The parish of North Petherwin has been shuffled between Cornwall and Devon over the centuries but is currently occupied by the Cornish. The church is dedicated to St Padarn - an early 6th Century abbot from Ireland who also founded churches in Wales and Brittany. Padarn is documented as having a run-in with King Arthur who apparently attempted to steal his coat. The north aisle of the church is Norman and the south is Perpendicular Gothic. Many of the windows are 13th century in style.
As you cross the field, the Holy Well is on the opposite side of the hedge, next to the water trough.
The Holy Well of St Paternus taps a spring quite close to its source but is nevertheless one of the deeper holy wells in Cornwall. It is thought it may date to the 6th Century. Its location in a hedge meant that it became overgrown and was lost for a number of years until being rediscovered and finally restored in 1999. The land on which it is situated was once Glebe land, belonging to the Vicar of North Petherwin.
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
It is thought that St Paternus, to whom the well and church are dedicated, might have been the father of St Constantine - a Cornish King who gave up his throne to become a monk.
The trees along the lane are beech; there is a big one which drops a lot of nuts in autumn just where the track departs.
The fruit of the beech tree is known as "mast" or, less cryptically, "beechnuts" and these are not produced until the tree is 40-60 years old. The small triangular nuts are encased in spiky husks which split and drop from the trees from late August to early October. The kernels of these are edible and are similar to hazelnuts. They were once used as a source of flour, which was ground after the tannins had been leached out by soaking them in water. If you find them too bitter, you might want to try this trick, although toasting them in a hot pan is also a good option.
The word "beech" is thought to have the same origins as "book" as beech (most probably the bark) was used as a writing material in which to carve runes by Germanic societies before the development of paper. This is still apparent in modern German where the word for "book" is buch and "beech tree" is buche.
Cow pats can often be spotted (and therefore avoided) by the tuft of ungrazed grass surrounding the cow pat know as the "ring of repugnance". If it is left undisturbed, cows will avoid the area around a cow pat for a couple of years, allowing a bright green (well-fertilised) hummock of grass to form.
The biological reason that the repulsion exists is to prevent cows from ingesting parasites from other cows. The reason that we find it repulsive too is due to our biological "wiring" to protect us from parasites.
The streams on the route are all tributaries of the Bolsbridge Water which itself is a tributary of the River Ottery.
The River Ottery is a tributary of the Tamar and stretches about 20 miles across the northeast of the county. Its basin spans a Carboniferous geological formation known as the Culm Measures which contains a soft-sooty form of coal and supports grassland that is very rich in species, some rare such as the Marsh Fritillary.
The river once formed a northern boundary between Celtic Dumnonia and Anglo-Saxon Wessex and consequently the place names to the north are predominantly Saxon and those to the south are Celtic. The name of the river itself has Anglo-Saxon roots from the Old English oter (after the creatures that thrived along it) and ea (meaning stream).
Evidence of windmills in England dates from around the 12th century and in Cornwall there are records of windmills as far back as 1296. Wind turbines may be viewed as the modern successor but actually themselves date back to Victorian times: the first large windmill to generate electricity was built in 1888 in the USA, and in Cornwall, a private house was lit using electricity generated by a wind turbine in 1890.
Nettles are often found near human habitation, much to the displeasure of many humans. Humans generally remove dense vegetation such as tree cover, leaving open ground that fast-growing nettles can rapidly colonise. Food waste from humans and droppings from livestock boost phosphate levels in the soil which nettles require to thrive. Grazing animals also leave nettles alone, munching away competing vegetation instead.
Although it's obvious that you should ensure any gates that you open, you also close, what about gates you find that are already open?
If the gate is fully open then leave it alone as it may well be providing livestock access to a water supply, and by closing it you could end up killing them.
If the gate is ajar or swinging loose and not wedged or tied open then it's likely that the gate was left open by accident (possibly by another group of walkers). Properly closing the offending gate behind you will not only bring joy to the landowner but you can feel good about saving lives in a car swerving to avoid a cow in the road.
If you encounter a gate doubly-secured with twine that can be untied or a chain that can be unfastened, it's normally there because naughty animals have managed to undo the gate themselves at some point (e.g. by rubbing against the bolt), so retie/fasten it afterwards.
