1 FROM YOUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS AN UPDATE FROM CORNWALL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY’S AREA REPRESENTATIVES Any opinions or errors in these articles are those of the authors and must not be assumed to be those of Cornwall Archaeological Society. APRIL 2019 Issue 29 This month: PEVERELL’S CROSS TREFFRY VIADUCT GO WEST! JUBILEE ROCK LOOKING AT LANDSCAPE PEVERELL’S CROSS The improvements to the A30 on Bodmin Moor have come as a great relief to motorists but not surprisingly in an area so rich in historic monuments there were bound to be complications. Andrew Langdon has been following the fortunes of the medieval Peverell’s Cross (Blisland parish; Scheduled Monument CO 203): A few days ago, I received a telephone call from friends in Cardinham to say that fencing work had recently taken place at Peverell’s Cross and that the area around the cross had been cleared of vegetation. A couple of years ago, the cross was at the centre of road widening of the A30 near Temple (see photographs below). It was placed on the Heritage at Risk register due to the threat of damage, as the road-works encroached very close to the monument. The cross is visible to the right of the lorry Photo: Andrew Langdon, 2015 2 The cross in the firing line Photo: Andrew Langdon, 2015 Highways England removed the layby on the A30 during the road widening, preventing public access from the main road to the cross. The recent fencing work, due to complains from local people and Historic England, gives an access gate from Trehudreth Downs to the cross, and is now fenced along the A30 to prevent anyone walking onto the main road. Unfortunately, the cross will continue to become overgrown during the summer months as the area is not grazed. Visitors will now have to walk across the moor from Manor Common to Trehudreth Downs to access the monument. Peverell’s Cross today Photo: Andrew Langdon 3 Peverell’s Cross. The vegetation in front will need regular cutting Photo: Andrew Langdon Pedestrian access to Peverell’s Cross Photo: Andrew Langdon 4 The cross is both a parish bound stone and a manorial one. The A30 is the boundary between Cardinham and Blisland marked by the cross, which was later adopted as a manorial bound stone between the manors of Barlendew and Trehudreth. On the east face is carved a letter G for Gilbert of Trehundreth and on the back a W for Wallis of Barlendew. Peverell’s Cross today Photo: Andrew Langdon Text and photographs: Andrew Langdon TREFFRY VIADUCT Cornwall Heritage Trust, the owner of the Treffry Viaduct (Lanlivery and Luxulyan parishes), has recently been given some good news about its future. 5 The structure was built between 1839 and 1842 by J.T. Treffry as part of an ambitious scheme to link his granite and china clay resources of mid-Cornwall with his canal and new harbour at Par. Besides carrying a horse-drawn tramway over the deep river valley, it also served until very recently as an aqueduct for the Carmears leat. Originally the leat provided power for an incline plane but more recently it has been used to help generate ‘green energy’ at the Ponts Mill hydro- electric turbine. Leaks in the structure led to the flow being stopped. The good news is that Historic England has granted £55,968 towards investigatory works. John Smith, the archaeologist who directed the Cornwall Archaeological Unit survey of the Valley in 1988 (now Vice Chairman of Cornwall Heritage Trust) gave this update to The Cornish Times: ‘Over the years the water leaking from the aqueduct channel has washed the mortar from the masonry joints and the effects of this will be investigated. The research will also determine whether the piers are solid or whether they have a hollow core. A number of granite sleepers will be lifted and probes used to identify the presence of voids. A trial cleaning exercise will also be carried out to remove the staining from the leaks.’ 6 There is no water in the leat because it cannot flow across the aqueduct/viaduct Water no longer reaches the wheelpit 7 This will mean that the Viaduct will have to be closed to the public for a short period but more information about that will be available at: http://www.cornwallheritagetrust.org/news/ or http://www.luxulyanvalley.co.uk/. The work is essential to getting a proper understanding of the structure. Restoring a flow of water to the leat and through the aqueduct is a different challenge altogether and would require an immense amount of investment. Maybe it will happen one day! GO WEST! Exciting things are going on in the far west. The Penwith Landscape Partnership is up and running and carrying out wonderful work in maintaining and enhancing this unique area. Funded with a generous HLF grant, with additional support from Cornwall Council, the First and Last – Our Living Working Landscape scheme has over the last year cleared important sites as well as improving access. This allows surveys to be done which will augment the historic record. Laura Ratcliffe-Warren, the Ancient Penwith Officer (and CAS Area Rep) says there will be opportunities for people to volunteer, just check the website at https://www.penwithlandscape.com/volunteering/. 