Gorran Haven is a typical fishing village with narrow mediaeval streets and a sheltered place to launch boats: the beach faces East into a bay protected by headlands to the North and South. Prior to the 19th Century, the village was known as Portheast which is thought to be a corruption of Porth Just.
In mediaeval times, the village at Gorran Haven was the primary fishing village of the area, dwarfing Mevagissey, and the quay has been rebuilt a number of times throughout its history. The first recorded use of seining for pilchards in Cornwall was here, in the 13th Century. Once drift netting became popular in the late 18th century, Mevagissey took over as the primary fishery and the quay fell into ruin but was rebuilt in 1886 and a period of crab and lobster potting continued until the Second World War. After the war, crab and lobster potting resumed from the bigger harbour at Mevagissey.
Roughly 70% of the edible crabs caught in the world are caught around the British Isles, most of which are sold to France and Spain. Around the UK, edible brown crabs are regarded as overfished, with the largest fishery based around Scotland. Devon and Cornwall have the most stringent regulations in the UK on the minimum acceptable size and the pots now have an escape hatch for undersized crabs. The crabs are not harmed by the pots which allows crabs carrying eggs to also be released to improve the sustainability of the fishery.
Vault beach is said to get its name from the cold shadow cast over the beach by Dodman Point in the evenings, and continuing in the death theme of Deadman's Point. The alternative name for the beach - Bow beach - describes its crescent shape. The beach is mostly shingle with some sand at low tide and is over half a mile in length and is sheltered from most wind directions by the points either side. The far southern end (furthest away from the path to the beach) is popular with naturists in warm weather. The main part of the beach was used as the location for filming Richard Curtis' "About Time".
From this stretch of the coast, it's approximately 110 miles across the Channel to Roscoff.
Due to the curvature of the earth, the distance you can see to the horizon depends on your height above sea level. This increases with the square root of height (i.e. with diminishing returns). An adult typically sees the horizon about 3 miles from the beach. From the top of a 100 foot lighthouse, it is about 12 miles away. At the top of the highest cliff in Cornwall it is roughly 33 miles out but if a 100ft tower were built all the way up here, it would only allow an extra 2 miles to be seen.
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.
The steam-powered cargo ship, the SS Eastfield, was carrying a cargo of coal from Newport in November 1917 and despite being armed with a small stern gun, was torpedoed by a German U-Boat off Dodman Point. She sank in Mevagissey bay, west of Gorran Haven in 40-50 metres of water. The wreck been commercially salvaged but many parts of it are still relatively intact, with the bow standing 8 metres above the seabed, making it a fairly popular dive site. The ship's bell is on display at the Charlestown Shipwreck Museum.
The name "buttercup" is thought to have come from a mediaeval belief that cows eating the flowers gave butter its yellow colour. In fact this couldn't be further from the truth as the plant contains toxins which make it taste acrid and is therefore avoided by grazing animals.
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
The Darlwyn was a pleasure craft which disappeared on a voyage from Fowey to Mylor on the day after England won the World Cup in 1966. The boat was not seaworthy, with dry rot in the hull and heavily overloaded above its 12 passenger limit. In addition it had no radio and only 2 lifejackets. Despite this the skipper ignored local advice not to go to sea and set out in a storm. The boat disappeared and the 23 adults and 8 children aboard all drowned. An air and sea search was conducted but the boat was never found. 12 of the bodies washed ashore and autopsies indicated they had drowned in deep water. Fifty years later, remains were found on the sea bed off Dodman Point which are all consistent with that was known about the vessel. It is thought the vessel struck the reef and sank almost immediately. Following the disaster, marine regulations were introduced for pleasure craft ensuring boats meet safety requirements and licence holders must demonstrate boat handling skills.
Although the fronds of bracken die back each year, the black underground roots are perennial and spread extensively, sending up fronds at intervals. The root system of one bracken plant can stretch up to a quarter of a mile across making bracken one of the largest plants in the world.
Along the coast, from June onwards but particularly in the late summer and autumn, parasol mushrooms are common. They are one of the easier mushrooms to recognise due to their huge size (and umbrella shape when fully open). The brown flecks on their otherwise white flesh are caused by the rapidly expanding young mushroom bursting through a brown outer coating as it grows (a bit like "sugar puffs" breakfast cereal!). Other characteristic features include a snakeskin-like brown pattern on the stem and there's often a ring around the stem which is detached (can be carefully slid upwards to verify).
