St Teath circular walk
  1. Make your way towards the school along the path beside the grass verge until it ends on the road. Continue along the road past the school and cross the road onto the path past the junction with Tethadene. Follow the path until it ends at a gap in the wall signposted "The Village Green".

    The circular churchyard in St Teath suggests the settlement dates from at least Early Mediaeval times and could have been on a trade route between Wales and Brittany. Mining for lead and quarrying for slate were known to have occurred during Mediaeval times nearby so this could have provided employment for a growing population.

  2. If you don't have a dog, go through the gap and follow the path through a yellow pedestrian gate and keep right through another pedestrian gate where the path ends at a road. (with dogs you can bypass this section by continuing to the road to Treroosel Road and turning right to pick up the route at direction 4).

    As in many Cornish villages, Methodism thrived in St Teath in the 19th Century. In 1815, the United Methodists were given an area of land in the north of the village and built a chapel here. As Methodism continued to gain popularity in the 1820s, the Anglican church built a new vicarage in the village possibly as an attempt to limit further defections. This can't have been too successful as in 1835 the Bible Christians (another Methodist faction) built a chapel on North Street near the school. Then in 1871 the Free United Methodist faction built a bigger chapel (the one opposite the square) and converted their old one into a Sunday School.

  3. Follow the road until it ends at a T-junction.

    By the time John Wesley died, the majority of Methodists were not attending Anglican church regularly, and following his death a Methodist church was formed, separate from the Anglican church. In the first half of the 19th Century, the Methodist movement fragmented into several different factions, often each with its own chapel in the same town. The Bible Christian movement was one of these, founded in North Cornwall in 1815 by William O'Bryan from Luxulyan. His followers are also known as the Bryonites, although after falling out with most of his ministers, O'Bryan emigrated to America. In 1907, the Bible Christian movement amalgamated with other Methodist groups to form the United Methodist Church.

  4. Turn right at the junction and follow the road until you reach a junction just after the national speed limit signs where a track departs to the left signposted "Rosewater Park".

    The 30mph speed limit was introduced in 1934 to improve safety in urban areas although a speedometer wasn't compulsory in the manufacture of new cars until 3 years later!

  5. Turn left onto the track and follow it a short distance, keeping right to reach some wooden gates where a grassy track continues ahead.

    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".

  6. Go through the pedestrian gate and head towards the metal gate across the track, then bear right across the grass to reach the rightmost of the two stone stiles.

    The high voltage cables on pylons can strip off electrons from nearby air molecules causing them to become charged (ions). These are attracted to opposite charges which causes a weak electric current to flow in the nearby air, known as a corona discharge.

    In damp weather, the air conducts electricity a little more readily so there is more Corona discharge.

    Even damp air is a pretty poor conductor of electricity so its high electrical resistance causes intense heating which is the source of crackle and hiss sounds.

    The corona discharge occurs more readily from a sharp edge or point so overhead power lines are sometimes fitted with round rings before the rows of insulators to limit loss of electricity into the air.

  7. Cross the stream and the stile and follow the left hedge to reach a wooden stile in the top-left corner of the field.

    The surface workings of Treroosel Mine were located in the field to the right of this one.

    Treroosel Mine was worked in Victorian times for lead and silver and included an engine house that was still present until the mid 1960s.

  8. Cross the stile and follow the left hedge to the second gateway on the left.

    The lead ore found in Cornwall is a form of lead sulphide known as galena which often contains an appreciable amount of silver. This was first smelted to produce "argentiferous lead" and then the silver was separated by a process known as "cupellation". The molten alloy of the 2 metals was placed in an oxygen rich furnace which caused the lead, but not the silver, to oxidise. The lead oxide was then absorbed into a calcium-rich material such as the ash from bones or seashells, leaving the liquid metal silver on the surface of the "cake". The lead oxide could later be converted back into lead by smelting it with charcoal.