8 First and Last – Our Living Working Landscape Laura adds: ‘The online information hub with images and maps will be going live later this summer so several of the recent drone surveys of sites we have carried out will be available to view. Of particular interest may be the work at Mulfra Vean courtyard house settlement where a completely new roundhouse has been identified and is currently being surveyed. This is looking particularly good at present so feel free to go and see it – all just off the footpath, before the spring bracken growth gets too high’. Mulfra Vean (Scheduled area) Photo: Ann Preston-Jones 9 Mulfra Vean (non-Scheduled area) Photo: Ann Preston-Jones JUBILEE ROCK Andrew Langdon and Ann Preston-Jones went for a walk in Blisland recently, on a sunny bank holiday, and took time to examine the Jubilee Rock on Pendrift Downs, whose carving looked particularly clear in the fine weather. The sculpture on the rock commemorates three jubilees – those of George III, Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II, and records the divided ownership of the area between Lord Falmouth, the Molesworth family, and the Morsheads of Lavethan. As well as photographing the ‘official’ carvings like the fine crest of Viscount Falmouth (complete with rather ridiculous wild boar on the top) they also noted the existence of less official graffiti, like that of NHE who left his or her mark on the rock just to the left of Lord Falmouth’s on 67 years ago, on 27 4 1952. On another rock nearby they spotted further graffiti: a heart with an arrow through it, commemorating the love of SP and MG. 10 Lord Falmouth’s coat of arms Photo: Ann Preston-Jones Lord Falmouth’s coat of arms – close-up of helmet and boar Photo: Ann Preston-Jones 11 Declaration of love between SP and MG (cheaper than a notice in The Times perhaps? Photo: Ann Preston-Jones LOOKING AT LANDSCAPE There is a joy in locating historic features in the landscape, whether it is a barrow or a buddle, a cairn or a cross. Doing so is so much easier with the information freely available on Cornwall Council’s online Sites and Monuments Record (https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/community-and-living/mapping/). The next photo is taken from near Lower Menadue farm (Luxulyan parish) looking roughly west towards Roche. Roche Rock and its medieval chapel can be seen on the horizon. The online record shows that along this line of site the recorded features include: a Bronze Age findspot, a medieval farming settlement, a bone mill and cider press, a bridge first recorded in medieval times, and countless industrial features relating to tin-streaming and the china clay industry, ending with St Michael’s Chapel, licensed in 1409. 12 All this detail can be too much to take in; sometimes a ‘broad brush’ treatment is more appropriate, which is where the ingenious Historic Landscape Characterisation comes in. It divides the landscape into zones which reflect the dominant surviving archaeological features. Using the SMR on the website, the line of view shows numerous features: © Crown copyright and database rights 2019 Ordnance Survey 100049047. By selecting Landscape Assessment and then Historic Landscape Assessment the patterns of the past can be seen: © Crown copyright and database rights 2019 Ordnance Survey 100049047. 13 The different colours show that the view from east to west takes in: anciently enclosed farmland; post-medieval enclosed farmland; working industrial areas; disused industrial land; plantations and scrub; upland rough ground; and 20th century settlements. This means is possible to say quickly, yet with authority, that people have made use of this land for millennia, not only to grow and for grazing but also to exploit mineral resources; that it continues to be a place to live; that pockets of wildness survive, but that having been plugged into the world’s first Industrial Revolution, the inhabitants are also well into a post- industrial phase as well. Peter Herring’s paper on Historic landscape characterisation and urban characterisation in Cornish Archaeology 50 gives a proper explanation of the method: https://cornisharchaeology.org.uk/volume-50-2011/ . Not only is this of interest in its own right, it lends itself to Neighbourhood Planning by showing the significance of large areas and how they need to be taken into account when new development is being planned and when planning applications are being considered.’ Area Representatives would love to hear from fellow CAS members, and the general public, about any feature of the historic environment in their parishes, whether a new discovery, something causing concern, or even just to answer queries.