CALSTOCK to 2016

For today’s walk we met at Gunnislake Station to catch a bus down to the village of Calstock so we could then walk all the way back up to the station from the river. In this old photograph below, you can see that this station was once sited on the opposite side of the road to where it is now; this was at a time when steam trains went as far as where strangely the station itself was located at Kelly Bray!

In less than ten minutes we were alighting at Calstock village bus stop beside the in the now silent valley. But it wasn’t always like this this, travel back less than 200 years and this would have been a noisy, smelly, industrial town. By the time the census was taken in 1861, the population was over seven thousand.

We waved goodbye to British summetime a few days ago so we are now well and truly into autumn with toadstools popping up on dead wood in many places here in the valley and the leaves on the trees putting on a wonderful display. With Maggie leading the way along the path beside the river, everyone admired the rusty brown reeds on the Cornish banks and the golden colours of the trees on the Devon banks across the water but all over the Tamar Valley they are just as colourful as we now move into November. We were walking towards Okel Tor Mine so upon reaching the site, every one of the regulars knew that the path took us down to the water’s edge and the only way from there back to the station was UP! Leaving the mine behind us and walking on a bed of recently fallen leaves, Ray and Phil couldn’t resist throwing leaves up in the air as everyone, young and old does at this time of year.

Once over Okel Tor level crossing the tarmacked lane continued through the hamlet of Harewood towards Calstock Parish church. The church is dedicated to St Andrew which I have written about before, so this time I thought it was worth giving a mention to the house situated alongside it. It is said that Calstock once had as many as 11 pubs and inns and this house is believed to be one of those when it was then named the ‘Duke of ’. I could picture some of the drinkers arriving on horseback in those days and then tying their animals up outside. Note the old stone mounting block located nearby which as its name suggests is where a rider now full of ale would mount his horse for the wobbly journey back down the hill to the village.

On we walked on this beautiful autumn day until we arrived at Sandways level crossing where everyone crossed safely but I don’t believe any of us realised that a train was due around this time because we had started the walk earlier than usual, we had only walked a short distance when the train came along, paused and then trundled on over the level crossing behind us but the bright sunlight made it appear almost in silhouette in my pic below.

From here everyone walked the entire length of Well Park Road all the way back to Gunnislake Station where we had first met two hours earlier, but the train got there before us!