  9. Go through the gate and follow the left hedge to the far corner.

    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

    • Stop, look and listen on entering a field. Look out for any animals and watch how they are behaving, particularly bulls or cows with calves
    • Be prepared for farm animals to react to your presence, especially if you have a dog with you.
    • Try to avoid getting between cows and their calves.
    • Move quickly and quietly, and if possible walk around the herd.
    • Keep your dog close and under effective control on a lead around cows and sheep.
    • Remember to close gates behind you when walking through fields containing livestock.
    • If you and your dog feel threatened, work your way to the field boundary and quietly make your way to safety.
    • Report any dangerous incidents to the Cornwall Council Countryside Access Team - phone 0300 1234 202 for emergencies or for non-emergencies use the iWalk Cornwall app to report a footpath issue (via the menu next to the direction on the directions screen).

    Don't

    • If you are threatened by cattle, don't hang onto your dog: let it go to allow the dog to run to safety.
    • Don't put yourself at risk. Find another way around the cattle and rejoin the footpath as soon as possible.
    • Don't panic or run. Most cattle will stop before they reach you. If they follow, just walk on quietly.
  10. Turn right to stay in the field and continue following along the left hedge to reach some metal gates in the far corner.

    Swallows are often found near herds of livestock where the flies that swallows catch are more numerous. It is thought that swallows were much rarer before humans started keeping animals. Consequently, the rise of veganism is not good news for swallows - a decline in dairy farming and increase in arable will inevitably result in their decline.

    Nettles obtain soluble silicate compounds in the soil and use these to create silicon dioxide (quartz) from which their 1.5 mm long hollow stinging spikes (known by scientists as "trichomes" and most other people as "glass needles") are made. These spikes are located on the stems of the plant as well as the leaves and break off in the skin of a herbivore or walker that brushes against the plant. Because the spikes are so brittle, they also gradually break off during the lifetime of the nettle as other leaves rub against them on windy days, so older nettles are "less stingy" than fresh growth.

  11. Go through a metal gate followed by a wooden gate into a field. Bear right slightly to the brow of the hill and when a gateway in the right hedge comes into view, head to this.

    The overgrown strip between the gates is the route of the old North Cornwall Line railway.

    The North Cornwall Railway was a venture backed by the London and South Western Railway to compete with the Great Western Railway for services to Cornwall. The North Cornwall line ran from Halwill in Devon to Padstow via Launceston, Camelford and Wadebridge and was built for economy rather than speed, including climbs and curves to avoid costly construction work. The line was opened in sections at the end of the 19th century, reaching Padstow in 1899. There was an aspiration to connect Wadebridge to Truro, but this was never realised. Due to holidaymakers increasingly travelling by car in the 1960s, demand for passenger services dwindled and the line was closed as part of the cuts in 1966.

  12. Go through the gateway and follow the left hedge to a metal gate across a track in the corner of the field.

    The crops in the fields vary from year to year. Sometimes they are used for hay.

    Until the Industrial Revolution, hay making was a very labour-intensive task with low output which involved cutting with a scythe, turning with a pitchfork and gathering with a hand rake.

    During Victorian times, the invention of the horse-drawn mowers, hay turners and rakes allowed hay production to be increased as much as tenfold.

    Hay was transported loose by horse and cart and layered into towering ricks for storage which were an iconic feature of the rural landscape. At the end of the 19th Century, the hay baler was invented, initially powered by horses on a treadmill.

  13. Go through the gate and follow the track a short distance to where it ends at a lane. Turn right onto the lane and follow it to where two tracks depart on the left, marked with a Public Footpath sign.

    Sorrel is native to the UK and common in fields and hedgerows. It's salt tolerant so it can often be found on the coast in Cornwall. The leaves resemble small, narrow dock leaves. In summer the plant is often evident in abundance in fields by its red seeds at the top of a tall stalk.

    Sorrel is used as a culinary herb in many cuisines and in Cornwall during Victorian times, sorrel was known as "green sauce". Some of the most well-known uses are in soups or as a salad vegetable. In French cuisine it is sometimes used when cooking fish as - similarly to lemon - the acidic juice can soften thin fish bones during cooking.

