in a disused quarry at Porthkerris, is the Cornish Sea Salt Factory.
The Iron Age saltworks on The Lizard inspired the idea for the Cornish Sea Salt Company in 2004 which, after three years of development work, began trading in Jan 2008. The salt is harvested from the sea in a purpose-built building on the Lizard coast. Only a fraction of the salt is extracted from the seawater, which is then allowed to trickle back into the sea through a fault in the rocks, ensuring that the local salinity levels are not greatly disturbed.
Gunnera looks like giant rhubarb but the leaves stems are spiky. It tends to favour damp places as quite a lot of water is needed to supply its huge leaves.
The plant has a symbiotic relationship with cyanobacteria which live between its cells. The cyanobacteria, also known as "blue-green algae", are photosynthetic and also supply the host plant with nitrogen which allows it to colonise poor soils.
The settlement of Chenhale was first recorded in 1312. The name is Cornish, meaning something along the lines of "house on the moor".
The neighbouring settlement of Rosenithon was first recorded a little earlier, in 1294. The name is from the Cornish word ros which can also be used to mean "moor" and eithon - the word for gorse.
Spanish bluebells have been planted in gardens and these have hybridised with native bluebells producing fertile seeds. This has produced hybrid swarms around sites of introductions and, since the hybrids are able to thrive in a wider range of environmental conditions, the hybrids are frequently out-competing the native English bluebells. Sir Francis Drake would not be impressed! The Spanish form can be fairly easily recognised by the flowers on either side of the stem. In the English form, they are all on one side. In general, the English bluebells also have longer, less-flared flowers and are often a deeper colour. However, the easiest way to tell the difference between native and non-native bluebells is to look at the colour of the pollen: if it is creamy-white then the bluebell is native; if it is any other colour such as pale green or blue then it's not native.
Horsetail is a "living fossil" - the only surviving genus from a group of plants which formed the understory of the great conifer forests 300 million years ago, found in today's coal deposits. The modern species date from the Jurassic period.
To discourage grazing animals, the stems are coated with abrasive silicates (similar to grass leaves). Horsetails have therefore been used historically for pot scouring and wood polishing.
It spreads via rhizomes (underground stems) and can be a nightmare weed in gardens and for farmers where its abrasive properties can damage equipment over time. It is also resilient to many herbicides but routine cultivation does eventually get rid of it.
A stream runs parallel to the lane through the area to the left and consequently there is a good water supply to support the diverse range of trees along the lane here.
Trees need a lot of water. A large oak tree can absorb around 450 litres of water per day, most of which is released into the atmosphere as water vapour through transpiration. Trees therefore help to reduce flooding from heavy rain in low-lying river floodplains and also reduce erosion from runoff.
St Keverne was the site of a mediaeval monastery from around AD 600, which would originally have been built of wood. The settlement of St Keverne was first recorded in the 1086 Domesday survey as Lannachebran. The manor included 20 acres of pasture and land for 7 ploughs and was owned by the canons of St Achebran's monastery.
The church is dedicated to St Akevernus (also known as St Kieran) who is said to have founded the monastery. The current church mostly dates from the 15th Century but some of the stonework from a previous church was re-used in its construction. The columns within the nave are constructed from a number of different colours of stone which is thought to have been imported from Brittany. The church was restored in the 1830s and a mural of St Christopher was discovered beneath whitewash.
The Three Tuns Hotel dates back to at least the mid 1400s, although the physical structure has been replaced since the first building. It is said to take its name from an incident in 1467 where the local vicar was found in the building with three huge casks (tuns) of wine or brandy, "obtained" from a French wreck. Each tun held around 250 gallons, so in total this would have been the equivalent of four and a half thousand bottles.
