Station to Station: Redruth to Perranwell

I’ve had this one planned for quite a while, and a weekend away in Falmouth provided the opportuntity to get boots on the ground. It was also another occasion when I was walking with company – one of my oldest friends David. The weather looked good, but we hadn’t bargained for the strength of the wind! The start of this walk was quite exposed. If you follow in our footsteps, wrap up warmer than we did!

We caught the train from Falmouth Docks, changing at Truro and heading south west to Redruth. The Penzance train was about 40 minutes late at Truro, but we were in no rush so for us this was just a minor irritation. We grabbed a coffee in the heated waiting room.

Once at Redruth, we headed out of the town via Sea View Terrace. It seemed unlikely that the the sea really could be viewed. However, as we climbed up the hill we were proved wrong. Although the weather today was not going allow us to actually see the sea, the radome covering the air defence radar at RRH Portreath was clearly visible.

Our first planned destination was Gwennap Pit. This is a grass covered amphitheatre where John Wesley preached eighteen times between 1762 and 1789. The present form came about after his death, when locals remodelled it as a memorial. Originally, it seems to have been a hollow caused by subsidence from mining activities, and presumably appeared less regular than it did now. It was larger originally too. Wesley himself claimed to have preached to 22,000 people there. Pevsner is sceptical of this, saying he “either mis-remembered or exaggerated”, but I am not so sure. Certainly there is no way that that many people could fit in the pit itself, but as this report from The Graphic on 17 June 1876 points out, there is room for large numbers in the surrounding area and large crowds still gathered even then:

But whatever Gwennap Pit was, it is now an insignificant hollow in a hill side; “looks nothing in itself, sir when it’s empty you might easily pass by and not notice it,” said a man of whom we asked our road. And he was right so that any one who expects to find the chasm, like the crater of a huge volcano, in which the engraving, so popular in West Cornwall, represents Wesley, perched on a jutting rock, preaching to assembled thousands, will be sadly disappointed. So far from being a grand chasm, “the Pit” makes no break in the unmitigated ugliness of the Redruth neighbourhood. The print, like many other prints of the kind, is untrue in every point, except in the matter of the assembled thousands. These may be seen every Whit-Monday– a great day everywhere among the Cornish Methodists. Crowded trains run at single fare, hundreds tramp in afoot, every sort of conveyance brings its quota, and, by the afternoon, when the services’ begin, there are sometimes 20,000 people gathered in and about the Pit.”

The Graphic – 17 June 1876

From Gwennap Pit, we descended into Carharrack. The view from the path above Carharrack is terrific, if (like me) you enjoy a slightly industrial landscape. The pub in Carharrack was not open, and indeed has slightly restrictive (and unusual!) opening hours scrawled on the blackboard outside – “Monday – Closed all day, Tuesday – closed, Wednesday Thursday – Closed all day, Friday Saturday Sunday, 7pm to 12:00.” I guess they know they their local market! According to the sign outside, this was “Cap’n Blood’s Tavern”. He must have been away during the week.

We then walked through Outer Wood, accompanied by increasingly severe warnings not to stray off the path. Danger of Death was enough to keep us firmly out of the trees. The dangers arise from the old mine workings of Wheal Squire, part of United Mines, which produced 20,000 tons of copper from 1816-1853. Some of my ancestors were copper miners at the time in this general area, so it is fascinating to imagine what the world was like for them. I suppose there were fewer health and safety warnings…

From here, the route was across the fields to Frogpool. I went to Frogpool just once as a child, and for some reason all I can remember is that it seemed very white! It still does – the buildings seem almost universally to be painted white. We were pleased to arrive at the (white) pub before it closed, with minutes to spare, and stopped for a pint. The clientele and bar staff seemed very friendly, and the beer was good.

From here it is a short walk along roads and byways into Perranwell. The path we choose took us via Bargus and under the railway line. It also meant that we had no choice but to go past the pub, and since it was open it would clearly have been rude not to. This was another fine pub, with good beer and an exceptionally tasty looking menu. One for another day.

From the pub to the station is only a few minutes, but we misread the timetable and the last few hundred metres were more of a rush then expected. In the end though our timing was perfect and we were soon back in Falmouth planning some more beers for the evening.

Distance: 8.2 miles


Mendip Way Circular #4

Another Mendip Way walk starting and ending in Wells, picking up where my previous walk ended and ticking off the beginning of East Mendip Way. I say that, but it’s not clear that the distinction between East and West Mendip Way will be around much longer. The Mendip Society are planning to have the whole route called simply “The Mendip Way” as part of their 50th anniversary. Makes sense to me!

This walk starts at the Bishop’s Palace in Wells and heads up the hill through Tor Hill Woods, a national trust owned woodland. The path takes you pretty rapidly to the top of the hill and out into surprisingly wide open spaces.

One thing that caught my eye was a boundary wall made of very large blocks of stone. I presume these came from the nearby (disused) Torhill Quarry. It certainly made for an unusual sight, although my photo above doesn’t really do it justice.

The path next passes through King’s Castle Woods. The woods are named after the iron age hill fort that resides withing them. More than just a fort, there seems to have been a larger settlement here. The remains of ancient field walls are fairly obvious as you pass out of the woods and onto the Lyatt. According to wikipedia, it has never been excavated and relatively little is known about it, although Lidar images show three enclosures along with the field system. There is speculation that it was a precursor to the city of Wells itself.

The path then passes on to the wonderfully named Furzy Sleight. According to The A-Z of Yeovil’s History the word sleight derives from the Old English slÅ“get meaning a sheep pasture . Furzy presumably simply means covered with furze (or gorse), though it wasn’t so covered today.

It wasn’t sheep that concerned me today, but cows. In the distance I could see a large herd, so decided to walk along the edge of the sleight rather than follow the path through the middle of them. Fortunately, this also brought me to the Furzy Sleight Pillbox, which I otherwise might have missed. This, of course, is evidence of more recent history. This pill-box was part of the “stop-line green”, one of 50 defensive lines built to defend against the expected German invasion in World War II. This line was part of the defenses of Bristol, and you can see where it ran on Google Maps.

I negotiated the cows without too much trouble, although there were a number of bulls amongst the herd. Fortunately, they had other things than me on their minds, although it did make my heart beat slightly faster! The Mendip Way then passes along Sleight Lane and across the fields to the point of West Lane where I joined it in Walk 1. I then walked down West Lane and into Croscombe. My original plan was to walk back up the hills on the other side and return to Wells via Dulcote Hill. However, I had a change of heart and decide to head back through the valley via Dinder.

Dinder is an impossibly quaint village. I cannot imagine how anyone can afford to live there. There are many beautiful and interesting buildings, but the one that particularly caught my imagination was the vine covered house above. It looks to me like something from Annihilation – the house and tree are so symbiotically linked. I guess it will look very different in the summer.

The walk back from Dinder to Wells is a pleasant stroll along easy paths through the fields. I made good time and was pleased with how much energy I still had left. I am definitely getting fitter. Along the way was another pill box, presumably part of the same defensive line as the previous one. The views out across the levels would probably be stunning on a less hazy day than today. Before long, I was back where I started and was heading back to the car for the drive home.

Today was another really enjoyable walk – and for a change, not too hilly either. So far, I have walked from Priddy to Shepton Mallet along the Mendip Way, and my planned walks have worked really well. Can’t wait for the next one!

Distance: 8.0 miles