Walking Toward Roches Wood

The English are very good about recognizing the potential of their old human landscapes as cultural tourism sites.  The entire area around here is a kind of ‘regional’ World Heritage site for mining, as we’ve mentioned.  Buried (an appropriate word) within this region are particular sites that represent the remnants of that.  Nearby here, in Ponsanooth, is one such site, a mill for the production of gunpowder to blast granite and the adjoining quarry pit.  In fact, it’s just down the River Kennall from where we’re staying, but it has to be approached from the highway at the bottom end.  We’re read our hosts’ maps, read the glowing description by the National Trust office, even downloaded the map of the site.  We’re ready. 

All the Walks Seem to Start This Way: Innocently

After a couple of hours of alternating rain/sun/rain it appears to have decided not to rain for a while, so we head out for the 3 mile drive down to Ponsanooth.  We pull in to the little parking lot at the base of the bridge, near the Post Office.  The Site instructions say the old milling site is behind the Post Office.  And, of course, it has to be down near the Kennall River, since we’re talking water wheels.  We drive along the (always) narrow street, which only faces houses and schools, and then begin to climb up, up, up.  We stop, turn around, drive back down.  Remembering the difficulty we had getting to a MAJOR castle, we figure we must have missed the tiny little sign for the entrance.  All the way back down to the parking lot.  Out with the maps, the GPS.  Nothing, no designation on the GPS of the site.  No sign in the parking lot indicating we’re near anything but the Post Office and the only ‘shop’ in town.  Hmm.  We spot a woman having a smoke.  Time to ask for directions. “Yes, I think there is the Nature Reserve up there.  I don’t live here, came to pick up a friend.  Maybe ask in the shop.”  Can we park here?  “It’s okay with me,” she says.  “There’s no parking fee here.  I park here all the time.”  The cottage we’re in front of appears to be unoccupied, so we decide to chance it.  We duck into the shop.  The proprietress, middle-aged in a purple sweater and glasses, says “Oh yes, you mean the Nature Reserve.”  We’re a little worried because we think it’s supposed to be about the mills and such, but then recall that it is officially referred to as a nature reserve.  Odd.  “You just go up this hill,”  (yes) “You’ll pass a thatched cottage,” (yes, did that)  “Keep to the right” (yes) “and you’ll see a cottage at the entrance.” 

Got it.  We decide to proceed on foot.  The sun is shining.  It’s a lovely day, really. And we know where we’re going.  Clearly we missed it from the car windows.

Yep, there's the cottage!

We hike, back up the hill (everything is uphill in England, we’ve decided).  Stop to admire the thatched cottage, first one we’ve seen in this land of slate from nearby Delabole.  Admire a mysterious old stone entryway that has since been mortared over.  Behind it are newish houses along neat lanes. 

Up, up, past the point where we first abandoned all hope with the car.  We can see the Kennall down below us on the hillside.  Soon we’ll reach the gate.  Then the road goes down.  We pass some cows.  They look strangely familiar to me. Then I recall that I took a photo of these cows from the road we walked along two days ago headed toward Ponsanooth from our cottage.  Out with the GPS and we discover we’ve walked most of the way cross country back toward Kennall Vale.  This cannot be right.  We walk back alternately grumbling and apologizing to each other for not being able to jointly locate a STUPID ENTRANCE to a national reserve.  Down down, stopping to consider here and there.  

Cow Positioning System: Better than GPS

Out from the woods emerges a man with a dog.  (To add ‘with a dog’ is almost redundant in England.)  We ask him about the mythical Millworks/Nature Reserve. “Oh, it’s right here.”  He points to the path he has just come off of, which appears to go into someone’s front yard.  “You just follow that path,” he points, and we notice the path goes around a little stone wall, separating it, at least conceptually, from the front yard of two cottages.  “There’s a sign and everything explaining the old works.”  He peers around the corner of the stone entrance at the side facing the road.  “There’s supposed to be a sign right here,” he says, “but looks like it’s gone. Can’t imagine what happened to it.” After we establish that the path’s not too muddy (we’re wearing sandals and Gretchen’s not keen to have two pairs of hopelessly muddy footwear) we decide to ‘carry on’.