The West Briton records in 1891 how the news of the wreck of the "Bay of Panama" was brought to Falmouth by the St Keverne Butcher:
He left St. Keverne about one o'clock Tuesday on a pony for Helston, intending to wire to Falmouth. At Helston he found the wires down and no communication. Finding it impossible to proceed on horseback he left his pony and made for Falmouth on foot. On the way he encountered enormous difficulties. For a mile and a half or two miles he had to crawl along on his hands and knees through the snow. His face became coated with ice and several times he had to break ice from his eyes, whilst icicles hung from his ears. More dead than alive he came across a cottage in the occupation of a mason, named Combellack. Here, he rested until daylight on Wednesday morning, when he pursued his journey and arrived at Falmouth about nine o'clock and gave notice of the disaster
The St Keverne parish has one of the densest distribution of place names beginning with "Tre-" anywhere in Cornwall, indicating heavy settlement during the Dark Ages. Around St Keverne itself, these places are thought to be part of a monastic estate. During this period, there were strong links with the Celtic people of Brittany and this may explain the unusual stone within St Keverne church which is thought to have been imported from Brittany.
Dandelion is a corruption of the French dent de lion (lion's tooth), which is thought to refer to the shape of the leaves. The plant is a member of the sunflower family.
Buttercups produce a toxin called protoanemonin, which is at its highest concentration when flowering. It is thought that buttercups may be partly responsible for Equine Grass Sickness. Fortunately the toxin is quite unstable and drying of the plant in haymaking leads to polymerisation into non-toxic anemonin. Buttercups are also toxic to dogs, cats and humans. They have a bitter taste which puts dogs off eating the plants but pollen can collect on fur and be ingested, particularly by cats when they clean themselves. A man in France who drank a glass of juice made from buttercups suffered severe colic after four hours and was dead the next day!
The Roskilly family have a long heritage in the St Keverne area. After the wreck of the Anne Elizabeth in November 1895, an article in West Briton noted that "Mr. Roskilly, at once rode to Coverack and prepared warm bedding, food and clothing for the shipwrecked men, who spoke in thankful terms of his kindness and good nature."
The family inherited their farm in 1950 from a childless godmother and have worked hard to pay back this good luck. Milk from their herd of Jersey cattle and local eggs are used to make their award-wining organic ice cream, whilst water from their spring is used for the sorbet. Their farm is free to visit, where you can see the ice cream being made.
Hokey Pokey has become a "traditional" Cornish name for cinder toffee/honeycomb, popularised in more recent times by Roskilly's ice cream and Nigella Lawson.
An investigation for a trademark dispute was unable to establish that it was a Cornish traditional name but this is more-than-likely due to a lack of widely-available documentation of many historical dialect terms. We found that a number of the relatively senior members of the Cornish Dialect facebook group knew the term from childhood and one has a handwritten recipe entitled Hokey Pokey from her grandmother born at the start of the 20th Century.
The origin of the name is thought to be from London's Italian population who in the early 20th Century made ice cream with "oh che poco" (oh, how little) pieces of honeycomb which became Anglicised as Hokey Pokey.
The term (again for cinder toffee generally, rather than specifically in ice cream) is more widely known in New Zealand, particularly in areas such as New Plymouth where many Cornish emigrated in the 18th and 19th Centuries, so it's possible it travelled there via Cornish relatives.
To make Hokey Pokey, combine 50g of caster sugar with 50g of golden syrup (or Cornish honey) in a pan with an optional splash of vanilla extract. Stir over a low heat (to prevent the sugar burning) until sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and immediately remove from heat before it darkens beyond golden. Let it cool for a few seconds then add 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and stir quickly to mix evenly. Immediately pour the froth out onto a greased tray or silicone sheet using one quick sweep with a spoon to get the majority out of the pan and then don't disturb it after this to avoid bursting the bubbles. Cool quickly in the fridge and store in a dry airtight container as it will absorb moisture from the air.
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
During February, there is a nice display of snowdrops along the wall opposite the stile.
Snowdrops are a member of the onion family. Although it is often thought of as a native British wild flower, the snowdrop was probably introduced in Tudor times, around the early sixteenth century.
The first record of Trevalsoe is from 1284. It is thought to date from early mediaeval times (aka The Dark Ages) before the Norman Conquest.
Sycamores like moist soil and the young trees need a lot of water (equivalent to an inch of rain per week) to get established. For this reason, sycamores are very often found along streams or in low-lying meadows that collect water. Once their roots grow deep enough, the mature trees can withstand drought by tapping into underground moisture.
The current configuration of buildings at Boscarnon is recorded on the OS map from the 1880s so they are likely to be at least Victorian in age but not as old as the actual settlement itself which was recorded in 1294.