    The two high walls the lane passes between are the remnants of a railway bridge from the North Cornwall railway.

  14. Turn left and follow the leftmost stony track indicated by the Public Footpath sign. Follow the track until it ends at a metal gate.
    The first record of settlement of Treroosel is from mediaeval times as Treursel in 1190. It's likely that it's based on the Cornish language from the Early Mediaeval period but other than tre meaning "farmstead", the meaning of the rest of the name isn't known. There are records of a manor house once being part of the main farm settlement, possibly owned originally by a priory (although suggestions differ about which one) and later by the Prideaux family of Padstow.
  15. Turn right before the metal gate, onto the small path beside the concrete post. Follow the path between the hedges and through a tunnel of trees until it emerges where a stone stile is in the wall on the right and the path bends away to the left.

    The name celandine is thought to be derived from the Greek word for swallow, based on the arrival of swallows being a sign of spring. Another common name for celandine is spring messenger, based on the early flowering. This was presumably also the basis of the Victorian use as a symbol of "joys to come".

    The path through the trees was once a lane leading to the lost settlement of Bodwin, first recorded around 1190 and last recorded in 1884. A small, thin field with an irregular hedge lies beyond the opposite end where the settlement was once located. On the next direction, the left hedge forms one side of that thin field.

  16. Cross the stile in the wall on the right via the footholds then turn left and follow the left hedge to reach a metal gate in the far hedge.

    Rooks eat pretty much anything but their primary food source is earthworms and insect larvae which their beak is evolved to probe for.

  17. Go through the gate across the stile and through another gate into the field. Follow the fence on the right to reach a wooden stile in the corner of the field.

    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.

  18. Cross the stiles into the next field and follow the fence on the right to reach a pedestrian gate in the corner of the field.

    The Latin name of the buttercup, Ranunculus, means "little frog" and said to be because the plants like wet conditions. It is thought it may have come via a derogatory name for people who lived near marshes!

    Sheep are now farmed pretty much solely for their meat rather than their wool. The reason that you may see scruffy sheep with wool falling off is that due to cheap synthetic (plastic) fibres, demand for wool declined through the late 20th and early 21st centuries resulting in many sheep not being shorn due to the wool price being lower than the cost of the labour to remove it.

  19. Go through the pedestrian gate and follow the fence on the right to a gate in the far corner.
  20. Turn left to stay in the field (don't go through the gate) and follow the hedge to a wooden stile in the far corner.
  21. Cross the stile and turn right to follow the right hedge to a gate in the corner of the field.
  22. Go through the gate and follow the track to another gate.
  23. Go through the gate and follow the track away from the house until it ends at a road.

    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.

  24. Turn left and carefully follow the road for just over a quarter of a mile to reach a junction on the right with a wooden bench, signposted to "Newhall Green" and "Trewalder".

    Something you may have noticed is that all A and B road numbers in Cornwall start with the number 3. For A and B road numbering, England and Wales are divided up into 6 segments a bit like an orange, radiating out from London. Zone 3 covers the South West.

  25. Turn right at the junction and follow the lane to the bottom of the hill to reach a junction on the right with a lane signposted to "St Teath".

    The settlement of Newhall Green derives from a manor dating from mediaeval times and the first record is from 1305 as "Niwalle". The manor was probably "new" in Norman times hence the name "new hall" is English rather than Cornish (which would be along the lines of Lesnewth).

  26. Turn right and follow the lane until you reach a metal kissing gate on the right signposted as a Public Footpath.

    Despite being called red campion, its flowers are most definitely pink - varying quite widely in shade from vibrant deep pinks to very pale. The colour is produced by red anthrocyanin compounds which are also responsible for red autumn leaves and red tinges on new growth in some plants as well as flower colours. In red campion, the intensity of the colour is controlled by a pair of genes and several other genes control the exact balance of anthrocyanin compounds within the petals. These are passed down the generations and so pale pink parents are likely to produce pale pink offspring.

    The stream which starts alongside the lane is the River Allen.

