South West Coast Path Sec 10: Bude to Crackington Haven 5th July 23

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On Wednesday the 5th July 2023 I drove from my Holiday site in St Ives up to Bude and parked up for free in Silverton Road EX238EY.

I walk from the car down into town and alongside the River Neet.

I cross a bridge that takes me onto a road that leads me to the Bude Canal.

The Bude Canal was a canal built to serve the hilly hinterland in the Cornwall and Devon border territory in the United Kingdom, chiefly to bring lime-bearing sand for agricultural fertiliser. The Bude Canal system was one of the most unusual in Britain.

It was remarkable in using inclined planes to haul tub boats on wheels to the upper levels. There were only two conventional locks, in the short broad canal section near the sea at Bude itself. It had a total extent of 35 miles (56 km), and it rose from sea level to an altitude of 433 feet (132 m).

I walk with views to Summerleaze Beach, tide is High this time compared to when I finished last time back in April.

Efford Cottage

Efford Cottage is situated near the mouth of the Bude Canal overlooking Summerleaze beach. The name cottage is a bit of an understatement as this quite a substantial house.

The cottage was built in 1823 for Sir Thomas Acland as a summer residence, also responsible for the Storm Tower on the overlooking cliffs.

Its just after 7am and there is quite a wind, hence the choppy sea.

I start the climb up to Efford Beacon up the path.

I am up on the Efford Downs now and I can see the Compass Point Storm Tower, sadly covered in Scaffolding and I am unable to walk inside.

The Storm Tower at Compass Point, Bude–Stratton, Cornwall, England, is an octagonal lookout tower, modelled on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, Greece. It is known locally as the Pepperpot.

The tower was built in 1835 on the instructions of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, to a design by George Wightwick, as a place from which coastguards could observe ships on the adjacent Atlantic Ocean.

As built, the tower was aligned to magnetic north, but polar drift means this is now seven degrees out.

The tower sits on a sandstone and shale cliff that is described as friable and which is subject to erosion, averaging 1 metre (1.1 yd) a year, but with the potential for a 25-metre (27 yd) loss at any time. As a result, the tower had to be moved a short distance from the cliff edge in 1881. Because of the ongoing threat of erosion, there are plans to dismantle the tower and reconstruct it 100 metres (110 yd) further inland, at a cost of around £450,000, over a six-month period starting in late April 2023. Funding has been provided by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (£249,362), public crowdfunding (£58,000), Cornwall Council (£50,000) and Bude-Stratton town council (£40,000). The work is to be undertaken by specialist contractors Sally Strachey Historic Conservation.

I walk on across the cliff, quite windy up here, but at least its cool.

Looking back towards Bude.

I walk pass some houses in Upton as I make my way to Widemouth Bay.

As I walk down I see a couple of Peregrine Falcons and one swoops quite near for me to get a very good look at it.

The guidebook say going is easy to Widemouth Bay and then gets a lot more severe again.

I start the descent down into Widemouth Bay over Higher Longbeak and Lower Longbeak.

Love this fence covered in shells in Widemouth Bay.

Its now a walk along the lovely beach of Widemouth Bay, but the soft sand makes it a little hard going.

The beach is popular for surfing and swimming and is patrolled in the summer by RNLI lifeguards. Several surfing schools operate on the beach because it has relatively gentle, easy to ride waves but on the other hand there can be big waves.

Widemouth Bay is visually very similar to Southerndown and Ogmore-by-Sea across the Bristol Channel in Wales; it has the same (gently sloping) hill-top location; wide, sandy beach; pounding Atlantic surf; and significantly the same carboniferous sandstone cliffs. Another significant connection is that sloops from Wales would use Widemouth as a port (in the most basic sense), unloading coal and limestone; sloops would take back to Wales Cornish wares such as granite, slate, tin, copper and even Cornish pasties.

The gentle beaches in the bay are also the landing points for many submarine cables that link the UK with other parts of the world. The proximity to the GCHQ Bude installation allows data sent on these cables to be intercepted by GCHQ.

 These cables include:

TAT-3 (USA and UK)

CANTAT-1 (Canada and UK)

Apollo (USA)

TAT-8 (USA and France - last used in 2002)

TAT-14 (USA and Europe)

AC-2 (USA)

EIG (Europe India Gateway)

GLO-1 (UK and west Africa)

Grace Hopper (USA, UK and Spain)

The repeater station is a cable landing station. Construction was begun in 1962 and finished during 1963. The building was specifically constructed to withstand nuclear attack, having numerous specialised features including an air filtration system, five-ton blast doors, and backup power supply systems allowing it to operate as an autonomous building. The majority of the building is constructed below ground, as is common with many blast-resistant bunkers.

