Maenporth, pronounced "main-porth" is an east-facing, crescent-shaped beach, sheltered from the prevailing westerly winds. Due to its proximity to Falmouth and easy parking, the beach gets fairly busy in the summer but out-of-season, or even early on summer mornings, you can have the beach to yourself. There is a sandy beach at all states of the tide but at high tide it's a fairly narrow strip. As the tide falls, a rock platform along the right-hand side of the beach is revealed.
Most primroses tend to be pale yellow but in residential areas, extensive hybridisation occurs with pink and purple garden primulas to create all kinds of weird and wonderful mutants, with some even shaped like cowslips. However, there is a pale pink variety of primrose (known as rhubarb and custard) that is thought to be a naturally-occurring variant of the pale yellow (rhubarb-free) version as it has been found miles away from any domestic plants.
In December 1978 the Scottish trawler Ben Asdale was in Falmouth Bay unloading its catch of mackerel into a Russian Factory ship. As the trawler cast off from the factory ship, the stern rope jammed in the rudder and the trawler was unable to steer. The captain attempted to anchor the vessel but in the force 8 gale, the anchor dragged and the ship was driven ashore on Newporth Head. Three of the crew who attempted to swim ashore drowned but eight were rescued by helicopter which had to fly backwards to avoid the headland in one of the most dangerous rescues of modern times. The remains of the vessel can still be seen at low water.
The headland on the far side of the bay is St Anthony Head and the white building is the (Fraggle Rock) lighthouse. The buildings to the left of this are part of Falmouth and the castle to the left of these is Pendennis. The buildings to the left of this are at Swanpool.
Pendennis Castle was built by Henry VIII to defend the coast against a possible French attack and was reinforced during the reign of Elizabeth I. During the English Civil War, more reinforcement took place and the castle withstood five months of siege from Parliamentary forces before it was captured. The castle was adapted for the World Wars of the 20th Century and the guardhouse has been restored to how it might have looked in the First World War. During the Second World War, underground tunnels and magazines were added which can now be visited.
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.
Spanish bluebells grow on the path down to the beach.
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.
You may wonder what an acorn on the coast path waymarks has to do with the coast. All National Trails in Britain are marked with an acorn symbol and the coast path is just one of over a dozen. The first of these was the Pennine Way, opened in 1965.
The first record of the name Rosemullion was in 1318 when it was written rosemylian. The name is thought to be from the Cornish words ros (meaning promontory) and mellyon (meaning clover).
Seaweeds are algae and rely on sunlight to produce energy via photosynthesis in the way terrestrial plants do; they therefore thrive in shallow water where the sunlight penetrates. On the shoreline, you're likely to see brown bladderwrack and red dulse on exposed rocks; within rockpools, green sea lettuces and red coral-like seaweeds. At very low tides, or if you wade into the water beside rocks, brown ribbon-like kelp is common, which is a favourite hiding place for many fish such as bass, pollack and wrasse.
No seaweeds are known to be poisonous and several are eaten raw, cooked or dried. Seaweed is quite rich in iodine which is an essential mineral, but in very large doses is toxic, so excessive consumption are not recommended. A number of food additives such as alginates, agar and carrageenan are produced from seaweed and used as gelling agents and emulsifiers in many processed foods.
Dandelions are dispersed very effectively by the wind. The tiny parachute-like seeds can travel around five miles. Each plant can live for about 10 years and produces several thousand seeds each year.
The weed-covered rocks provide a habitat for fish species such as wrasse.
One of the most common fish on inshore reefs is the wrasse. The name for the fish is from the Cornish word wragh meaning "old hag". This is probably based on its lack of popularity for culinary consumption and is the reason why it is still quite common whereas most other species have been depleted by several centuries of fishing. Recently, wrasse has been "rediscovered" as a good eating fish if not overcooked. However, wrasse are very slow growing so are not an ideal culinary fish for conservation reasons: they cannot reproduce until they are 6-10 years old and large individuals may be over 30 years old.
The small blue pom-pom-like flowers have common names which include blue bonnets, blue buttons, blue daisy and Iron Flower but it is best known as sheep's bit. The name is said to originate because sheep enjoy eating it. Confusingly, it is sometimes known as "sheeps bit scabious", yet it is not at all closely related to the group of plants normally known as "scabious".