Cows are very gregarious and even short-term isolation is thought to cause severe psychological stress. This is why walking along the hedges of a field to avoid splitting a herd is so important to avoid a cow bolting in panic to rejoin its friends.
Blackthorn is a spiny type of plum which is more broadly a member of the rose family. It is native to the UK and common on old farmland where blackthorn trees were planted as hedges to keep out cattle. It is still common in Cornish hedgerows today and also common on the coast as it's tolerant to salt.
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.
The stone walls are the remains of a mediaeval settlement called Guilly, first recorded in 1312. The name is thought to be based on the Cornish word kellifor "grove" or "small wood", where the "k" sound had mutated to a softer "g" sound.
Cuckoos are migratory birds that overwinter in Africa and are first seen, or more often heard, in Cornwall during the spring. The cuckoo is well-known for laying its eggs in the nests of other bird species. The adult cuckoo is a mimic of a sparrowhawk - a predator; this causes other birds to abandon their nests, allowing the female lay her eggs. Although cuckoo eggs are larger than those already in the nest, cuckoos produce eggs in several different colour schemes to match those of several species of bird. Since the cuckoo chick is a much larger than even the full-grown foster parents (which they seem not to notice, assuming their offspring is just a bit portly), it needs to monopolise the food supply. It therefore methodically evicts all other eggs and chicks from the nest.
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.
One of Coverack's most famous smugglers was John Carlyon who made regular three day round trips to Roscoff in his small boat when the weather was fine. On the third day, his wife would hang a red shirt on the washing line to indicate that the coast was clear, which would signal both to the boat and his customers that delivery could take place. The enterprise was so successful that the small boat was replaced with a large lugger which could also trade with Spanish ports.
Beard-like lichens (known as Old Man's Beard) are very sensitive to sulphur dioxide in the air. Where the air quality is poor, at best they only manage to grow a few millimetres and may not survive at all. Long beards are therefore an indicator of clean air.
The name "daisy" is thought to be a corruption of "day's eye" (or "eye of the day", as Chaucer called it). The name comes about because the flower head closes at night and opens each morning. In mediaeval times, it was known as "Mary's Rose".
The small, irregular field shapes are remnants of ancient field systems. The area is classed as Anciently Enclosed Land and the fields may have prehistoric origin.
In Celtic times, fields were small and surrounded by banks or stone walls. The fields were used both for growing crops such as oats, wheat or rye, and for keeping livestock. The field shape was round or square, rather than rectangular, so that the stones didn't have to be carried further than necessary. The small size was because they needed to be weeded by hand, in many ways similar to a modern-day allotment.
Wild Clematis, also known "traveller's joy", produces white silky seeds in autumn which give rise to another name: "old man's beard". These stay on the plant through much of the winter and provide both food for birds and fluff for lining their nests. The tangled structure of their stems also provides cover and nesting sites for birds. During the summer months, their flowers are a good source of nectar for bees.
The French name is "herbe aux gueux" - beggar's herb. It is said to be because the sap was used deliberately to irritate the skin to give it an ulcerated look to induce more sympathy. The sap contains a chemical called protoanemonin which causes blistering.
Blackbirds are one of the most common birds in the UK with a population of somewhere between 10 and 15 million. However, blackbirds were in steady decline from the 1970s through to the mid-1990s. The population has only relatively recently recovered.
375 million years ago, the rocks on Coverack beach were a molten state around 10 kilometres below the seabed; they were pushed to the surface by the huge pressure created by two colliding continents. The rocks on the beach include the actual junction between the Earth's crust and mantle, known as the "Moho discontinuity". To the left of this, in the direction of Lowland Point, the rocks are gabbro, formed in the oceanic crust. To the right, towards the harbour, the darker rocks are serpentine and originated in the earth's mantle. At the junction between the two, there are boulders with bands of one rock type forced through the other.
Common fleabane grows in damp areas and produces shin-height flowers resembling a large yellow daisy during July and August.
The leaves have a scent reminiscent of carbolic acid (phenol). The plant was therefore thought to be an insect repellent without too much thought given to what pollinates it. It was kept in houses in the hope of driving away fleas, hence the name. The genus name also derives from the Latin word for flea.
