English Here’s a quiz! A. You’ll find granite from Bodmin Q. What connects Beachy Head 400 Moor in all these places. And in roads Lighthouse, the Mole at Gibraltar, and concrete. But there’s still plenty Marks & Spencer in Brussels, New left, helping to make Bodmin Moor Scotland Yard, Calcutta docks, Tower million unique. And the fantastic natural Bridge, Congress House and The shapes of the granite tors have been Stock Exchange? years protected for over a century.
A39 in the Granite A30 A395 Launceston Camelford making
A30 Peswar A39 cans mylvyl A388 Wadebridge A390 bledhen yn HAL A389 Callington
Bodmin Liskeard formyans A38 A390 FAWYTH A390 A30 Saltash A391 A38 Lostwithiel Eden Project St Austell Looe Fowey Plymouth
This leaflet has also been printed in Photographs French, German, Dutch and Spanish. © by John Macadam, David Chapman, Tim Dingle, by John Macadam It is available in five languages on the Nigel Hoppé, Steve Hartgroves / CAU, Stuart Hutchings, Tim Neale, David Holyoak, world-wide web at: Colin Butler, Robin Paris, Peter Wakely / www.southeastcornwall.co.uk & English Nature, & the Environment Agency. www.bodminmoor.co.uk Historic photographs provided by the Royal Funded by English Nature’s Aggregates Levy Cornwall Museum, Cornwall Centre / Kresenn Sustainability Fund, Caradon & North Cornwall Kernow, Wheal Martyn Museum, Liskeard District Councils, and Cornwall Wildlife Trust. Museum, Liskeard Old Cornwall Society, Michael Messenger of the Twelveheads Press, & Neil Parkhouse of the Lightmoor Press. The help of The Best of Bodmin Moor Group is also gratefully acknowledged. Te x t © John Macadam Earthwords 2003, 2005 www.earthwords.co.uk Illustration by Brin Edwards. Designed by Aawen Design Studio (www.aawen.com) treat
Published by Caradon & North Cornwall District Councils 2003, with care and with minor revisions 2005. Cornwall welcomes you ISBN 0-948410-09-4 Printed on chlorine-free paper Kernow a’gas dynargh gwreugh hy cherysa Stowe's Pound, a Neolithic enclosure
Trethevy Quoit
People have been using granite Nor is it surprising that so many as a building material on Bodmin survive today. Initially loose rock at Moor since Neolithic times, that’s the surface – ‘moorstone’- was used. for around 5,000 years. With a But in the nineteenth century the ready supply of durable stone it’s quality of rock needed for civil not surprising that granite was engineering led to quarrying and
Altarnun Church used in so many ways: buildings, an export trade which still continues dedicated to tombs, memorials and crosses. today. As a result of this quarrying, St Nonna millions of people have seen Bodmin Moor granite without realising it – or even visiting the moor! You might have even driven across crushed Bodmin Moor, crushed as aggregate in tarmac! Long Tom
King Doniert's Stone, memorial to a drowned Cornish King Grooves cut in a moorstone, ready Moorstone, split and abandoned for splitting with wedges 2 Eddystone Rock But the story of Bodmin Moor The few fossils it contained were Lighthouse - 1881 goes back far longer than 5000 deformed too. Around Delabole, in The new lighthouse was being built using years, of course. But we’re the best quality slates, shells got granite from De Lank talking geological, not human, turned into butterflies! Well, that’s Quarry on Bodmin Moor. timescales here. what Victorian tourists were sold! Most of Smeaton’s old candy-striped tower is ‘Delabole Butterfly’, now on Plymouth Hoe It all begins with muddy bottoms Deep beneath the mountains some originally a shellfish not an insect! – bottoms of tropical seas - of the Earth’s crust melted and around 400 to 350 million years popped up towards the surface ago. But then there was a slow like the blobs in a gigantic lava motion shunt and mountains were lamp – with molten granite. And formed as the Earth’s tectonic unlike your docile, domestic lava Baked rock with spots of new minerals plates slid slowly across the planet, lamp the granite blobs were very destroying an ocean and creating a hot, at around 800°C, and some mountain range instead. The mud probably even exploded at the was turned into surface, in volcanoes. But slate, and was most of the granite folded and solidified a couple of faulted. kilometres below the surface, around 290 million years ago, Baked slate with baking the surrounding needle-like crystals slaty rocks.
