The name Mullion is likely to be from the Cornish Porth Melyn, meaning "mill cove". The name may also be connected with St Mellanus, to whom the church was dedicated, born in South Wales some time in the early sixth century. Like many Celtic saints, he later migrated to Brittany and the cathedral in the capital, Rennes, is dedicated to him. The names may be a coincidence or St Mellanus may have been retrospectively adopted, based on the similar-sounding name.
There are records of smuggling in Mullion up to 1840. Some of the old cottages still have cupboards with false backs or bottoms and spaces beneath the floor where contraband was stored.
Experiments have shown that rooks are able to use tools to solve problems, choosing tools with optimal sizes and shapes to solve a problem. They are also able to adapt tools e.g. bending a wire to make a hook to retrieve food.
John Wesley's visit to Mullion is commemorated on the stone near Angrouse Farm, engraved in 1762 which simply says "ST 1762". Wesley was invited to preach in Mullion by the wife of the farmer at Angrouse and "ST" is the initial either of the farmer or his wife (their surname was Triggs and the "S" is either "Samuel" or "Sue", short for Ursula). Wesley also recorded the event in his journal:
I rode on to Mullion, near the Lizard Point. A man who was a sinner gladly received us, for he knew God had received him - having been deeply convinced of sin the last time I preached near Helston, and not long after filled with peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. A flame was kindled almost as soon as I began to speak, which increased more and more all the time I was preaching as well as during the meeting of the society. How tender are the hearts of this people! Such is the advantage of true Christian simplicity!
Angrouse Cottage is thought to date from the early 18th Century and was once the farmhouse for Angrouse Farm. It is said that the original roof beams included deck planks from wrecked ships. The name is Cornish for "The Cross", and may refer to a mediaeval wayside cross which was once nearby.
After his successful preliminary tests near Lizard Point, Marconi set out to build a high-powered transmitter, one hundred times more powerful than any built previously. He selected the site near Mullion as it faced West, had a hotel to accommodate the workforce, and was away from the prying eyes of competitors and the press. Work began in October 1900 and a huge circular aerial was constructed supported by a ring of twenty masts each 200ft tall.
By September 1901, Marconi was close to being ready to make a long-range test transmission, but a gale in Mount's Bay destroyed the massive Poldhu aerial. A makeshift "fan" aerial was hastily constructed as a replacement.
Marconi then travelled to Newfoundland by steamer and found a site where he could hoist aerials attached to kites and balloons. He then had to wait for a lull in the bad winter weather to get his kite aloft and finally on 12 December 1901, Marconi made history by detecting the Morse code for the letter "S" on his earphone.
The wireless transmission from the makeshift aerial at Poldhu had successfully propagated over 2,000 miles of open ocean by repeatedly bouncing off the electrically charged layer in the upper atmosphere and the reflective surface of the sea.
Marconi later said that "the experiment had involved risking at least £50,000 to achieve a result which had been declared impossible by some of the principal mathematicians of the time".
The Marconi Centre was erected in 2001 to mark the 100th anniversary of Marconi's transatlantic experiment and is the base for the Poldhu Amateur Radio Club, with displays on the history of the site.
In 1669, the San Salvador was en route from the Baltic to Le Havre with a cargo of timber when it was wrecked somewhere near Gunwalloe. For many years, it was thought that the San Salvador ended up in Dollar Cove, but it is now thought that it is likely to be the wreck found by divers driven into the cliffs of Poldhu Cove. The remains include a number of small iron cannon, and Spanish silver real coins (also known as "pieces-of-one") have been found on the rock ledges.
Scurvy grass has thick, flesh leaves that look a little similar to ivy leaves in shape and its flowers have 4 white petals forming a cross. It flowers around the same time as primroses - in March and April - and the flowers have a pleasant scent reminiscent of jasmine. It is a member of the cabbage family, related to rocket and horseradish and the flavour is hot like horseradish.
Scurvy grass gets its name as it was salted and carried aboard ships to help prevent scurvy during long sea voyages as it is rich in vitamin C. The saltiness combined with the powerful hot flavour might well have needed a daily ration of rum to wash it down!
From mediaeval times until Victorian times, the Spanish currency was based on silver coins known as real (meaning "royal"). A hefty one-ounce silver coin worth 8 silver reals was known as the dollar or piece of 8. Higher value gold coins were also issued including the escudo (worth 2 dollars or 16 reals) and the doubloon (worth 2 escudos or 32 reals). Due to its high uniformity, the Spanish Dollar was used as international currency for many centuries and is the coin upon which the US Dollar was based. The pieces of 8 coins featured the pillars of Hercules, depicted as columns with S-shaped scrolls wrapped around them, and this may be the origin of the dollar symbol.