Sheep's bit flowers are rich in nectar and are a favourite with bees and butterflies. The flowers are highly reflective to ultraviolet which is thought helps to attract insects. The reason that insects can see UV but we can't is that insects' eyes have colour receptors that are tuned to different wavelengths than ours but also the lens of the human eye blocks UV light.
The English Channel is a relatively recent name. The Saxons called it the "South Sea" (their "North Sea" still remains) and then became known as the "Narrow Sea" until the 18th century.
Roughly two-thirds of the way along the left hedge, a small path leads down to Prisk Cove.
Prisk Cove lies just outside the mouth of the Helford River. There is a shingle beach at all states of the tide. As the tide goes out, larger pebbles and areas of rock are revealed. At low tide, part of a reef is uncovered that runs along the side of Rosemullion Head. The sheltered corner between the beach and headland allows a diverse range of seaweeds to thrive and these provide food and shelter for other marine life.
During the summer months, jellyfish drift across the Atlantic on the Gulf Stream and can sometimes be seen washed up on Cornish beaches.
The collective noun for jellyfish can either be a "swarm", "bloom" or "smack". When jellyfish rapidly multiply (due to plankton availability), "bloom" is typically used. When jellyfish actively swim to stay together (not all species do) then "swarm" tends to be preferred. "Smack" is a word play on being stung which is frowned-on by scientists.
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.
A glebe was an area of land used to support the parish priest (in addition to a residence in the form of a parsonage or rectory). Occasionally the glebe included an entire farm. It was typically donated by the lord of the manor or cobbled together from several donated pieces of land.
Mawnan church was originally built in 1231. It was restored in Victorian times and when the north wall was rebuilt in 1827, the remains of a former church building and fragments of carved stone were discovered.
In Jan 1940 after a mine sweep, the Canoni River - an oil tanker of over 7,000 tons - left Falmouth harbour to carry out engine sea trials . To everyone's surprise she hit a German mine and sank within an hour. It was quickly worked out that the mine was laid close inshore by a German submarine just after the minesweep was completed. The submarine was capable of laying 9 mines and the remaining mines were found and detonated. The Navy realised that the submarine had used the light on the Manacles buoy to navigate into the shallow water in Falmouth Bay at night and so the buoy was extinguished for the rest of the war.
As gorse ages, it accumulates more dead material. The spiky, springy nature of the plant even when dead means air can circulate well through the dead material and when this dries out in the summer, it substantially increases the risk of fires. As gorse seeds have evolved to withstand fire, controlled burning can be used to used to keep the gorse at a young age where uncontrolled fires are less likely.
The Helford creeks are formed from an ancient river valley that has been flooded by rising sea levels. In total, seven creeks (Ponsontuel Creek, Mawgan Creek, Polpenwith Creek, Polwheveral Creek, Frenchman's Creek, Port Navas Creek, and Gillan Creek) connect to the main Helford River inlet between the headlands of Nare Point and Rosemullion Head. The creeks are an important area of marine conservation and contain eelgrass which provides a habitat for a variety of wildlife including seahorses.
In October 1940, the coaster Jersey Queen suffered an aerial attack with machine gun and cannon fire, and incendiary bombs on its way through the Irish Sea. Two of the crew were injured but the incendiary bombs slipped off the hull into the sea preventing any major damage. Two days later, she struck an acoustic mine in Cornish waters and sank in Falmouth Bay with the loss of two crew. When the mine detonated, the captain was knocked unconscious but was pulled from the water by one of the crew. Despite suffering attacks on two subsequent ships he captained, he survived the war and was awarded an MBE for his service.
Porthallack is a small, southeast-facing sand and pebble beach near the mouth of the Helford River estuary and the coast path runs along the top of the beach. The proximity to the mouth of the estuary means that more seaweed seems to wash up here after storms than on the beaches further up the river. The beach is named Porthallack from the Cornish words for "willow trees" and "cove". The estuary is quite sheltered from the swell so there isn't much in the way of waves but currents in the river are quite strong, particularly at mid-tide. As the tide goes out, on the left side of the beach the pebbles increase in size to larger rocks.
Porth Sawsen has been recorded as "Porth Saxon" on OS maps since the 1880s but records of Porth Zawsen date from the 1860s. It is thought to be based on a personal name. The beach faces south into the Helford river estuary so it gets the sun throughout the year. The estuary is quite sheltered from sea swells so there isn't much in the way of waves but currents in the river are quite strong, particularly at mid-tide. At high tide the beach is mostly slate pebbles but as the tide goes out there is some grey-gold sand. There is a WW2 pillbox at the left hand end of the beach where the pebbles increase in size to small rocks towards the low tide line.