Parasol mushrooms have firm white flesh and delicate flavour which is not strongly "mushroomy". This makes them an excellent carrier for other flavours within a sauce, adding texture and body to a dish.
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.
Dodman Point is the highest headland on the south coast of Cornwall at around 400 feet high. It appears on maps as "Deadmans Pt" or "Deadman Pt" up to the mid 1800s, though the original name was Penare. The 20ft high granite cross was erected on top of the point in 1896 by the rector of St Michael Caerhays to act as a daymark for shipping. It was blown down by a storm in 1905 and had to be re-erected
The small building in an area of metal railings just inland of the point was a watch house - part of a signal station built during the Napoleonic Wars. The whitewashed structure beside it was a lookout platform.
From left to right you can see the protruding headland of the Lizard in the distance and then the area around Falmouth with ships parked-up. This side of Falmouth Bay is St Anthony Head and the nearer headland with the large offshore rock is Nare Head with the fishing village of Portscatho behind it. To the right of that, the narrow group of white houses is Portloe. And further to the right again, the sea wall with a couple of buildings is Portholland.
The path to the right from the signpost runs between the two ramparts of the Dodman Point promontory fort.
Dodman Point was fortified in the Iron Age, with two large ramparts and ditches running across the headland to create an enclosed settlement containing an ancient field system and some barrows.
Hemmick beach is mostly sand with some shingle near the high tide line and rocky ridges down either side. The beach is pebbly at high tide but as the tide goes out, sand is revealed. The series of small coves to the right are cut off on high tides. At low tide, an area of rock is exposed on the right-hand side which contains a number of rockpools. Due to its remote location and limited parking, there are usually not many people on the beach.
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 leaves have a pleasant lemony flavour but before being tempted to try one, it's important first to learn how to avoid one of the most common poisoning mistakes from eating wild plants - how to distinguish sorrel leaves from the poisonous lily Arum maculatum (Lords and Ladies) as the latter causes serious irritation if consumed as it contains needle-like crystals that puncture mucous membranes. There's a video here.
In autumn, sloes are often plentiful and can be used to flavour gin, sherry and cider. The berries can be harvested from September until nearly Christmas although more tend to shrivel as the autumn advances. Traditionalists say that you should wait until the first frosts in late November when the sloes are less bitter. This is because freezing breaks down the bitter tannins. Therefore you can pick your sloes in September before they go too wrinkly and then pop them in the freezer to achieve the same thing.
Given the right conditions, a blackthorn tree can live 100 years and grow to about 20ft in height. In harsher environments such as by the coast the bushes may be as little as 2ft tall.
Penare is from the Cornish word penn-ardh (pronounced "penarth") meaning promontory. The farm graze Dexter cattle on the coast which helps to stop bracken taking over the headland and improves the habitat for wildflowers, butterflies and birds. It also produces some really nice beef fed on grass and wild herbs. If you’d like to try some, their beef is on sale at weekends at Cornwall Market World on the Par road from St Austell.
The name "hogweed" comes from the unpleasant scent of the flowers which is described as resembling a pig sty. The name "cow parsnip" is a reference to the culinary inferiority of roots compared to wild parsnip. In North America, the name "cow parsnip" is applied to a different species which is native to that continent (American cow parsnip is Heracleum maximum whereas the original English one is Heracleum spondylium).
Giant hogweed is regarded by some as the most dangerous plant in the UK (although hemlock is also a good contender). If you encounter giant hogweed, avoid touching it and children and dogs should be kept away from it as the sap contains a chemical which is extremely phototoxic. When activated by sunlight, this binds to the DNA in skin cells and kills them. Skin reaction starts as an itchy rash and can develop into third degree burns and scarring. It also makes the affected areas susceptible to severe sunburn for several years.
The plant gets its name as it can grow more than 10 feet tall, topped with white umbrella-shaped flowers. Due to the similar style of flowers, it is also known as giant cow parsley although the giant hogweed leaves are much more solid with a toothed edge, more similar to cow parsnip (normal hogweed). It is typically found near water or on waste ground.