After the success of his experiment, Marconi developed Poldhu into a wireless station to communicate with ships on transatlantic routes. It operated commercially until the 1920s, and played a key role during the First World War. It was closed and demolished in the 1930s, leaving only embankments in the field and concrete foundations as a reminder of what was once here.
Just past the cottage, a path leads out onto the headland which ends in an area of slate bedrock. This is often quite sheltered from the wind by the headlands either side and rather a nice spot for a hevva bun overlooking the bay.
The beach at Polurrian Cove is mostly composed of fine golden sand. In winter, patches of fine shingle sometimes appear but these give way to golden sand as the tide goes out. The cove faces southwest which can result in some good winter surf and is sheltered from the wind by the headlands either side which also helps to keep the surf clean.
Polurrian is on the geological boundary between the Cornish slates of Mount's Bay and the volcanic rocks of the Lizard which were pushed out from the Earth's mantle during the collision of two ancient continents.
Part of the Earth's mantle, normally tens of miles below your feet, was once bulldozed onto the Cornish mainland in front of the advancing continent. The mantle contains elements such as iron, magnesium and calcium which are less common in the Earth's crust as they are comparatively heavy and normally get chance to sink back into the mantle. The rocks rich in these minerals, such as Greenstone, are referred to as "mafic" whereas those containing relatively little (e.g. granite which is formed from magma which slowly works its way up through the Earth's crust) are referred to as "felsic".
Just before the Polurrian National Trust sign is a bench on the right with a sign for Carrag Luz. The name is Cornish but "Love Rock" is a romantic mistranslation. Carrack does mean "rock" but luz (sometimes written loodge) simply means "grey". There is another rock between Downas and Lankidden coves near Coverack with a very similar name (Carrick Luz). You already know what colour it is.
Mullion Island is roughly half a mile offshore but was still part of the estate of Lower Predannack. It is an important nesting site for seabirds, particularly kittiwakes, and is now owned by the National Trust.
The cannon was found in Mullion Harbour in the 1880s when the harbour walls were being built. The ship that it originally came from is unknown.
The equipment for catching pilchards included multiple boats and large nets which were beyond the means of the majority of poor fishermen. Therefore many pilchard fisheries provided the equipment but paid the workers a relatively small wage. Mullion was an example of this, where the operation was run by seining companies based around Penzance and Newlyn. 75% of the catch went to the owners and the remaining 25% was allocated in shares to the crew, on top of a weekly wage. The clifftop lookouts were the most highly paid, followed by net shooters, the bowman and finally the rest of the crew. The payment system also included a cash bonus for the more senior members of the boat crew for each hogshead barrel of fish in the owner's share to prevent the crew from cheating the system.
Mullion Cove is naturally sheltered to some degree by Mullion Island and this was further improved by the construction of Mullion Harbour in 1895. The construction was financed by the Robartes family of Lanhydrock who also owned Predannick Woolas, after the local fishermen had endured several disastrous years of pilchard fishing in the early 1890s. The estate which included the harbour and island was given to the National Trust in 1945 who then had the unenviable task of maintaining the harbour walls which are of the problematic Victorian block design and to make matters worse are partially built from notoriously soft serpentine rocks. The breakwaters have been damaged by storms a number of times since the 1990s and repairs have already cost the National Trust well over £1 million. The Trust aim to patch up the breakwaters for as long as they can but concede that at some point over the next couple of decades, they are likely to be damaged beyond repair.
After nine shipwrecks over the course of six years along the coast around Mullion, with the loss of 69 lives, a lifeboat station was brought into service in 1867. In the period until it closed in 1908, the lifeboat was replaced twice, one of which was the largest lifeboat in the country. The lifeboat house has since been demolished but its barometer was rescued and is set into an arch beneath a clock outside The Old Vicarage.
According to folklore, you should not pick blackberries after Michaelmas Day (now known as Old Michaelmas Day, roughly corresponding to 11th October) as this is when the devil claims them. The basis for this is thought to be the potentially toxic moulds which can develop on the blackberries in the cooler, wetter weather.
The growth rhythm of brambles is so steady that it can be used in forensics to work out how long remains have been at a crime scene.
Be careful crossing the stone stiles in wet weather.
