02 Woods above Gunnislake

Rural idyll and industrial heartland

Tamara Way: Day Four

Early morning, Sunday 28^th April 2024.

The path rises soon after leaving the old granite bridge behind us (named New Bridge of course, a salutary reminder that time-relative names will always date), disappearing into a wooded hillside.  There are few sounds to remind us of the 21^st Century, instead the rustle of leaves, bird song and the rushing of the water as it heads south.  The river soon drops below as we climb through the woods.  The ground underfoot has the ease and springiness of a forest floor as the generations of decomposing foliage provide a generous mattress for our feet. 

We are blessed with the light, bright sun of the early hours of a spring morning.  Full of optimism and youthfulness, the palest of yellows like the primroses in the banks shining optimistically through the barely greened branches of the woodland canopy.

The riverbank drops below us as the path follows the hillside.  Glimpses of the Tamar are dotted through the weave of branches.  The young leaves, newly emerging from their buds create a lime green haze, the backwash to our view in every direction.

The Tamara Way rises from the river bank through the woods

Moss generously wraps the banks lining the path and the sturdy trunks of the mature trees which continue their long watch, marking the boundary of the space where human footsteps have stripped nature back to the earthy path.

The path forms a gully through the woods.  Countless feet thwarting the chances of any pioneering green shoots who tried to colonise this thin strip through the forest.  Each boot imperceptibly loosening another few grains of soil.

A single central track of compacted rich brown earth gives way to a crunching mix of greys and browns.  Fragments of bark, beech nuts, last year’s leaves and displaced slices of slate mix with the dried, fallen twigs and branches sacrificed to the winter winds.

A shaft of sunlight illuminates the upward slope where the growth of the new season is unfurling.  Tight curled ferns (or is it bracken? or is that the same thing?) sit alongside the generously spreading leaves of those which the sun coaxed out a little earlier.  The paper-thin luminous green fronds swaying gentle in the fresh morning air.

The lumps and bumps of the woodland floor are soft and rounded.  Gentle shapes, cushioned by their peaty mossy blankets creating a softness which belies the hard rock scaffolding which held fast against the flowing water since the beginning of time, to create the great curving meander.

The sound of the river is lost and replaced by the morning song of the birds, invisible but ever present as we walk.  Gentle songs which reinforce the sense of ease as we move through the early morning landscape.

A timeless scene perhaps, unchanged for centuries, our early morning start giving us a glimpse of past times, back to simplicity and nature… 

except the angular remnants of granite blocks tucked beneath the moss and ivy along the hillside whisper a different story.  We are walking in the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site.

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I did not expect to find a miner in my heritage 

My Upwards¹ ignorance of the eastward extent of 19^th Century Cornish mining meant that I thought the miner-vibe with its grubby-pasty-crust narrative was all about tin mining and deeper west, Cambourne, Redruth …

So, finding William Kite (my 3xGreat Grandfather) listed as a Copper Miner in Venterdon in the 1841 Census plunged me into a labyrinth of discovery.

Fragment from the 1841 Census

Find out more about my Copper Kite here:

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1. Upwards Definition: everywhere East of the Tamar Source: Grandma Gladys 1904-2000