In Roches Wood

The Ancient Way, Modernized

And he’s right.  After we walk into what feels like someone’s private space, we see past the service van that’s blocking our view of the entrance.  We feel vindicated and slightly victimized.  There is, in fact, no visible clue as to the location, or even existence, of this park in town.  We could have looked longingly at Roche’s Wood all week and never realized it was in fact a park. It is, really, the park for Ponsanooth locals (and their dogs).  Outsiders need not apply.   

But nevermind.  We have stepped out of the sun and into an old wood, dotted with crumbling stone ruins, mysteriously shaped trees, dripping mossy rocks and large swatches of ferns.  After the map at the entrance, there are no further helpful signposts, explanatory boards, or anything.  We are left to speculate and marvel. The path is coated with crushed granite that crunches under our feet, and sparkles slightly in the dappled light.  

Potter Tree One

Potter Tree Two

A century, two centuries ago, everyone got up and left this place.  Left the granite quarry to fill up with water, left the wooden bridges to fall off their stone ramparts and be washed away, left the stone millrace, still faithfully carrying it’s carefully measured gush of water, in its remarkably watertight passage, on its own separate path back down to the Kennall River at the bottom of the hill.   

Bridge Rampart?

Kennall Coming from Above. from Stithians

Kennall Headed for Ponsanooth

The Millrace Share of the Kennall

The Kennall itself bounds and splashes and rushes beneath us as we marvel from the new wooden tourist bridge, glancing off granite boulders now black and green with moss and water plants.  Across the bridge we stand at the old mill site, the Kennall splashing far below us, the mill race just above our heads, dumping its ration of water into thin air, the old wheel crumpled beneath it.  The iron gears in the gear house are nearly obscured by heavy layers of moss, like green bearded old men permanently reminiscing about milling days.  Ahead we see another sluice gate spilling its water into open air, signaling the location of another mill ruin.  Behind us we see the mill race slowly ascending up the hillside, gurgling down past us. 

The Old Men of the Gear House

The Quarry

If we look carefully, we can make out the stone ramparts of old bridges that crossed the Kennall, probably to bring grain or gunpowder to and from the mill we’re standing in.  The main road is on the other side of the river, but the mill race had to be built into the steep face of the hill on this side.  The remains of the bridge are nearly obscured by trees and vines and shrubs, so that one has to use one’s imagination to figure out what these ruins of stone structures were. 

Ferns on the Quarry

They were probably all made from granite that comes from the quarry, now a deep green pool flanked by ferns and sheltered by tall trees.  The remains of the morning showers still drip onto the surface, into the plant reflections that stretch across the water.  This water is deep and very quiet. 

Was a Crossing.

Down the slopes are tall grey trees, lumps of boulders, crunchy leaf litter, spatters of sun here and there and ferns everywhere.  At the end of the trail is a large wall, again with the entrance recently blocked in.  This may have been the boundary to the mill site many years ago, the road through which goods came and went.  Little structures nearby might have been where wagons were weighed, stones were measured, fares were collected. It is easy to imagine all this happening, while in the background the mill wheel slowly churns, drawing all the activity to it, the source of power. 

The Way is Shut

When we leave, we drive down the road a few miles and stop at the Fox and Hounds for lunch, hopefully.  Is the kitchen open, we ask, at this unreasonable hour of 3 pm? I’ll check, she says, and comes back with ‘yep, he’s still here and willing to fix some lunch’.  We learn we are at a roadside inn built in 1742, probably serving many of the people who hauled grain and other goods to Kennall Vale.  We have another St. Austell Ale, Dartmoor, which is better than the average St Austell ale, which is to say it’s very good.  We learn that the St. Austell brewery was begun to serve miners and fishermen in the 1850’s, so recent by these standards.

We're Not Actually Seen Any Foxes or Hounds.  But Many Dogs.

It’s a bit chilly when we return, so it’s time to build a fire in the five-foot-wide cottage fireplace and hunker down with a book.  Gretchen dreams of horses on the Moor.  I read about the herbs of England and how they are used.  Outside it decides to rain again.  Good timing.