Serpentine rocks are well-known for being slippery. Part of the reason is that the serpentinization process produces soft minerals such as talc. These minerals have a plate-like structure that have strong chemical bonds within a layer, but the bonds between layers are weak so that the layers glide over each other. Rocks composed almost entirely of talc are known as "soapstone" as they are so slippery. Also, because the minerals are quite soft, foot traffic causes the surface of the rocks to become polished.
The serpentine stile has become polished by many decades of foot traffic to reveal its colours.
The serpentinization process results in rocks that are quite soft. The rock is often also very colourful and may contain veins of green, yellow and red, due to iron compounds within the rocks. Its softness and attractive colours were first noticed on stiles and cattle rubbing posts which had highly polished areas where walkers or cattle had rubbed against them. An industry grew up in the 19th Century making ornamental stone, initially for quite large architectural pieces but it was popularised by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who ordered serpentine tables for their home. Over time, serpentine proved less suitable than marble for architectural purposes due to its tendency to crumble in heat and to absorb water and crack. Interior ornaments are still produced although the quarrying of serpentine is now very strictly regulated.
The lane towards Predannack Woolas is known as Ghost Hill and the copper mine on the cliffs was also known as Ghost Mine.
The name "Ghost Mine" is thought to originate from a well-documented phenomenon of glowing lights appearing in marshy areas known as "will 'o the wisp" or "jack 'o lantern". Travellers, mistaking these for lights of cottages, could be drawn into the marshes, which in Cornwall was known as being "pisky-led".
A number of possible explanations for these lights have been put forward. The most well-known is that decomposing vegetation in the marshy ground releases flammable gasses such as methane, and this could be ignited by a small amount of phosphene, produced by microbes from dead animals. Other possibilities include bio-luminescence or chemical luminescence.
So far, nobody has been able to reproduce the phenomenon under laboratory conditions and reports of sightings are now quite rare, thought to be due to the draining of marshland for agriculture and development, and light pollution.
In order to attract pollinating insects, the plant heats the flower spike up to 15°C above that of the surroundings. The plant exudes a smell of decaying flesh which attracts flies and the flower is designed to trap these. Within the flower, the female organs mature first and insects carrying pollen from other plants (together with any unlucky enough not to be) are imprisoned behind a row a spines within the flower. Once the plant is pollinated, the male organs quickly mature and the plant's own pollen is dusted over the trapped flies. The spines then wither away enough for the flies to escape.
All members of the lily family, including wild arum, are poisonous to dogs.
Horses are related to tapirs and rhinoceroses. Unlike cows and sheep which have an area before their stomach (rumen) to process cellulose, horses and rhinos have a large pouch at the start of their large intestine where bacteria break down cellulose into digestible sugars.
The church in Mullion dates from the 13th century but most of the stonework that can be seen today dates from the 15th Century with some restoration in the 20th Century. The main south door dates from the 13th century and has a dog flap to allow restless sheepdogs to be released during a long service. The wooden-studded north door is thought to have been brought from another church and to be around 1,000 years old. The north door was known as The Devil's Door as it was opened during baptisms to allow evil spirits to escape. The carved bench ends are thought to date from Tudor times and the wood is reputed to be from an ancient oak forest that once covered part of the Goonhilly Downs.
Symbols on the front of ships arose both out of superstition for good luck and symbols of power. The general practice of putting a carved figure on the bowsprit became common practice from the 16th Century. Figureheads often depicted either the role of the ship (e.g. warship) or the name of the ship allowing it to be recognised by sailors who couldn't read. During the 18th Century, a figurehead of a woman (preferably showing some breast) was thought to bring calm to a stormy sea.
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.
Jackdaws can be distinguished from other members of the crow family by their short black beaks and grey necks. They are smaller than all the other black birds in the crow family and are only slightly larger than jays.
Jackdaws are able to recognise eye gestures from humans (e.g. if someone looks at where a food item is hidden). It has been suggested that jackdaws may use this with other birds too and this may be the reason that they have a striking blue eye colour that is easily seen from a distance.
Jackdaws are very adept vocal mimics and have been known to sing virtually anything including opera and Madonna! They can be trained to copy the human voice but only for single words or short phrases.
Jackdaws also use a their calls in a democratic process to make group decisions for a flock such as whether to move location. If enough of the birds "vote" by making their voice heard, the entire flock will respect this and take off, even the birds that didn't vote for it.
Jackdaws have been found to share food and will share more of a preferred food than an unpleasant one. Although the sharing often takes place in courtship and parenting, the behaviour has also been observed in unrelated birds. It is thought that this pro-social behaviour might be a sign of reciprocity ("do unto others...") and possibly empathy.
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