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Showing posts from June, 2014

New walk from St Ives to Carbis Bay

This is a circular walk of just over 4 miles with some moderately steep climbs. View Walk The route begins at the Trenwith car park, site of a large copper and subsequently uranium mine. The pitchblende had been discarded as not very good copper ore and hundreds of tonnes were subsequently recovered from the waste tips. Apparently you can still find pieces of pitchblende around the edges of the car park, though it is radioactive so probably best left alone. The route follows footpaths, tracks and small lanes and then climbs through the Steeple Woods nature reserve. The walk emerges from the woods at "The Steeple" - the monument that John Knill (Customs Officer and Mayor of St Ives) had erected. He also left money in his will for a celebration to be carried out every 5 years, involving a procession from the town to the Steeple followed by singing and dancing around the steeple accompanied by a fiddler. The celebration was first held in 1801 and still continues. The

New walk from Portreath

This is a walk of just under 7 miles with a pretty strenuous section along the coast for the second mile with lots of steps to climb. Once you've done this, the rest of the walk runs very gently downhill to Portreath with a final climb up Lighthouse Hill to finish. View Walk The route initially follows the coast path from Portreath towards Porthtowan passing the small coves and remnants of the clifftop mines. A couple of the shafts have been capped with small hut-like structures and you can see down the shafts through the bars. During Georgian and Victorian times, teenage girls (bal maidens) would have been out in here in large numbers but back then “snapchat” consisted of gossip whilst breaking the ore with hammers. There are still small pieces of tin and copper ore scattered amongst the waste tips. The route turns inland at Tobban Horse and follows small lanes across Nancekuke Common, skirting the perimeter fence of the airfield. The route then joins the Mining Trail b

New walk at Lelant

This is a circular walk of just under 5 miles from Lelant to Carbis Bay. View Walk The route follows St Michael's Way from Lelant past St Uny's church to the dunes. Lelant was originally a port town, thought to be located approximately where the dunes are now. The encroaching sand caused the village to move to its present location. There was also a chapel, dedicated to St Anta, which has since disappeared. When the dunes where excavated to build the railway, the remains of a building were found and at the time this was thought could be the lost chapel of St Anta. The location of the building is now lost so this cannot be verified, and it has been pointed out that the site of the current church (on the highest point) is also a candidate location for the former chapel. The coast path runs along the edge of the dunes to Hawke's Point and alongside the railway Carrack Gladden. At low tide, it's possible to walk across Porth Kidney Sands to reach the headland. T