Bodmin Moor granite has been used for farmhouses, terraces, churches, crosses, roundhouses, lighthouses, harbour walls, docks, kerb stones, setts, roads, stone drains and bridges. Including Bombay docks, Beachy Head Lighthouse, The British Museum, Congress House, Copenhagen docks, Devonport dockyard, Eddystone Lighthouse, The Embankment, Liverpool docks, London Bridge, the store formerly known as Marks & Spencer in Brussels, Milton Keynes, New Scotland Yard, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Civic Centre, Portland breakwater, The Royal Academy courtyard in Piccadilly, Southampton docks, Singapore docks, The Stock Exchange, The Tate Gallery, The Mole at Gibraltar, Tower Bridge, Westminster Bridge, Waterloo Station, and Woolworth’s in Oxford Street.
4 De Lank Granite Chalcopyrite, As the granite cooled it shrank and After the granite intruded, much Showery Tor copper ore cracked. Hot water circulated of Britain – probably including & Quartz through the slate, dissolving metals Cornwall - became a desert. then depositing them as minerals in But nothing stays the same for veins as it cooled. long geologically. Britain continued to drift slowly north, sea levels rose But the granite also contains tiny and fell. At one stage the sea amounts of uranium and as this probably covered the whole of slowly decays it produces heat the south-west granite moors. which has helped to keep the But as sea level fell it paused at circulation going: a nuclear- times, so the sea had time to erode powered hot water tank gently broad flat benches in the landscape Cassiterite, circulating water! Hot water has – ancient sea beds! Davidstow tin ore also rotted feldspar in the granite airfield is probably on one at to form china clay. around 300m above present day sea level. You can stand on Roughtor today – at 400m - and imagine the scenery changing as
Manganese the sea level fell (but it’s also best ore to imagine the process speeded up or you’ll be there a very long time!)
Logan Rock, a rocking stone on Little Roughtor Hematite, iron ore Roughtor
Male Wheatear ‘Green Jim’ – uranium mineral
6 The Ordnance Survey mapping included within this publication is provided by Caradon District Council under licence from the Ordnance Survey in order to fulfil its public function to promote the area’s economic regeneration. Persons viewing this mapping should contact Ordnance Survey copyright for advice where they wish to licence 5 i Ordnance Survey mapping for their own use. Based on the Ordnance Survey mapping Hal is moor Davidstow with the permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Crown in Cornish while k Hallworthy copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to + A39 prosecution or civil proceedings. Caradon District Council LA 077402. 2003. Fawyth (‘Beech O A395 Slaughter Trees’) is Fowey. Bridge Bodmin Moor was CAMELFORD Pipers LAUNCESTON Laneast i 5 P k Foweymoor for i 5 T P Davidstow Pool Woods k % M T + % M k 5 % hundreds of years, P Crowdy Reservoir St Clether Meadow Pipit Delabole Lower Trewen Tregadillett until the Ordnance Moor 5 O Bray High Polyphant Survey renamed it P Down South Helstone Moor Buttern A30 5 % Little Petherwin on their first maps! St Teath Roughtor Hill Altarnun k 420m West Moor i % k Advent Roughtor Fivelanes Lewannick Map Key + Brown Leskernick 5 Louden Hill Hill 5 % O National Cycle Route Willy M + The B3257 k i i Tourist Information Michaelstow Alex Tor Butter's Beacon King Garrow To r Larrick P Car Park k Fox Tor Arthur's To r Tolborough Halvana B3254 T Toilets Downs + To r Plantation A388 + North 5 Pubs & Inns East Moor Coad's 5 % Bolventor Hill k Green Church k i O Hawk's 5 k 5 P To r 0 Watersports Bell Heather 5 % k i Hawk's Trewortha M k To r Twelve % St Breward To r Post Office St Tudy R Men's Moor iver Fow Smallacoombe + + + Bray Shop Historic site + Dozmary Downs Kilmar Tor B3257 De Lank A30 M Museum Pool Langstone Downs % ey 5 River Camel River 5 i Siblyback 5 S Railway Station Brown Sharp Tor Temple Moor Rilla Mill 5 k Blisland Gelly Downs k Colliford Stowe's Hill Henwood 5 % k Brown Linkinhorne B3266 P T Lake + Kelly Bray Gelly Cheesewring 5 % T i 5 i O Carburrow P R 5 % Cardinham Siblyback Craddock Moor Upton iver Lynher To r % M Moor Lake + T Cross Helland P Draynes HAL Tregarrick Tor % Common Minions + Caradon Hill + Penkestle 0 P T Pensilva Moor Common Moor Darite k % T 5 Stowe's Hill A30 Cardinham Warleggan k 5 CALLINGTON Golitha Falls i P k % FAWYTH Treslea P T + Trethevy Quoit Downs King Doniert's Stone + Cardinham St Neot 5 % k BODMIN i 5 T Woods i T 5 St Cleer Tremar O Mount St Cleer St Ive 5 k T i M Phoenix Mine P % M k k % P P T S T Downs P Tawna Goonzion k B3254 Downs Downs A390 A38 River Fowey LISKEARD 5 M T k % S P i S