Was hoping a café would be open here, but I suspected not as it is still early, not even 9am yet!

I walk on through some sand dunes and reach the car park at Black Rock.

The path now starts to climb out of Widemouth Bay.

I take 56 steps down and take a short diversion inland and across a wooded stream.

The path joins a road at Wanson and I turn right and follow this road steeply uphill.

It continues very steeply up and up, passing an outdoor adventure centre.

Its a hard slog up Penhalt Cliff, I'm certainly warming up now!

I pass a car park and a viewpoint and I continue on along the road. The path leaves the road and then starts a steep slope down towards Millook.

It is a very steep slope down and I can see my climb out again afterwards.

Down a few steps, I am now in Millook.

In 2014 the cliffs at Millook Haven were voted by the Geological Society of London as one of Britain's top 10 geological sites, leading the "folding and faulting" category. The cliffs display an impressive series of recumbent chevron folds, in Carboniferous age killas of inter-bedded sandstones and shales, originally deposited in deep water. The stony beach is popular with surfers despite there being few parking spaces and the South West Coast Path passes through the seaward end of the valley. The ancient semi-natural woodland has been described as the best ravine wood in Cornwall and along with the coast is within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

I stop on the beach to eat my lunch and listen to the waves crashing in, as I nestle amongst the lobster pots.

I leave the beach reluctantly behind and follow the road upwards again.

After much more climbing and road walking I take a path on my right.

The path is a little overgrown with bracken and other wild plants.

I continue along Millook Common and Bynorth Cliff.

There's a slight descent and the path shifts onto a wooded slope by the National Trust Dizzard Sign.

I climb out of the Oak Wood and ghrough fields passing the highest point of Bynorth cliff at 164m.

I walk on along a bush covered slope crossing stiles.

I descend down 180 steps into a steep sided Scarde Valley, right at the bottom is a waterfall and a stony beach. The path descends nearly all the way down to sea level, and straight back up the other side. This is one of the deepest and steepest valleys of the Cornish path!

I climb the 130 steps back out of Scrade Valley.

Some easy walking along the top of gently sloping cliffs, through fields, in an area called Lower Tresmorn.

The path descends again towards the sea at Cleave.

Looking back to the descent, in the time it took me to get down a trail runner ran up and down 4 or 5 times. She then passed several times on my ascent on the other side before running off. Mad these trail runners but super fit. I puff my way up slowly.

Some steep steps out of  Cleave Strand! Guidebook say 50 of them but I'm sure there's more!

I walk on passing Gull Rock.

I walk towards Pencannow Point.

It is very pretty walking out on Pencannow Point.

Further on I descend down 60 steps and another 40 to climb out, I keep thinking Crackington Haven can't be far now. I was going to continue to Boscastle but I'm tired and I need to be fit for the rest of my family holiday.

I cross a river and pass some cows that weren't the slightest bit interested in me.

I now make my descent into Crackington Haven, the end is near!

Crackington Haven

Crackington Haven is popular with tourists, walkers, and geology students. The surrounding cliffs are well known for their visible folded sedimentary rock formations. The village gives its name to the Crackington Formation, a sequence of Carboniferous sandstones and grey shales.

The village has two café-style tea rooms, and a pub called the Coombe Barton Inn in a building that was originally the house of a local slate quarry manager.

Crackington Haven has a stony foreshore but a sandy beach is revealed at low water. The local parish council has put up signs asking that people do not remove stones, and saying that people who do will be prosecuted under the 1949 Coastal Protection Act. There are toilet facilities near the beach and lifeguard cover in the summer.

Until the nineteenth century, Crackington Haven was a small port similar to many others on the north coast of Cornwall. Limestone and coal were imported and slate and other local produce were exported. After the railways reached the district in 1893 the village could be reached more easily (from the North Cornwall Railway station at Otterham) so holidaymaking became more common.

Crackington Haven was badly affected by the 2004 flood that damaged several other villages, notably Boscastle. The road bridge across the stream, several homes and the pub were damaged by floodwater.