    The Rivel Allen is a major tributary of the River Camel, joining it just above the estuary near Wadebridge. It was known as the Dowr Alen in Cornish, which is documented as meaning "shining river". There is also a River Allen in Truro, although that one is Dowr Lain in Cornish, so as long as you speak Cornish, you won't get them confused!.

  27. Go through the kissing gate and head uphill across the field towards the nearest pylon to the right of which is a metal gate in the hedge with a metal kissing gate beside it which leads onto a road and a wooden pedestrian gate in the hedge just the right.
  28. Go through the wooden pedestrian gate and cross the stone stile then follow the left hedge to a metal gate in the far hedge.
  29. Go through the gate and bear right across the field to a stone stile in the far hedge, just to the right of the metal gate and on left end of a stand of trees in the hedge.
  30. Cross the stile into the next field and follow the left hedge to another stone stile in the corner of the far hedge.
  31. Cross the stile and head straight across the field to the stone stile in the hedge opposite.
  32. Cross the stile then bear left across the field to a stone stile in the opposite hedge, on the right-hand side of a concrete wall.
  33. Cross the stile and follow the left hedge to a wooden stile in the concrete wall.
  34. Cross the stile and follow the path to another stone stile. Cross this and continue a little further to where the path ends at a road.
  35. Turn left and follow the road past the junction with a clock tower to reach a junction where the road bends sharply left and a lane joins from the right beside the church.

    The clock tower in St Teath was built in around 1920 as a First World War memorial. The granite plaque originally listed the villagers killed in WW1 and was later added to after WW2 and again after the Korean War.

  36. Turn right onto Church Square then turn right almost immediately through the iron gate into the church yard. Turn left and follow the path around the church, keeping the church on your right. Continue to follow the path past the church and across the graveyard to emerge through the gates onto a road.

    The church building dates from Norman times and the lower section of the tower may be of Norman origin. It's been suggested that further Norman remains may possibly be buried beneath the churchyard which may have potential for appropriately sensitive archaeology. The church was enlarged in the 15th Century and the font dates from this period. The tower was remodelled in the 17th Century and some of the carved panels (e.g. in the pulpit) also date from around this time. The church was restored in the 1870s when some of the windows were replaced and again in 1913.

  37. Bear left slightly across the road to a strip of tarmac between a building and the cemetery wall, marked with a Public Footpath sign. Follow the tarmac to an iron kissing gate at the far end. Go through the gate and follow the path through two more iron kissing gates to emerge onto a road.

    In the cemetery opposite the church is a Celtic cross. A piece of it was once used as a footbridge and afterwards it was used as part of the churchyard wall. The pieces have since been reunited and repaired.

  38. Turn right and follow the road until it ends at a junction with North Road.

    Garlic mustard is a member of the cabbage family. It is edible and the leaves tastes mildly of garlic but become more bitter as they mature.

    It is also known as hedge garlic or Jack-by-the-hedge as it likes shady places. The "Jack" is a reference to the devil (probably by someone not a fan of garlic).

    The young leaves look a bit like stinging nettles but are brighter green. As the leaves get larger, they get less toothed and are more heart-shaped. It has white flowers in April and early May with 4 small petals forming a cross.

  39. Turn left and follow the road back to the grass verge to complete the walk.

    Like many of the more elaborate Victorian schools in North Cornwall, St Teath school was designed by Silvanus Trevail and was built in 1878 from local slate and granite. The two-storey section was originally an adjoining house for the schoolmaster. The railings are also part of the original design.

Foxgloves have a life cycle which spans two years. The seeds germinate in spring and during their first year they produce a "rosette" of large, velvety green leaves with toothed edges. These are particularly noticeable from October onwards once other vegetation has died back. The leafy foxglove plants remain dormant throughout the winter, ready for a quick start in the spring.

In spring, whilst foxgloves seeds are germinating, the established foxglove plants from the previous year start producing their characteristic flower spike. Once these have been fertilised and the seeds have been produced then the plant dies. One foxglove plant can produce over 2 million seeds.