If there are sheep in the field and you have a dog, make sure it's securely on its lead (sheep are prone to panic and injuring themselves even if a dog is just being inquisitive). If the sheep start bleating, this means they are scared and they are liable to panic.
If there are pregnant sheep in the field, be particularly sensitive as a scare can cause a miscarriage. If there are sheep in the field with lambs, avoid approaching them closely, making loud noises or walking between a lamb and its mother, as you may provoke the mother to defend her young.
Sheep may look cute but if provoked they can cause serious injury (hence the verb "to ram"). Generally, the best plan is to walk quietly along the hedges and they will move away or ignore you.
Gorse is also known (particularly in the Westcountry) as furze from the Middle English word furs. This itself is from the Old English word fyres, closely related to the Old English word for fire.
In fields with crops where the footpath doesn't run along the edge, if there is a well-trodden path then follow this to avoid trampling any more of the crops. If there appears to be no path through the crops then you do have a right to walk through the crop but stick as close as possible to the line of the path to avoid damaging any more of the crop than strictly necessary. Alternatively, you can follow around the edges of the field to avoid trudging through the crop.
Solar panels absorb visible light so provided it's not dark, they are able to generate power even when it's cloudy. Solar panels are more efficient in cooler temperatures than warmer ones, so cold, sunny winter days generate a comparable level of electricity to hot summer days despite the sun being weaker.
Despite their native habitat being woodland, wood pigeons are able to thrive wherever there is food. They have fared better than most birds with intensively-farmed crops and are particularly fond of oil seed rape. They are able to hoover up food quickly (up to 100 pecks per minute) and stuff large amounts into their crop (e.g. around 150 acorns!). They then digest this overnight.
The reason that you can cut yourself on a blade of grass is that grass leaves contain minute particles of silica (glass). As well as deterring some animals from grazing, these particles also help to give the stems more rigidity.
The otter's semi-aquatic nature has been well known since ancient times, in fact the words "otter" and "water" both derive from the same original word. It has been reported that Bodmin Moor acts as an interchange for commuting otters as the rivers Camel, Delank, Fowey and Inny all have sources or tributaries in a quite a small area.
During the 1960s, the otter population crashed in the UK due to the widespread use of pesticides such as DDT which leached into the waterways and poisoned the otters. However, due to predominance of dairy farming in Cornwall during this period rather than the more pesticide-reliant arable, the county remained an otter stronghold. The Tamar Otter Sanctuary near the Devon border was a key part of the otter conservation movement which has been a remarkable success. It is thought that otters have now re-colonised all the areas in the UK that they were wiped out from during the 20th Century.
Water pepper grows either side of the track as you emerge from the woodland.
Water pepper, as the name implies, grows on wet ground such as on the margins of lakes (it's also known as marsh pepper). It's relatively late to appear, not really getting going until June.
The plant is unpalatable to livestock but is eaten by some insects which has given rise to a Japanese saying which transliterates to "Some insects eat water pepper and like it" but is used more like "There's no accounting for taste".
A flower is effectively an advert to insects that nectar is available and the reason that flowers are coloured and scented is so these adverts get noticed. The basic idea with most flowers is to lure the insect in with a bribe of nectar and then whilst they are there, unload pollen they are carrying from another flower, stick some pollen to them from this flower, and send them on their way.
Biologically, there is no clear distinction between ducks, geese and swans (geese and swans are one lanky subfamily of ducks). Dark-coloured ducks get the equivalent of "grey hairs" with age - their feathers gradually turn white.
The cottages and farm buildings form the hamlet of Bodgate.
The settlement of Bodgate was first recorded in 1286. It is thought that the name may be Cornish, containing the old Cornish word bod meaning "dwelling" (which became bos in later years). It is the only Cornish name in this area and may be a relic from the Early Mediaeval period before the parish became part of Devon.
There are detailed records from the late 15th and early 16th Centuries of the building of North Petherwin church which consisted of intense fundraising followed by building in several cycles. Initially the stone masons cut their granite at Hingston Down quarry on Kit Hill but switched to Roughtor Quarry part-way through construction. The two different sources of granite can be seen as a colour change half-way along the south aisle.