The plant was introduced to Britain by Victorian botanists in the 19th century as an ornamental plant and has escaped from gardens into the wild. It has been spreading across the UK (as one plant produces 50,000 seeds) but is still very rare in Cornwall. A project to eradicate it along the Tamar River system is helping to stop further spread into Cornwall.
If you find giant hogweed in Cornwall (and are sure it's not normal hogweed), take a photo and report it to invasives@cormacltd.co.uk
If there are cows in the field, it can be bypassed by following the lane instead to reach the gate for the next direction at a sharp bend.
A beef cow produces around 30kg of dung per day. As dairy cows need to eat more to produce milk, they also produce roughly double the amount of dung which adds up to around 20 tonnes per year.
Cow dung is high in nitrogen compounds which makes it a useful fertiliser but depending how this is spread on the fields (e.g. sprayed as a liquid), harmful ammonia can be released into the air and run into watercourses. Large tanks of slurry can also decay anaerobically releasing methane so storage mechanisms are being re-examined in light of climate change.
The church tower that you can see across the fields to the left is Gorran church.
The church at Gorran is dedicated to St Goronus who is said to have come here from Bodmin at the time when St Petroc was also in Bodmin. The church building lies on a Norman foundation and was mostly rebuilt in the 15th Century, with the exception of the south aisle which is thought to date from the 14th century and North Door from the 13th. The tower was added later in the 15th century, replacing an earlier steeple which had fallen into disrepair. 53 of the carved mediaeval bench ends have been retained and the font is also thought to be from the late mediaeval period.
Recreational camping was first popularised in the UK on the river Thames as an offshoot of the Victorian craze for pleasure boating. Early camping equipment was very heavy and so transporting it by boat was pretty much essential. By the 1880s it had become a pastime for large numbers of visitors.
Red campion is also known as "red catchfly". The flowers are an important nectar source for larger pollinating insects including butterflies, bees and hoverflies. Much smaller flies drawn to the nectar can become stuck in the froth on the stigmas of the female flowers but this is not intentional by the plant (it doesn't eat them).
The settlement of Treveague was recorded in 1333 as Trevahek. Since the name is in Cornish, it's likely to date from Early Mediaeval times (Dark Ages) before the Norman Conquest. The meaning of the name isn't known but may simply be based on the Celtic landowner's name (e.g. "Vahek's farm").
Orange tip butterflies are one of the most noticeable and memorable due to their brilliant orange wing tips, but it's only the males that have orange-tipped wings. The striking orange is a warning to predators that they taste highly unpleasant. Intelligent birds such as crows will avoid repeating culinary disasters by remembering the colour pattern associated with it.
The females are mainly white with a bit of black at the wing tips. There will be an evolutionary reason for why it's not worth the females bothering with the orange warning pigment. This could be because the males spend much more time in flight (looking for females), and the resources needed to produce the bitter chemicals and orange pigment are better spent instead on making more eggs.
As additional protection from predators (especially for the females), they have also evolved a green camouflage pattern on the underside of their wings that makes them quite hard to spot when they land and close their wings.
Orange tips overwinter as pupae so they are able to emerge in April, making them one of the first butterflies to be around in the spring. They can be seen until mid-summer then their caterpillars spend the remainder of the summer feeding ready for the winter.
The path down the valley has a good range of wildflowers in the spring and summer which attract butterflies.
The Red Admiral, Peacock, Painted Lady and Tortoiseshell butterflies are all quite closely related and specialised for overwinter hibernation. Their wings, when closed, have a jagged outline and camouflaged colours that allows them to blend in with dead leaves. Their feet contain chemoreceptors (taste buds) which allows them to detect nectar-bearing flowers when they land.
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.
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.
Ivy is unusual in that it flowers particularly late in the year - from September to November - and therefore provides vital nectar for insects such as bees and moths. Ivy berries are an important winter food source for birds and will remain on the plant all the way through the winter until spring. The berries also have a high fat content so provide a dense source of energy at a time when animals need lots to keep warm.
Blue tits prefer a habitat with scattered trees so hedgerows and garden bushes are perfect. Great tits thrive in a similar habitat but also in broadleaf woodland. Coal tits prefer conifers so are the most likely member of the family to be seen in denser forestry plantations.