Foxgloves are reliant on bumblebees for pollination and bumblebees are much more active when the weather is good. Partly, as an insurance policy against bad weather, foxgloves have evolved to stagger their flowering over several weeks, starting with the flowers at the base of the stalk and working up to the top, where the higher flowers protrude over other vegetation that has grown up in that time.

The male and female parts of a foxglove flower mature at different times to help avoid self-fertilisation. This also ties in with the flowers maturing at the bottom of the spike first as pollinators often start at the lowest flower and then work upwards. They land on the mature female flowers first with a cargo of pollen from another plant, and then leave via the mature male flowers with a new load of pollen.

Although nearly all foxgloves are purple, a fairly rare white form does occur and an even more rare pink form sometimes occurs along with this.

As well as attracting insects, the brightly coloured foxglove flowers serve as a warning for animals that the plants contain toxins. All parts of the plant can cause a range of ill-effects in humans from nausea to heart and kidney problems which can be fatal.

The common name "foxglove" dates back many hundreds of years but the origin is unknown. The "gloves" almost certainly refers to the shape of the flowers, and the Latin name Digitalis (finger-like) is along similar lines. The curious part is the "fox" and many different suggestions have been made as to where it came from. It is possible that it is a corruption of another word. One suggestion is "folks" which was once used to mean "fairies".

Ferns evolved a long time before flowering plants and dominated the planet during the Carboniferous period. The bark from tree ferns during this period is thought to have been the main source of the planet's coal reserves.

Fern fronds form in a coil (known as a crozier or fiddlehead) with the delicate tip protected in the centre. As the outer parts begin to photosynthesise, the sugars they produce cause more water to be drawn into the leaf, causing it to expand and gradually unfurl.

Ferns produce 2 different types of leaf (although they often look quite similar). The normal leaves are used for photosynthesis of sugars just like in other plants. Ferns also produce a special kind of spore-bearing leaf which can often be identified from the dots on the underside. In hart's tongue ferns, these are really obvious.

Ferns produce neither flowers nor seeds and rely on the tiny spores for their reproduction which are most commonly distributed by the wind. This allows them to colonise some quite random places such as rocky ledges that heavier seeds might not reach. Since the spores come from just one parent fern, the offspring is a genetic clone.

The spore from a fern doesn't grow into a fern. Instead it grows into an organism resembling a liverwort (i.e. a small green blob). Instead of producing spores, these produce eggs and also sperm which they interchange with neighbouring blobs to get a new mix of genes. The fertilised egg grows into a new fern and so this alternating process of ferns and blobs repeats.

The "herringbone" style of walling built with tightly packed alternating diagonal slate courses, is unique to Cornwall's heritage.

It is known locally as "Curzy Way" or "Kersey Wave", based on the Cornish word kersy which means "reeds", perhaps referring to a square weave pattern. It is also sometimes known as "Jack and Jill" which is likely to be based on the falling down part of the nursery rhyme.

Traditionally, hedges (stone boundary walls) were built with whatever was cleared out of the fields, whilst buildings were constructed from stone that was quarried and cut. On a long wall, the herringbone sections are often between "towers" of flat-laid slate (built from the larger and squarer stones) which helped to prevent the wall slumping sideways.

There are over 30,000 miles (more than the distance around the earth) of hedges in Cornwall, many of which are based on distinctive local styles of stone walling. Consequently, often what a Cornish person calls a "hedge", most people from outside the county do not recognise as a hedge, resulting in some foreign translation needed for walk directions.

Around 50% of the hedgerows in the UK have been lost since the Second World War. Although intentional removal has dramatically reduced, lack of maintenance and damage from mechanical cutting techniques such as flailing are still causing deterioration of the remaining hedgerows.

Some Cornish hedges are thought to be more than 4,000 years old, making them some of the oldest human-built structures in the world that have been in continuous use for their original purpose. They act as vital miniature nature reserves and wildlife corridors that link together other green spaces. This supports hundreds of species of plants and tens of thousands of insect species, many of which are vital pollinators for arable crops.