Quarries, follies and a Baker’s Pit
A wonderful walk in Penwith started a few miles from Penzance in the pleasant village of Nancledra. From there we walked along country lanes overflowing with the sights and sounds of summer – stunning purple heather, flowers, butterflies, bees and grasshoppers – which took us to a fascinating nature reserve called Baker’s Pit.
With over 100 acres of heathland, historically it takes in several epochs of industrial Cornwall, containing a burial mound and roundhouses from the Bronze age, an Iron Age enclosure, medieval sunken tracks and a China clay works, in use from 1758-1942. Its mix of habitats apparently makes it a suitable home for species including lizards, adders*, grayling and stonechats; obviously we never saw or heard any of them. There were hundreds of little fish, however, in the flooded clay pit.
Our walk continued past some fine cows, and up the hill which stands the Iron Age hillfort Castle-an-Dinas (actually pretty hard to make out amongst all the ferns). On this hillfort was our ultimate destination – the Grade-II listed miniature castle called Rogers’ folly or tower, named after the architect John Rogers who built it in 1798 as a picnic destination. And why not? It has magnificant panoramic views across countryside and sea, including Mount’s Bay and St Michael’s Mount. The Rogers family lived at nearby Treassowe Manor on Tonkin Downs, close to the hill where the folly stands.
What John could not have predicted was a nearby Cormac granite quarry somewhat spoiling the view, not to mention shaking the ground with its explosions.
After a picnic in the castle, we headed back a different way, skirting past the quarry, and passing an abandoned house. The Woolridge family, the last people to live there, moved out in 1953. From there we headed down, and passed one more folly: in someone’s garden is a replica Iron Age fort. And at the other end of the garden, in true Cornish style, a rusty caravan.
*I did another great walk with my daughter a while back, provisionally titled From Hayle to Hell’s Mouth (and not yet written), which took in the sand dunes of Upton Towans. There were Beware of Adders signs everywhere but I knew we’d never see one. We did, however, see a small, brown snake which I assumed was a baby adder until my daughter told me it was a slow worm (not actually a snake or a worm but a legless lizard). Then she showed me a photo of an adder on her phone and suddenly I didn’t want to see one at all.