I visit the café across the road for a Cornish Pasty and a drink and settle down to wait for the 95 bus back to Bude.

As I wait for the bus, a elderly in a Granny bonnet and black PVC trousers walks over. She had that look of a crazy old lady and I feared I may be right! She says that a man up the road is saying there is no buses today due to roadworks and a diversion. She say" Do you wanna share a cab to Wayne's House?" I said " I dunno where's Wayne's House, I've gotta get to Bude". Not knowing if Wayne's House is a place or it was actually Wayne's House. "Oh its up by the main road, we can get a bus from there". she says. "Can you book it, your phone is better than mine". I sit there thinking and I say hang on I'm going to check with the café. 

I go into the cafe and ask if they know if buses are running today, I'm told some came through earlier. Another member of staff said "Hang on, Ill check on the app". She then shouts " Get back now, its just around the corner!" I leg it back across the road, and a minute later it arrives. Myself, crazy old lady and another local elderly gent board the bus.

We drive a few hundred yards up the road and the bus reaches a diversion sign, Bus driver says" Ths wasn't here earlier" and squeezes his bus pass. We drive a way up the hill before the driver jumps out and says I'll be back in a bit and he walks off. A man in the back of the bus is having a right old go shouting "I've gotta a connecting bus to catch in Bude!" and is huffing and puffing.

The driver returns and says  emergency water works , we gotta reverse back and go the way I came in". Cue the man at the man jumping up and down, so he reverses the bus up the road and finds a spot to turn aound. We drive back through Crackington Haven where the local elderly gent gets off again saying " No point in going Bude now!" I sit there chuckling. So the bus makes its way through the small lanes and eventually to Bude. No idea if the man got his connecting bus, but he said it was still at its stop according to an app long after it should have gone. Cornish country life and buses, strange place!

Back at the car, I drive back to St Ives and the caravan park, sadly having to go through the queues at Chiverton bypass on the A30.

Trencrom Hill,Lelant Downs Cornwall 3rd July 23

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On Monday the 3rd July 2023, I decided to drive a short distance from the St Ives Holiday Village run by John Fowler to the Trencrom Hill car park (TR27 6NP) to climb Trencrom Hill.

It was late evening so the sun was much cooler and was beginning to set, giving the area a nice glow.

Trencrom Hill (or Trecrobben) is a prominent hill fort, owned by the National Trust, near Lelant, Cornwall. It is crowned by an univallate Neolithic tor enclosure and was re-used as a hillfort in the Iron Age. Cairns or hut circles can be seen in the level area enclosed by the stone and earth banks. The hill overlooks the Hayle Estuary and river, and Mount's Bay and St Michael's Mount can be seen to the south. The hill was recorded as Torcrobm in 1758 which is derived from Cornish "torr crobm", i.e. 'hunched bulge'.

Trencrom Hill was acquired by the National Trust as freehold on 8 August 1946 from Lieutenant Colonel G L Tyringham. The freehold was 25.568 hectares (63.18 acres). On ascending the hill from the north side there is a plaque in situ in the rock facing the path. It reads:

"This property was presented to the National Trust by Lt Col C L Tyringham, of Trevethoe in March 1946 & at his wish is to be regarded as a memorial to the men and women of Cornwall, who gave their lives in the service of their country during the two world wars. 1914 – 1918, 1939 – 1945".

The well on the west side of the ramparts of the hill fort is known as the Giant's Well. James Halliwell-Phillipps mentioned it in 1861 in Rambles in Western Cornwall, "Outside the vallum at Trecrobben, or, as it is called by the rustics, Trancrom, is the Giant's Well". The well low down on the eastern flank of the hill is not the Giant's Well and is a disused shaft of the Praed Consols (Wheal Cherry/New Trencrom) sett, which was used as a well after the mine had flooded.

The hill began to rise a little more steeply towards the top and a little scramble up a coupe of high rocks.

The sett (area) of Wheal Cherry (later known as New Trencrom Mine and Mount Lane Mine) included the summit of Trencrom Hill. Trencrom is within the granite and the sett also covered the metamorphosed killas to the east. Wheal Cherry seems to have been short-lived with £2,293 spent on the erection of a 24-inch pumping engine and 24 inch whim with stamps in 1857/58 and by September 1858 the sett and materials being offered for sale. The sale notice stated that Wheal Cherry was ″a valuable property″. There was another attempt at the start of the 20th century by the Gerry Brothers of Lelant and after five years they sold their interest in 1907. At this time a new shaft was being sunk on the eastern slope and at a depth of 7 fathoms (42 ft; 13 m) found a 2 feet (0.61 m) wide lode which yielded 60 pounds (27 kg) of black tin to the ton. Work was still continuing on Wheal Cherry in 1916. A further attempt in 1943 at the mine, now known as the Mount Lane Mine was unsuccessful.