The farmland in this area is located on the Culm Measures, resulting in acidic clay soils. Lime-rich sand was brought up the Bude Canal to improve the soil for farming.
The geological formation known as the Culm Measures stretches from Dartmoor to north Devon and across northeast Cornwall as far west as Bodmin Moor. It is a 2-3 mile deep sequence of sedimentary rocks laid down during the Carboniferous period and named after a soft sooty coal known as culm which is found occasionally within it. The heavy clay soils result in wet grassland and heath which is unlike any other in England and supports a wide diversity of species including rare orchids and the marsh fritillary butterfly. Over 90% of the culm grassland was lost during the 20th Century, and a number of wildlife organisations are now working together to protect what remains.
Just after the gate, the stile on the right leads into the Millennium Wood.
Barton Millennium Wood in North Petherwin was formerly an area of farmland with heavy clay soils. The wood was planted in 1999 and is being managed to encourage wildlife but also includes a maze and an open area for barbeques etc. Depending on the types of trees planted, new woodlands can take 20-30 years for trees to reach a reasonable height and to start to feel like mature woodland, but this one is already well on the way. The woods are encircled and crossed by a network of paths which connect to the public footpaths either side.
The churchyard at North Petherwin dates back to Celtic times when the church would have been a wooden structure. The current church building dates from Norman times with some additions in the 14th and 15th century and a 19th Century restoration. The church also contains some mediaeval and Tudor woodwork. The base of the rood screen was carved by three Bretons in the 16th Century and it is thought that they might have been immigrant workers undercutting the local carvers as there are records of the carvers at Stratton working for 40 shillings per foot, whereas the Bretons here only charged 24. The magnificent mediaeval pulpit from North Petherwin church is now in Launceston's St Mary Magdalene church, and survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries during Tudor times by being concealed under thick black paint.
The yew trees in British churchyards are some of the oldest yew trees found anywhere in the world and yews can live for thousands of years: the Forestry Commission described them as "the toughest, most indestructible and longest lived tree we have". It is therefore possible that some of the ancient yews are older than the adjacent church buildings as Christianity took over many sacred places from the previous religious traditions: in AD 601, Pope Gregory advised his followers not to destroy places of Pagan worship but to convert them into Christian Churches.
Before Christianity, the Pagan Celtic people of Cornwall worshipped wonders of the natural world. Where clean, drinkable water welled up from the ground in a spring, this was seen as pretty awesome. The sites were seen as portals to another world, and is why fairies are often associated with springs. Where the springwater dissolved minerals, for specific conditions (e.g. deficiency in a mineral) or where the minerals present had antibacterial/fungal properties, the water appeared to have healing powers.
"Holy wells" were created because the Christian church was unhappy with the people continuing their old Pagan ways and worshipping sacred springs. In the 10th Century, the church issued a cannon (law) to outlaw such practices. This didn't work, so they issued another one in the 11th Century, and again in the 12th Century. Even despite the church going to the lengths of building a chapel over the top of some springs to obliterate them, the people still hung onto their sacred springs. The church finally settled on a compromise and rebranded the springs as (Christian) Holy Wells, so the old practices could continue behind a Christian façade.
During Saxon times, the River Tamar was used as the border between Devon and Cornwall. After the Norman Conquest, a new border was drawn up between the two counties using the River Ottery as the dividing line near Launceston. The result was that the parishes of North Petherwin and Werrington were lost into Devon and remained there for nearly 900 years until 1966 when the border was altered to once again be along the River Tamar.
Chickens are descended from junglefowl and those in Britain came originally from India. They evolved the ability to lay large numbers of eggs to take advantage of gluts of food that occur in their native forests. It is thought they were introduced to Britain by Iron Age tribes who bred them for fighting rather than meat and cockfighting remained Britain's national sport until 1835. During the mediaeval period, more placid forms of chicken were bred that were less hazardous to farm but it wasn't until the 17th Century that chickens and eggs were farmed on a mass scale. In Britain, over 10 billion eggs are now consumed every year.
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