Around and about Warbstow

Another of a trio of recent walks and one we did with friends from Launceston - another North's Choice. And an excellent choice it was, too. As they live about 10 miles north of us, they are choosing routes in areas that we are not familiar with and that adds a lot of interest. This one started and ended in the shadow of Warbstow Bury (more of that later) and was mostly within the Parish of Warbstow, which has an unusual claim to fame. It is one of the few in the country to still have an 'exclave' - an island of the parish in another. In this case, the hamlet of Canworthy Water is surrounded by Jacobstow parish and is separated from the main body of Warbstow parish by some 150 meters. An historical oddity, the origins of which I just cannot find. That irritates me - bad show, Mr Google, bad show. But it didn't spoil my/our enjoyment of the day. The photographs will show what I mean.

This turned out to be a 6.5 miler and the profile doesn't do proper justice to the ups and downs we encountered. A mixture of quiet country lanes, farmland, tracks and footpaths, spiced with a couple of churches, some mediaeval crosses and an Iron Age hillfort. All that and surprisingly very little rain.

Yet another use for tyres. A necklace to hold a tarpaulin down. Typical farmer's ploy - never spend any money when you can botch for free. I've definitely got some farmer's blood flowing through my veins. Nothing pleases me more than fixing a job with something from my seemingly inexhaustible supply of 'things that might come in handy one day'.

Church #1:  St Werburgh’s Church, Warbstow. Unfortunately closed due to Covid but one to visit when the virus cloud passes. What you see now is, apart from some Victorian tinkering, largely 15th century, with few remains of the two former buildings on this site - Saxon and Norman respectively. The church is dedicated to Saint Werburga, the daughter of  an Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia. She is also the patron saint of St Werburgh's church at Wembury that I've written about before.

They (who are they?) say that no two stone stiles in Cornwall are exactly alike and I can quite believe that as we've encountered many of them. This one is a fine example of a 'coffen' stile, usually written incorrectly as “coffin” stile, and is named after the Cornish word 'coffen' meaning a man-made hole in the ground. This refers to the stile's construction with a pit, not to the ease with which men can carry a coffin across it. Although the stile sometimes has a stone shelf alongside for a coffin (or any other burden for that matter) to rest on while the bearers got their breath back, this is not the source of the name, though presumably the English word coffin is from the same ancient root. Most coffen stiles are associated with 18th and 19th century country mansions or wealthy manor farms and with churches, being convenient for ladies with their long dresses, as the stile, a fore-runner of the modern cattle grid, is walked across, not climbed. Others were built wide enough for a worker carrying two pails with the aid of a wooden shoulder-yoke. Sometimes they were built when an ancient packhorse route was converted to a footpath, after a carriage road was opened.

I think this bracket fungus is Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) but I would welcome being corrected.

This cross was found at Higher Youlton in 1976 buried upside down and used as a gate post. It was moved to its present position at Youlston farm some years later and reset on a new base stone.

This cross was originally used as a bridge over a nearby stream and was re-erected by the Old Cornwall Society in 1936 - as the little plaque to the right of it said. The stream forms part of the parish boundary so its present position is quite logical - such crosses were frequently placed at key junction points.

Panoramic views all the way around on this walk. This is a very sparsely populated area and, in many ways, is quite remote. In the distance, the high land of Dartmoor can be made out.

My fungi identification book points me in the direction of Many-zoned Polypore (Coriolus versicolor) for this one. Looks reasonable to me.

I presume that, at some stage, the occupant of the caravan will realise that this isn't the best place to be a fisherman. The high tide never quite gets this far so launching the boat might pose a few problems.

Church #2: St Gregory's, Treneglos. Guess what? It was closed and is added to the list for a revisit. There has been a church here since Saxon times; in the Domesday Survey of 1086, the church was given to the Priory at Tywardreath. The church was confirmed as the Priory's by Bishop Chichester on 14th February 1154. The present church was rebuilt in 1858, and the tower, having become very dilapidated, was taken down in 1871 and completely rebuilt; its four bells were reused.

The sculptured Norman tympanum, similar to other works in nearby churches such as Egloskerry, is described as "a conventional tree in the centre, with a pair of beasts having their tails bent round between the legs, and upwards across their bodies, placed symmetrically facing each other." The meaning may be found in the Psalms verse about the vine of Egypt: "The boughs thereof were like goodly cedars... The boar of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it."