A survey in January 1996 found small scale quarrying, mostly post-medieval using drills but in some cases using wedges which may be earlier. Large parts of the granite summit have been levelled and a paved track was probably used to transport stone from the quarry face on carts.

I reach the top (175m) with views across to Carbis Bay.

Trecobben, the giant of Trencrom, was supposed to have killed Cormelian (wife of Cormoran) by throwing a hammer across to St Michael's Mount.

In several parts of Cornwall there are evidences that these Titans were a sportive race. Huge rocks are preserved to shew where they played at trap-ball, at hurling, and other athletic games. The giants of Trecrobben and St Michael’s Mount often met for a game at bob-buttons. The Mount was the “ bob,” on which flat masses of granite were placed to serve as buttons, and Trecrobben hill was the “mit,” or the spot from which the throw was made. This order was sometimes reversed. On the outside of St Michael’s Mount, many a granite slab which had been knocked off the “ bob ” is yet to be found; and numerous piles of rough cubical masses of the same rock, said to be the granite of Trecrobben Hill,* shew how eagerly the game was played.

Trecrobben Hill was well chosen by the giants as the site of their castle. From it they surveyed the country on every side; and friend or enemy was seen at a considerable distance, as he approached the guarded spot. It is as clear as tradition can make it, that Trecrobben was the centre of a region full of giants.

View across to St Michaels Mount

St Michael's Mount may have been the site of a monastery from the 8th to the early 11th centuries. Edward the Confessor gave the site to the Benedictine order of Mont-Saint-Michel and it was a priory of that abbey until the dissolution of the alien houses as a side-effect of the war in France by Henry V. Subsequently, it ceased to be a priory, but was reduced to being a secular chapel which was given to the Abbess and Convent of Syon at Isleworth, Middlesex, in 1424.Thus ended its association with Mont-Saint-Michel, and any connection with Looe Island (dedicated to the Archangel Michael). It was a destination for pilgrims, whose devotions were encouraged by an indulgence granted by Pope Gregory in the 11th century. The earliest buildings on the summit, including a castle, date to the 12th century.

There are views stretching across North Cornwall to Godrevy and towards Rosewall Hill to the west.

More Folklore,

THE SPRIGGANS OF TRENCROM HILL.

IT is not many years since a man, who thought he was fully informed as to the spot in which a crock of the giant's gold was buried, proceeded on one fine moonlight night to this enchanted hill, and with spade and pick commenced his search. He proceeded for some time without interruption, and it became evident to him that the treasure was not far off. The sky was rapidly covered with the darkest clouds, shutting out the brilliant light o the moon--which had previously gemmed each cairn--and leaving the gold-seeker in total and unearthly darkness. The wind rose, and roared terrifically amidst the rocks; but this was soon drowned amidst the fearful crashes of thunder, which followed in quick succession the flashes of lightning. By its light the man perceived that the spriggans were coming out in swarms from all the rocks. They were in countless numbers; and although they were small at first, they rapidly increased in size, until eventually they assumed an almost giant form, looking all the while, as he afterwards said, "as ugly as if they would eat him." How this poor man escaped is unknown, but he is said to have been so frightened that he took to his bed, and was not able to work for a long time.

Keep an eye out for holes in the summit's boulders. These were drilled by miners during the Victorian times and on Midsummer's Day the merrymakers would fill the holes with gunpowder and light the fuses in celebration.

"On the largest of these cairns are some rock-basins, known respectively as the Giant's Chair, the Giant's Cradle, and the Giant's Spoon.

I descend back down to the bottom and the car.

Only a short walk but a great hill at sunset. I walked this again later ion the week with my kids. We walked from St Ives Holiday Village up a very busy road (Not advisable) and then after maybe a mile we took a footpath on our left and this immediately begins to climb steeply. We reach another road which we cross and walk up the path to the summit. We decide to descend the hill on the side of my previous trip and down to the car park and follow this quiet road back to the site.