Gorran Haven has two sandy beaches, separated by a rocky promontory, facing east into a sheltered bay. The northern beach, known as Little Perhaver Beach, merges with the main beach at low tide but can be accessed at high tide via a steep flight of steps connecting to a footpath which departs from the road a short distance uphill from the chapel. For this reason it tends to be a fair bit quieter than the main beach.
The hawthorn tree is most often found in hedgerows where it was used to create a barrier for livestock, and in fact haw was the Old English word for "hedge".
Hawthorn has many folk names which are spread across quite a diverse range of features. Names such as "maytree" or even just "may" are references to when it flowers. However "whitethorn" is not about the blossom but a reference to the lighter bark colour than blackthorn. The name "bread and cheese" derives from the very young leaves being edible. It is also sometimes called "thornapple" due to the apple-like shape of the fruits. This is not a coincidence as both the hawthorn and apple are members of the rose family.
There are two species of hawthorn found in the UK. Common hawthorn (also known as one-seed hawthorn) has a single seed in each berry. The other species - known as midland or woodland hawthorn - has two seeds per berry (and 2 stigmas in the flower rather than one). In Cornwall, the "midland" species is - as you might guess from the name - not that common.
As well as its thorns, another thing that makes hawthorn good for hedging is its very rapid rate of growth of around half a metre per year. Consequently one of the alternative common names for it is "quickthorn".
In sheltered places, hawthorn trees can reach 20-40ft in height and live up to 400 years. In harsher environments such as the coast and moors they can be as little as 5-6ft tall.
The flowers of the hawthorn are known as "May Blossom" and were traditionally used as decorations in May Day celebrations. Now, however, the hawthorn generally doesn't flower until the middle of May. The reason for this is that May has moved! Until 1752, Britain used the Julian Calendar which had leap years every 4 years but no other corrections. This results in a length of day that is fractionally too long, so the first of May gradually slipped forwards over the centuries. By the 1700s, the first of May was 11 days ahead of where it is today.
In Mediaeval times, bringing hawthorn blossom into the house was thought to bring death and it was described as smelling like the Great Plague. The explanation for this is thought to be that the hawthorn blossom contains trimethylamine which is one of the first chemicals formed when animal tissue decays. Young leaves of the plant can be used in salads as the chemical is not present in the leaves so these taste nutty rather than of death.
Hawthorn's red berries, also known as haws, are abundant in September and October. These are an important winter food for birds such as thrushes and small mammals such as dormice and wood mice.
Hawthorn berries have traditionally been used to make fruit jellies as they contain pectin and have an apple-like flavour. A reason for making seedless jellies is that the seeds in hawthorn berries contain a compound called amygdalin, which is cyanide bonded with sugar. In the gut this is converted to hydrogen cyanide.
The genus name for hawthorn - Crataegus - is derived from krátys the Greek word for "hard" or "strong". Hawthorn wood is fine-grained, dense and most definitely hard. It has traditionally been used for things that benefit from these properties such as wooden mallets, the teeth of rakes and cogs for mill wheels.
If you're walking on a bright summer morning, you may see little orange 5-point star-shaped flowers of the scarlet pimpernel.
On a sunny day, the flowers open in the morning and then close about 2 PM. The plant is also known as poor man’s weatherglass because if it’s dull or wet, the flowers close earlier or may never open at all that day.
Another strange quirk of this plant is that in Spain, the flowers are bright blue, not orange!
The salt-laden breeze coming off the sea dries out leaf buds and inhibits growth so the plants end up growing most vigorously in the lee of the wind. In the direction facing the prevailing wind, the growth is therefore more compact and stunted whereas in the lee of the wind, the branches are much more straggly. The result is that the trees appear to point away from the prevailing wind. Where there are no obstacles interfering with the wind direction, the shape of the trees can be used as a compass. Prevailing winds come from the southwest, so in general, trees in Cornwall point northeast.
Promontory forts are only found in the South West of England and are thought to be introduced from Brittany due to the strong links between the Celtic communities. Although many do contain the foundations of Iron-Age roundhouses, it is thought unlikely that the wind-beaten areas on clifftops were permanent residences. Although the initial assumption was that the ramparts were purely functional and for defence, another possibility is that the ramparts were used as a status symbol, making a statement about the power and importance of the owners. If this were the case, the locations could have been used for a range of functions including religious, social, or trade.