A cordial can be made from blackthorn blossom by dissolving 100g of sugar in 1 litre of warm water mixing one large handful of blossom, scaled up to produce the quantity you require.
During winter, from November to March, winter heliotrope is visible along the edges of roads and paths as carpets of rounded heart-shaped leaves.
The name of the plant is Greek for "sun direction" because the flowers turn to follow the winter sun.
One of the birds that you may see under the trees is the robin.
Robins are able to hover like kingfishers and hummingbirds and use this skill when feeding from bird feeders, which they are unable to cling to.
If you continue on the lane past the steps to Durgan Village, there is a lower entrance to Glendurgan garden.
Glendurgan Garden is situated in a steep south-facing valley beside the Helford river. The aspect and mild maritime climate allow frost-intolerant subtropical plants to grow here. The garden was laid out by Alfred Fox in the 1820s and 1830s and now covers 25 acres. It was given to the National Trust by the Fox family in 1962. The most well-known feature of the garden is the cherry laurel maze dating back to 1833.
As well as forgetting where they buried some of them, squirrels may also lose a quarter of their buried food to birds, other rodents and fellow squirrels. Squirrels therefore use dummy tactics to confuse thieves by sometimes just pretending to bury a nut.
The National Trust is the largest owner of farms in the UK. It has around 2,000 tenants and over 600,000 acres of land. It has been calculated that 43% of all the rainwater in England and Wales drains through National Trust land.
The settlement of Bosveal was first recorded in 1327 and spelt Bosvael. It is from the Cornish word bos, for dwelling. The rest is thought to be based on the name of the person who lived there.
The wooden box between the fences is a bee hotel.
Not all bee species form breeding colonies like the honey bee. Many are solitary where each female raises her own brood of babies. Bee nest boxes (also known as bee hotels) can provide a safe and suitable environment for solitary bees to raise their young. There are dozens of solitary species ranging from bumblebees to tiny bees only a few millimetres long, so nest boxes often include a range of hole sizes. By locating the boxes in dry, sunny, well-ventilated locations and cleaning them regularly, mould and build-up of parasites can be minimised which are both bad news for baby bees.
Navelwort produces flower spikes with small green bells from June to September. When the flower spike is first forming, it is a rather beautiful structure and is a perfect subject for macro photography.
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.
The plant spreads to form dense colonies, crowding-out native species. The onion-flavoured seeds are very attractive to ants who carry them quite large distances and forget some of them, allowing the plant to colonise new areas. In fact three-cornered leeks are so invasive that they are illegal to plant in the wild.
The -wort in plant names derives from the Old English word wyrt, which simply meant plant. Wurzel - the German word for root - also has the same ancestry. In mediaeval times, -wort was often used for the names of plants reputed to be medicinal, prefixed by the ailment that the plant was supposed to cure (e.g. woundwort).
As you enter the field, the field hedge to the right incorporates part of a rampart from a fortified settlement, probably from the Iron Age or the "Romano-British" period that immediately followed this (the Romans were mostly "upcountry" and left the Cornish alone to carry on building in a similar style to before with no newfangled villa nonsense). Most of the embankment has been ploughed away but enough traces of a ditch remain to work out it was about 60 metres across. The name Carwinion (the "car" is from the Cornish word for fort) could well be connected with this.
Carwinion House was built in the 18th Century and during Victorian times, the Rogers family were keen plant hunters, planting many exotic species in the gardens. The property was gifted to the National Trust in 1969 and the Rogers family lived there for another generation as tenants, tending the gardens and creating a nationally important bamboo collection. After Anthony Rogers died, the furnishings from the house and many horticultural items were auctioned off and the National Trust began seeking new tenants in 2014 to renovate the house and tend the gardens, with a view to eventually re-opening the property to the public.
As you might guess from the name, Mawnan Smith began as a blacksmiths. This was located on the crossing of two ancient tracks which are now the roads that cross in the village. The first record of the "smith at Mawnan" is from 1645 during the Civil War. By 1888, Mawnan Smith had grown into a village with a pub, school, post office and 2 places of worship.