VR? I wonder how many of this vintage are still around? And I wonder how many will remain in 5 or 10 years still with this livery? Precious few, I think.

Every war memorial is unique and every one has tales to tell. This one in Warbstow is no exception. Amongst the fallen of WW1 is Lance Corporal John Stapleton who had emigrated to Australia and was killed at Ypres whilst in the 55th Australian Infantry Battalion. One other thing about this memorial that's interesting is that it's the only one I've come across that names the women from the Parish who served in a war. In this case, WW2 and noted the service of seven women in the ATS, WAAF and NAAFI. It was good to see this.

The first photograph of this pair shows part of the surviving wall structure of Warbstow Bury. The size of this hillfort means that it's impossible to get an image that does it justice. Hence I thought that the photograph of the information board at the site would give a better idea of layout. Here's some information I've plagiarised from the English Heritage listing.
Warbstow Bury (above), a multivallate hillfort in north Cornwall, is one of the largest and best-preserved hillforts in the county. It is also known as ‘The Giants Grave’ after the legend that a giant that lived here was killed when the giant of Launceston Castle threw a tool at him. It also called ‘The tomb of King Arthur’ although there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to substantiate this. It has two ramparts, with two entrances each, the inner one measuring 370 by 450 feet. The outer rampart averages 15 feet in height, with an external ditch 15 feet wide. After the abandonment of the hillfort in the late Iron Age, the site is unlikely to have been used frequently for anything more than the summertime grazing of sheep in the early medieval period. The inner-circle was used as a beacon for the jubilee of Queen Victoria celebrations in 1887.

The Bury really is an impressive site and, as we did not know much about it, came as a complete surprise. This image is taken across the breadth of the central portion and keen eyes will make out the mound in the centre. Mythology gives this as the site of the Giant's Grave but it is thought that it's most likely to be the remnant of a mediaeval pillow mound that housed rabbits. The rain clouds in the distance did not come our way, I'm glad to say.

The central portion at the top of the Bury, clearly showing its circular shape.

"And this is what we think of you".

Looking north from the Bury towards Exmoor and the North Devon coast. We could just make out Lundy Island.

Up the West Looe River and through Kilminorth Woods

This photograph of a local resident gives a clue to where we went for our recent Sunday afternoon stroll. The Marmite of birds - love them or hate them, they are very hard to ignore in any Cornish seaside town.

As we had to be in Looe for something else, we thought we'd take advantage of this and go 'up river' and through the Kilminorth Nature Reserve that runs along the bank of the West Looe River. It was only 3 miles but, as the profile shows, it did have a fairly long and very steep stretch. A good muscle stretcher and lung tester - we survived to tell the tale.

In the middle of all that mud is the West Looe River, with some houses of West Looe in the distance. Just in case you are wondering, the West Looe River is not so named because it runs to West Looe, neither is the East Looe River named because it runs to East Looe. In fact the West and East arms of the Looe River join just before it runs between East and West Looe. Got it? Lots of mud means lots of mud loving birds.

A Little Egret. Not that long ago, people would have driven miles to see a Little Egret as they were quite rare. Nowadays, they are becoming quite commonplace and, on this walk, I must have seen twenty or more.

The plaintive cry of the Oystercatcher always reminds me of Orkney and/or Shetland where they are as common as Sparrows. Down here, they are infrequent but not particularly rare. They do love a bit of mud to poke around in.

The only word to describe how swans move is 'gliding'. A trio of swans gliding up the river with the incoming tide.

Interpretation boards for Kilminorth Woods have this short rhyme:
Jack the Giant
Having nothing to do
Built a hedge
From Lerryn to Looe
What's that about? In a variant of the rhyme, Jack is replaced by the Devil.

The Hedge - the Giant's Hedge - is a earthen bank which runs from Looe to Lerryn, a distance of approximately 12 miles. There's a stretch of it in the photograph to the right. Along its length, it's in various states of repair (or disrepair) and at its best preserved is around 2 m high and 3.5 m wide.  It passes through four different parishes and appears to have been constructed to defend the area between the Rivers Looe and Fowey. It was considered it to be a Roman road but it is now believed to be a pre-Norman boundary. How much pre-Norman? Perhaps dating back to 3000-2000BC?