The magpie is a member of the crow family and like other crows is omnivorous, feeding on pretty much anything it can find although it prefers high energy foods. Magpies spend most of their life in a 6 mile radius of where they were born and live in loose social groups. They will form gangs and use complex social strategies for hunting and tackling predators. Names for a group of magpies include a "tiding", "charm" and "chatter" (the latter reflecting their social communication).
The magpie is believed to be one of the most intelligent of all animals. The area of its brain used for higher cognitive function is approximately the same in its relative size as in chimpanzees and humans. Magpies can count, imitate human voices, recognise themselves in a mirror and have been observed regularly using tools to keep their cages clean. It has even been suggested that magpies may feel complex emotions, including grief.
Since members of the crow family will eat the eggs and chicks of other birds, there has been concern that magpies might have an effect on the songbird population. However, an extensive study by the British Trust for Ornithology using 35 years of data found that the presence of magpies appeared to have no measurable effect on songbird numbers. It is thought that availability of food and suitable nesting sites are probably the main factors limiting songbird populations. Hedgerows are a particularly important habitat.
The folklore about magpies collecting shiny objects has been shown to be an incorrect myth. A scientific study found that magpies are actually scared of shiny objects and actively avoid them.
Even up to the 16th Century, magpies were simply known as "pies" from the Old French word pie (related to the Latin word for magpie - pica). The term "pied" meaning "black-and-white" (as in pied wagtail) is from the magpie's colouration. It's also possible that the pastry thing we now know as a pie (which can be traced back to Mediaeval Latin) was named after the magpie. It has been speculated that the assortment of ingredients in the pastry crust was likened to objects collected in a magpie nest. The "mag" in the modern name is a (somewhat sexist) mediaeval slang word for someone who chatters, based on the name Margaret.
Dartmoor ponies, bred for hauling goods, have been recorded living on the wild and inhospitable moors since the Middle Ages. They are unsurprisingly a very hardy breed and have a lifespan of around 25 years. Over the 20th Century, their numbers declined from just over 25,000 in the 1930s to about 5,000 by the start of the 21st century when only around 800 ponies were known to be grazing the moor. Dartmoor ponies have recently found a new niche as conservation grazers. As well as on moorland, they are used by the Wildlife Trusts to graze the coast to prevent bracken and gorse taking hold.
The domestic radish has been cultivated from one of the subspecies of wild radish - a member of the cabbage family. Another of its subspecies is found on the coast and appropriately known as sea radish.
Sea radish is a biennial plant (2 year lifecycle) and during its first year it creates a rosette of leaves that are dormant over the winter. These are quite noticeable during January and February when there is not much other vegetation. The leaves are dull grey-green, slightly furry and each leaf consists of pairs of fairly long thin leaflets along the length of the stem plus a final bigger one at the end. Alexanders grows in similar places at similar times but its leaves are glossy green and each leaf is made up of 3 leaflets.
By the late spring, sea radish is a reasonably tall plant, recognisable by its yellow flowers that have 4 narrow petals. The flowers go on to form tapering seed pods later in the year with 2 or 3 large seeds in each pod with a spike at the end.
The plant is edible and probably at its best in the autumn and winter when the leaf rosettes are present. The leaves have a mild cabbage flavour but the leaf stems and ribs taste like a milder version of radish.
In the 1990s, Gorran Haven gave rise to the Cornish funk-rock band Rootjoose. Their live performances were legendary in many Cornish pubs and live music venues across the UK. They signed a record deal which resulted in some singles that very nearly reached chart success, making it into the UK Top 75 three times but just missing the Top 40. Just at the moment when Radio 1 had discovered Rootjoose, Zoe Ball had become a fan and one of their singles was due to be re-released with the promise of air-play, their record company pulled the plug to concentrate on dance music instead. Their track Place So Near is perhaps most geographically appropriate.
The "SS Karanga" was a steam-powered cargo ship built in 1907. In January 1918 it was sold and re-registered as the "SS Butetown". Near the end of that month it was on its way from Glasgow to Portsmouth with a cargo of coal. It was torpedoed by a German u-boat and sank 1.5 miles south of Dodman point. Two of the crew died.
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