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
As sunlight passes though the atmosphere, the rays of light can interact electromagnetically with the molecules of air. This interaction causes each ray of light to be sent off in a random direction and is therefore known as "scattering".
Sunlight includes all the colours of the rainbow, each with different wavelengths. The shorter waves of blue and violet light interact with air molecules more strongly than the other colours in sunlight and this is responsible for the colours we see of the sun and the sky.
Crows have a vocabulary of different calls with specific meanings and these can be varied to convey emotion like a human tone of voice.
The sounds that crows make have also been found to vary with location rather like regional accents in humans. When a crow moves into a new area, it mimics the calls of the most dominant flock members to fit in with its peer group.
The bramble is a member of the rose family and there are over 320 species of bramble in the UK. This is a big part of why not all blackberries ripen at the same time, and vary in size and flavour.
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".
Cows eat about 10kg of grass a day and a dairy cow produces around 50 pints a day on average rising to around 100 pints at their peak.
The hedge between the fields is planted with oaks.
Oak was often associated with the gods of thunder as it was often split by lightning, probably because an oak is often the tallest tree in the area. Oak was also the sacred wood burnt by the druids for their mid-summer sacrifice.
Wood anemones can be recognised by their white star-like flowers growing in shady locations during the spring. Hoverflies are important pollinators of the plant so you may also see these nearby. Avoid touching the plants as they are poisonous to humans and can cause severe skin irritation.
The anemones grow from underground stems (rhizomes) and spread very slowly - to spread by six feet takes about 100 years! This makes it a good indicator of ancient woodland.
When photographing bluebells, the flowers that look blue to your eye can end up looking purple in photos.
The first thing to check is that your camera isn't on auto white balance as the large amount of blue will cause the camera to shift the white balance towards reds to try to compensate.
Another thing to watch out for is that the camera's light metering will often over-expose the blue slightly to get a reasonable amount of red and green light and the "lost blue" can change the balance of the colours. You can get around this by deliberately under-exposing the photo (and checking there is no clipping if your camera has a histogram display) and then brightening it afterwards with editing software.
You may see bracket fungus growing on dead branches beside the path.
Bracket fungi are one of the most important groups of fungi responsible for wood decay. This is good for nutrient cycling but less good if you own a forestry plantation. Many bracket fungi begin on living trees and can eventually kill a branch or whole tree by damaging the heartwood and allowing rot to set in. They can continue to live on the dead wood afterwards and a much more diverse range of species of bracket fungi are found in old natural forests with lots of dead wood.
Jellyfish are the oldest multi-organ animal. They have been around over 500 million years (more than twice as long ago as when the first dinosaurs appeared). They eat plankton which is most available during the late spring and summer. Consequently they are most often seen in large numbers when beaches are at their most busy.
Grebe beach is a sand and shingle beach that faces southeast into the Helford River. The beach is named after Grebe Rock, on the right side of the beach. The name is from the Cornish word for reef - gryb. The top of the beach is pebbly but as the tide goes out there is more sand, particularly on the left side of the beach. At the more pebbly end near Grebe Rock there is a fallen tree across the beach and another tree trunk buried in the sand that has been polished by the sea.
Holly is able to adapt to a range of conditions but prefers moist ground. It is very tolerant of shade and can grow as a thicket of bushes underneath larger trees. However, given the right conditions, holly trees can grow up to 80ft tall!
Holly was known in Cornwall as the holm (bush) and is the origin of the Holmbush area of St Austell and Holmbush Mine in Kelly Bray.
The berries of holly contain a chemical compound very similar to caffeine. Only in very small doses is this a stimulant; in larger doses it is toxic. It is for this reason that you see holly berries on bushes rather than being inside the nearest bird. The birds have learned to wait until after the frosts have reduced the toxicity of the berries before eating them.
Anyone who has sat on a holly leaf will know how prickly they can be but the leaves particularly on larger holly bushes often vary considerably with less spiky leaves nearer the top.
Holly is able to vary its leaf shape in response to its environment through a chemical process known as DNA methylation which can be used to switch genes on and off. If its leaves are eaten by grazing animals or trampled by walkers, the holly will crank up the methylation level to produce really spiky leaves on these stems. Conversely on the stems where the leaves are able to grow old in peace, the holly will produce versions that are flatter and therefore more efficient at catching the light. An individual leaf can last up to five years.