Snipe
Heath Spotted Orchid Cotton Grass
8 Belted Galloways Today we are living in an ‘interglacial’ Around 40 or 50 million years – a warmer period. 18,000 people ago the area was land with a live in the Moor’s 18 parishes, mostly warm, humid climate. The granite on the lower ground around the edges. got deeply weathered. More feldspar was turned into china clay. Cattle, sheep and ponies graze the Moor, and it is also important for wildlife. Many areas are
nationally important and are Small Red designated as Sites of Special Damselfly Scientific Interest (SSSI). Some of the wetter areas are even of international significance, with rare plants and insects, such as the Marsh Fritillary – a genuine butterfly! Bog Grey Asphodel Granite is made of interlocking crystals Wagtail of feldspar (the white bits), quartz (the grey bits) and mica (shiny grey, brown or black flakes) with no holes between them (unlike a sandstone). This means it won’t let water through – apart Bog from through cracks - so some Marsh Pimpernel But for the last 2 million years During summer thaws in the Ice Ages, of the valleys are important Fritillary northern Europe has had a series the sun melted the surface and the as man-made reservoirs, of Ice Ages, with warmer periods thick weathered layer got stripped storing the winter rains for between. In the colder times Bodmin away, exposing the hard bedrock use in summer by all the Moor would have been tundra, as tors. Large boulders slid down people in Cornwall. with the ground frozen to a great the hills, forming the characteristic Sundew depth. On this lived animals such landscape of boulder-strewn Feldspar as woolly mammoths, reindeer – slopes – a real ‘fossil’ landscape. and lemmings (the original Mica Beasts of Bodmin Moor?). In the valleys the heavy tinstone got left behind as streams Quartz Though their bones have not been carried away sand and mud. Bogbean preserved on the Moor itself, bones Granite is called have been found in caves near sand and gravel from Bodmin Moor Alluvials ‘maengrowan’ in Plymouth. Evidence for the changing at Trewint Cornish - the rock plantlife, and the climate, comes (‘maen’) which makes Broad-bodied from peat deposits. ‘growan’ in Cornish gravel (‘growan’) Dasher
10 Golden Plover In between the valleys the higher At the edge of the granite the & feather ground has characteristic wildlife land falls away, down to the too. In winter several thousand slate. The rivers fall away too – golden plover arrive and in summer visit Golitha Falls National Nature stonechats, wheatears and skylarks Reserve for a little geology, are unmissable, though, dippers, bluebells in springtime, fortunately, their nests extravagant ferns, lichens and are easily mosses. And maybe a picnic? missed. And every time you put on the brakes or change gear, between Minions (at 300m, on granite) and Upton Cross (at 175m, on slate) remember that it’s a geological event around 290 million years ago, and Gorse & Heather 290 million years of geological ‘love is out of processes, that made the steep Dipper hill. Other geological processes fashion when produced the wealth of copper and tin in the area. Tin had been gorse is out worked for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years from the sands Tunbridge Filmy Fern and gravels in the valley bottoms. of flower’ A little gold was found too. The rivers are clean Cuprite Adder and are used by salmon for spawning, and by otters (though you’ll Bronze Age be lucky to see one!) Rillaton Gold Cup
Bushy lichens mean the air is clean Black-arched Woodwardite Tussock Moth
Male Stonechat