Looking over the trees and above the river valley. In the distance, you may be able to make out the stack on the top of Kit Hill.

Looking over a sea of broccoli towards the real sea and East Looe. Rame Head is in the far distance and increasing the magnification of the image makes the Eddystone Lighthouse discernible. At this point, it must be 25 miles away.

Kilminorth Woods forms one of the largest valley oak woods in Cornwall. The area has been continuously wooded for at least 400 years and is classified as a semi-natural ancient woodland. Semi-natural rather than natural because coppicing took place for much of that time, artificially extending the life of the trees by many centuries. In coppicing, young trees are repeatedly chopped down, leaving a stump which produces thin branches to be harvested for brushwood, poles or firewood. In due course, when these branches are lopped, the process begins all over again. It keeps a tree in a juvenile condition, meaning that a regularly coppiced tree will never die. Since coppicing is carried out in rotation through a woodland, the trees throughout are of many different ages, which provides a diversity of habitats for a wide range of species.

Another walk from Venford Reservoir

Although not permitted in certain parts of the country, we can still get out and about in the West Country so it was off to Dartmoor with one of our walking groups. I think it was either the 3rd or 4th time we've done this one but repetition certainly does not detract from the enjoyment. Nature provides the novelty as we seem to walk it in different seasons. The last time we were here it was in November as the leaves were falling from the trees: this time it was just before the leaves had really turned to give their best Autumn colour. Maybe we'll time it right next year. And the weather was very much in our favour - not too cold with clear skies, which gave good visibility and distant views.

A very straightforward route to follow. From the reservoir car park, head east for a short spell and then go over the moor to drop down into the Dart valley and pick up the pipeline track. Follow this to just below the car park, pick up the track to Combestone Farm and then follow the Hamlyn leat around Combestone Tor back to our starting point. My GPS clocked the distance at 6.2 miles so it was a reasonable stretch of the legs.

Onto the moor and this is the type of view that accompanied us for most of our walk. The brown of the decaying bracken is really striking.

No prizes for guessing the direction of the prevailing wind. It's coming from the west.

The group dropping down into the Dart Valley. This bit can be quite slippery but it wasn't too bad today.

Once on the track, we were in deciduous woods. The height of the trees in this part signifies the quest for light in this steep sided valley.

The track we followed was built over the line of the pipes taking water from Venford Reservoir down to the Torquay and Torbay area - a distance of some 30 miles.

This beautiful fungus is the Amethyst Deceiver (Laccaria amethystina) which can be found in all types of woodland. Their colour strength changes depending on the weather conditions. For example, when wet or damp, it’s quite possible you may walk past many of them as their violet colour deepens and merges into the undergrowth background. We must have walked by quite a few as they’re extremely common in autumn. As they age, the colour fades to a pale buff.
Unfortunately I fiddled with the settings on my camera to see what they looked like in the 'Art Bold' setting and then deleted the original. I don't think this readjustment of colour does the subject any favours - far too garish.

A clapper bridge on the track to Combestone Farm. How old is it? No idea but it does suggest that the track had sufficient significance to warrant an all-weather crossing at this point rather than a slosh through the ford.

Lots of Old Man's Beard on mainly hawthorn trees. A sign of atmospheric purity.

This was a walk when the landscape took over. Views, views, views all the way around.

This is something that we hadn't noticed before - a stone circle. But I don't think this one is particularly old. Perhaps it's a sheep or cattle pound.

A restored stretch of Hamlyn's Leat. The leat was was cut in the early part of the 19th century to supply water for textile mills in Buckfastleigh and it water is still flowing in it. In some places, parallel to this leat, the remains of a dry leat that served Wheal Emma, a local copper mine, can be seen. 

Hamlyn's Leat was cut through a few Iron Age settlements. Unfortunately, this is not the time of year for looking at hut circles and settlement boundary walls - too much bracken as this photograph shows. You'll have to take my word that there is fairly intact hut circle in view. In the distance, our walking group is winding its way along the leat as it crosses Holne Moor in the lee of  Combestone Tor.