Purple loosestrife usually grows in damp places such as next to a stream and can be spotted from spikes of bright purple flowers in August-September.
The common name is thought to be the result of a 16th century mistranslation of the Latin name. Attempts were then made to make "loose strife" fit with reported uses for the plant to try to rationalise the wacky name. The Latin name is now thought simply to refer to the name of city in Thrace (Greek-Turkish border) which perhaps had the plant growing along its watercourses.
The yellow water iris (also known as yellow flag) is a native plant but can become invasive and have a negative effect on biodiversity due to its ability to out-compete many other water plants. It is thought by some to be the original plant on which the "fleur-de-lis" heraldic symbol is based.
If heavy metals are present in the soil, the plant is quite effective at absorbing these. This together with its aptitude for growing in pools of shallow water makes it potentially useful for detoxifying mine drainage.
Spurges are small plants with bright green, fleshy leaves with pointed tips that can be found on sand dunes in Cornwall. They do well in areas of fairly bare sand without much other vegetation so can be found along the edge of paths where other vegetation has been worn down.
Sea spurge has quite spiky leaves and grows up to a foot tall. It's particularly noticeable in December and January when other vegetation has died down. The stems are red at the base and green at the top and have leaves all along their length.
Portland spurge is less of an upright plant. Its stems are red and bald for most of their length which is the easiest way to tell it from sea spurge. It was named after first being identified on Portland where it turns out to be not that common. However it does seem to be pretty common at Perranporth if a more appropriate name is desired. It flowers from April to September. The leaves at the end of the stems form little cups with a tiny yellow flower in the middle.
The plants are related to petty spurge (milkweed) found in gardens. Milkweed is also known as radium weed as the sap is said to kill rapidly-replicating cells and so it has been used as a traditional medicine for skin cancers.
The Greater Black-backed Gull is the largest member of the gull family and a bird of formidable size, with a wingspan of nearly 6ft. Unlike other gulls, the Greater Black-backed Gull is highly predatory. Young birds are a significant portion of its diet and it tends to live amongst other seabirds where it can eat the neighbours. It has also been known to swallow whole rabbits and even eat young lambs. It often steals food from other seabirds using its large size to intimidate them into dropping it, and consequently it is sometimes referred to as a pirate.
Although fruit-flavoured ice deserts are known to have been consumed by the elite at least as far back as the 2nd Century, the use of cream to make a frozen desert is thought to have been developed in Italy in the 16th Century. By the 17th Century, "Cream Ice" was a popular royal dish in England.
During the Industrial Revolution, the ice cream machine was created and ice carried by ship from Norway was used to chill it until mechanical refrigeration was invented at the end of the 19th Century.
The ice cream cone is thought to be a Victorian English invention, first recorded in Mrs Marshall's Cookery Book in 1888.
"Cornish ice cream" is made with clotted cream and was popularised by Kelly's.
Kelly's Ice Cream began with an Italian who settled in St Austell in the 1890s. His son-in-law took over the business and had the first ice cream van - a horse and cart.
He changed his Italian surname (Calicchia) - and the name of the business - to "Kelly" as this was easier for English people to pronounce. The first motorised ice cream van was converted from a milk float in 1928. By the early 1950s they had a fleet of 40 vans all over Cornwall.
The business moved to Bodmin in the 1970s and, following large investment from a new parent company, by 2015 it had become the sixth largest ice cream manufacturer in Britain.
The breeches buoy is a piece of life-saving equipment devised in the 1860s. It is essentially a zip-line to which a "cradle" (consisting of a lifebelt with a pair of attached shorts) is connected. The flotation device provided a backup if the line broke or sagged into the sea. The breeches - whilst not glamorous - were an effective way of preventing the person being rescued from being washed off the zip-line by breaking waves.
A lightweight line was first sent from the shore to the wrecked ship possibly via a kite, rocket or mortar. This was then used to haul out a more heavy-duty rope (known as a "hawser") on which the zip-line could run. Lighter ropes were also secured to the cradle from each end so it could be hauled in each direction to bring each crew member ashore and then send it back for the next one.
One of the challenges with the mode of rescue was length of time needed for transferring the crew one-by-one. During this period the vessel could roll, drift away or sink. Training the rescue team to operate at the maximum speed possible was therefore important.
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