From Kit Hill to Cotehele, via Calstock

 The weekend's longer walk was essentially the mirror image of the one we'd done last week.  Starting, as previously, in the lay-by near Kit Hill and then heading down to Cotehele Quay. A very varied route and gave us the opportunity to see some hamlets much closer than we normally do as we drive through them.

This one clocked in at 7 miles and was a mixture of footpaths, lanes and tracks. It took us through Harrowbarrow, Metherell and Norris Green and then down to the river path at Danescombe. And we made a diversion to Calstock for a tea and a bacon bap on the riverside.

The lambing season is upon us and these are the first we've seen close up. There's something quintessentially English about sheep in the meadows. It's too early to worry about any cows in the corn. 🌽 🐄 

An open shaft, but enclosed by a stout stone wall, at the East Wheal Brothers Mine. There are some who say "too dangerous, they should be filled and capped". My view is that they are an important part of the history of this part of the world and they should remain as they are. Compare how many people fall down these with how many get knocked over and killed on the roads.

Mine stack slowly being reclaimed by nature. This area had the feeling of not being known to many and being visited by far fewer.

Looking back down the track to the mining site. Just imagine how many miners took this as they walked from their homes in Harrowbarrow, Metherell etc. I find that areas like these have a definite 'spirit of place' that resonates with me. They are not happy places.

Yet another way of saying "clear up your dog crap".

We spent the rest of our walk looking for a child hopping along the road with only one welly.

Possibly the oldest house in Metherell? We think that it might have been a long house originally with, perhaps, the animal quarters, at the right-hand end of the building. One thing's for certain, it needs more than a lick of paint to bring it back to its former glory.

Just a path through the woods leading down to the Danescombe Valley.

The three storey Danescombe mill was working by 1788 when King George III was on the throne making it the first paper-mill in the Calstock area. It is believed that its power came from an overshot waterwheel supplied by a leat from a header pond which was situated at the mill’s northern end. Rags and hemp would have been transported upriver from Plymouth on sailing barges and these materials, along with local wood shavings and reeds, were then loaded into horse-drawn carts and hauled along the lane towards the mill. After soaking in a large vat and being pounded by the stamps, the mashed-up pulp was then spread onto frames then pressed and dried into sheets. This thin layer of intertwined fibre then became paper. For 70 years, coarse brown paper was also produced here along with pasteboard (So called because it is made of sheets of paper pasted together) and millboard (A stiff heavy paperboard used primarily for book covers). The mill later supplied the area with paper to help protect soft fruits when packaged. It closed in 1857.

The green alternative to being prosecuted or shot?

You can't come to Calstock without taking at least one photograph of the viaduct. It never ceases to impress me.

And you can't go to Cotehele House without taking this iconic view down the valley towards the viaduct. And the sky was blue.

To everything there is a season. And the season for snowdrops has passed and the season for daffodils is just about on us. Give it another week or so and this lawn will be filled with a veritable horde of daffodils. Enough to inspire any passing poet?