Holly has separate male and female plants, so not all holly bushes produce berries - only female plants. In less biologically-enlightened Pagan times, holly was thought to be a male plant (the spikes symbolising aggression) whereas ivy was regarded as a female plant (symbolising attachment). The Christmas Carol "The Holly and the Ivy" is thought originally to derive from Pagan fertility myths onto which Christian symbolism has subsequently been added.
The association of holly with winter celebrations predates Christianity: druids were known to use holly wreaths which, it is likely with some discomfort, they wore on their heads.
From Roman times, holly trees were planted near houses as it was believed to offer protection from witchcraft and lightning strikes. There is some scientific basis for the latter at least: the spines on the leaves can act as lightning conductors. The sharp points allow electrical charge to concentrate, increasing its potential to form a spark.
Lichens are a partnership of two different organisms: a fungus providing the "accommodation" and an alga or cyanobacterium providing the "food" through photosynthesis. The fungal partner provides a cosy, sheltered environment for the alga and tends it with mineral nutrients. However, the alga partner is more than simply an imprisoned food-slave: it is such a closely-evolved alliance that the fungus is dependant on the alga for its structure. If the fungal partner is isolated and grown on an agar plate, it forms a shapeless, infertile blob.
One in five of all known fungi form lichens. Studies suggest that many species of fungi that form lichens started out from ancestors that lived on organic waste. Fossils have also revealed that the symbiosis between algae and fungi dates back more than 400 million years roughly to the time when plants first evolved from green algae.
Lichens often grow on sick or dying trees so some gardeners assume that the lichen might be harming the tree. In fact, it's purely because these trees have fewer leaves so there is more light available for the algae inside the fungus to photosynthesise. It's too dark under many healthy trees for the lichen to grow.
You'll notice that there is lichen growing on many of the headstones in the churchyard. Of the 2,000 British species, over a third have been found in churchyards and more than 600 have been found growing on churchyard stone in lowland England. Almost half the species are rare and some seldom, if ever, occur in other habitats. Many churchyards are found to have well over 100 species.
Lichens obtain nearly all their nutrients from the atmosphere and therefore can be very sensitive to air pollution. As a general rule of thumb, healthy lichens means clean air, but more specifically, different species have been found to be sensitive to different pollutants. By identifying common species that exhibits change for a particular pollutant, lichens can be used as an early warning dashboard showing not only how much air pollution there is but also what kind.
Britain lost most of its wild yew trees due to longbow production in the Middle Ages. Once the national supplies had been exhausted, Britain began importing yew wood from just about any European country that had any, rendering yew trees extinct or rare in many parts of Europe. Ironically, Britain now has possibly the world's greatest collection of yews and the majority of these are in churchyards where it was deemed inappropriate to fell them for longbows.
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.
Black-headed gulls are found in rivers, lakes and estuaries but rarely on the sea itself, preferring brackish or freshwater.
Despite the name, the head of adults during breeding season (spring and summer) is dark brown. In winter this fades to white with just a small dark dot. During February, dark patches appear and by March most are in their breeding plumage. They are also recognisable by their red beak and legs.
Rockpool fishing is quite a popular childhood pass-time as a number of species can be lured out from hiding places by a limpet tied on a piece of cotton (leave a trailing end as if anything swallows the limpet, very gently pulling both ends of the cotton will cause it to release the cotton-tied limpet from its gullet). If you are intending to put the creatures into a bucket: ensure it is large, filled with fresh seawater and kept in the shade; ideally place in a couple of rocks for the creatures to hide under; do not leave them in there more than a couple of hours or they will exhaust their oxygen supply; ensure you release them into one of the rockpools from which you caught them, preferably a large one (carefully removing any rocks from your bucket first to avoid squashing them). Species you're likely to encounter are:
The name "bream" is confusingly used for unrelated fish.
"bream" on its own is normally applied to a freshwater fish of the carp family, sometimes qualified as "freshwater bream" or less usefully as "common bream". This is often stocked in lakes for sport fishing.
"sea bream" is a very loose term used to cover over 100 species of marine fish. Many are warmer water fish which is why Cornwall is the main place in the UK they have been caught. The most common (and likely to be sold in supermarkets or restaurants) are black bream and red bream but at least 5 other species are also caught, gilthead bream being perhaps the next most common in Cornwall. Some of these species are on the increase in southern UK waters, most likely as a result of global warming.
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