12 Nowadays old workings, spoil dumps and engine houses are everywhere, though the miners are long gone, to dig up the Americas, Africa and Australia, and leave Cornish engine houses in alien landscapes. But in Cornwall much of the harsh edges of the industrial dereliction has been softened by vegetation, some of which is of international Can you spot The Hurlers stone circles? Heritage Centre significance. Examples are mosses and liverworts which even manage The area around Minions will be to grow on the metal-rich dumps! part of the bid for World Heritage Site status for Cornish mining. One engine house is now the Minions Heritage Centre, and inside you can find out about far Gold Diggings Quarry earlier mining, the local archaeology But in the 1830s and 40s there (The Hurlers stone circles are was a copper mining boom, close by), china clay working and miners swarmed in from other quarrying. Granite was not only Bryum pallescens parts of Cornwall, and villages – quarried for buildings and and shanties – sprang up. Scopelophila cataracte engineering work. Some has been crushed as aggregate, for roads Share prices rocketed: shares in and for concrete. East Caradon copper mine went 1 rapidly from 1s 6d (7 /2 p) to £64, Clayworkers, with good dividends as well (some 1910 share offerings were just scams – so no change there!). hot rolled asphalt -
dense bitumen - South Caradon Mine, macadam before its closure in 1885 hot rolled asphalt - dense bitumen - macadam
concrete - Core from a resurfaced road (A39)
14 Also near the visitor centre is “.. a heape of stones, admirablye so there was an outcry when it The Cheesewring, a seemingly depending, wherin nature hath done seemed that the encroaching precarious pile of rocks, more at aduenture (if a man may so quarry would swallow it up. As a precariously close to the edge speake) then arte or force can doe by result the land-owners, the Duchy of the Cheesewring Quarry. greateste deliberation” of Cornwall, set strict limits in the ...... 1584 legal documents, and these limits The Cheesewring has been were shown on the ground by fleur- attracting tourists – and “The Cheese-rings were probably de-lys, and other marks, cut into comments - for centuries, constructed by nature herself, in one the granite and painted white. This of her whimsical moments” is probably the earliest example of ...... 1797 geological conservation in the UK. But just to be on the safe side, in “this wonderful pile of stones .. but the 1860s a prop was put under whether the work of nature or not I one side of the tor, which reduces know not” the dramatic appearance somewhat...... 1800 Does the prop do any propping? “if a man dreamt of a great pile of stones in a nightmare, he would The Cheesewring c.1861 The Cheesewring from a dream of such a pile as the postcard of 1908 Cheesewring …” ...... 1850
c.1769
16 In the eighteenth century people Today the miners and nearly all As for the ground under which they believed that ‘druids’ worshipped the quarrymen are gone, and the dug out the ore, and on which they the tors as ‘rock idols’, and also area is appreciated for other dumped the waste, and had all that the ‘druids’ made the rock basins reasons. Bodmin Moor is an their processing works, that is now on the top of some tors, to hold the AONB, an Area of Outstanding green and nibbled by cows, sheep blood of their (human) sacrifices. Natural Beauty. People come to and ponies. There are on-going enjoy the tranquillity, pure air and discussions about how many the wide open spaces. The old animals there ought to be, and how mining villages give little hint of best to manage the area for Dr. William Borlase, their ‘Wild West’ past. What would wildlife, agriculture, the human the great 18th a Victorian miner say about Darite inhabitants and the visitors (human century Cornish and Pensilva today? It’s certain he and feathered). antiquarian believed the would be astounded by the prices basins were cut to hold asked for their hastily knocked up As to the future, as the planet ‘holy water’. terrace houses! gets warmer, man and wildlife But the basins are will adapt or migrate, but granite just the result of will remain, just weathering deep weathering. slightly faster. And then another In a sub-tropical Ice Age – maybe, but maybe not. climate, maybe 40 million years ago. And in another few million years, Rather mundane really. when Man has joined the woolly mammoth, the dodo and the dinosaurs, what will the moor look like then? Rock basin, and just water!
Gorse, no doubt, will still be flowering... every month of the year
(but maybe not on the moor)! 18 Sunset over Stowe's Hill