From Treverbyn Bridge

 This walk description has been languishing in my draft folder for a couple of months. I'm not sure why but here it is. It was a rather good one near St Neot on the western edge of Bodmin Moor.

This walk was around 6.5 miles and was a mixture of footpaths, open moorland and lanes. It began and ended at Treverbyn Bridge and headed up onto Berry Down. It was a reasonable trek up to the highest point but, as they say, it was downhill all the way from there. Some of the footpaths are clearly very old and have an undefinable feeling of leading from somewhere to somewhere else with serious intent. I can't really explain what I mean by this but walk them and you'll feel it for yourself.

Treverbyn Bridge has three arches and crosses the River Fowey on the road between St Neot, to the west, and St Cleer, to the east. Although now a minor road, this was the main medieval route linking the important market towns of Liskeard and Bodmin. The western part of the bridge contains pre-C15 fabric, which was referred to in around 1412 as ‘threatening total ruin’. Donations to the Church for the repair of bridges were common in early Christianity and in the medieval period, and ‘Indulgences’ issued by the Church guaranteed penance for sin for a certain number of days in exchange for labour or money to the repair of building of a bridge. In 1412 or 1413, Bishop Stafford, the Bishop of Exeter granted an Indulgence to fund the repair of Treverbyn Bridge, providing a pardon of forty days penance from sin for contributors. The carriageway was widened at each end of the bridge in the C18. The road lost its importance in the early C19 when a new turnpike was opened through the Glynn Valley to the south (the modern A38). The new bridge was built adjacent to Treverbyn Bridge in 1929, leaving the medieval structure for pedestrian use only.

The River Fowey looking rather tranquil, despite the recent rains. I suspect that the wild swimming loonies use this spot to indulge their masochistic tendencies. Little do they know, or probably care, about the dangers that lurk in these waters - contamination with various metals and nasty bacteria, to name but two.

At the hamlet of Lower Tranent we came across the old Bible Christian Methodist Chapel. It originates from the 1830s/1840s and was closed in 1963. The building is now used as the office for a camping and caravanning site. There are a couple of interesting facts about this chapel. Firstly, this Schedule II monument is listed as 'details unknown' - not even Mr Google can shed any light on it. Secondly, the chapel did not have a graveyard when it was first consecrated but one was later added when the local C of E church in St Neot refused to bury anyone who was baptised into the Bible Christian Sect. Sadly, the first person to take advantage of the new 'facility' was a 13 year old girl from a nearby farm.

I do like it when you get glimpses of the countryside through a natural window.

Look closely and you can just make out the 'steps' of the stile over this wall. I love walls like this and the way they blend in with their surroundings. They look as if they've been there for ever. There is also something very sensual about the softness of the moss and the fresh damp way it feels. These are good places to stop and spend a while to take it all in. Isn't this mindfulness? If so, try it without all the modern hype. You don't need lessons or a book, just the great outdoors and an open mind.

Sheltering from the rain in a conveniently located barn at coffee time.

Climb over the wall and this is the world you enter. Savour the green. Savour the contorted branches.

I stand to be corrected but I think this is a Common Bonnet fungus.

Ferns grow everywhere. Even on this clapper bridge just down a track from an old farm called Wortha. And by old, I mean circa 1300. We got that from the owner of the property himself. Apparently, until quite recently the only access to Wortha was directly from the moor and this lane did not exist.

A rather ragged Wall Brown butterfly. 

Not a great photograph but it's not often that I get to see a Green Woodpecker.

The magnificent Seven who were on this walk. On top of Berry Down.

The trig point on Berry Down. Formally, it's the trig point at Hut Camp Fort, taking its name from the nearby early prehistoric hillfort with outwork and outlying stone hut circle known as Berry Castle. Unfortunately the poor visibility and bracken growth conspired to obscure what was there to see. A case for a revisit? And the trig point? Apparently it is the 1837th most visited trig point on the Trigpointing.uk website. I suppose that gives it a certain cachet.

Yet another window on the world outside. This granite stile had some impressive mortice work to keep it in place.