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Fieldnotes
| Visit to Land's End, 03-08/11/01ce. See individual sites for more detailed notes. Determined to combine a much-needed break with a trip to some stones, Abbie and I booked a few nights at Channings Hotel[*1] in St. Ives. We bought Landranger map 203 and hurriedly poured over it on the train on the way down as we didn't have much time to plan before we set off, just time to print off a list of sites within 50km of the hotel's postcode. There was so much to check out and we were without a car so we had to plan quite carefully. The first whole day down there (04/11/01CE), we took in the Coastal Path walk west of St. Ives, with the intention of heading off to Zennor Quoit when we got round far enough. This plan went a bit awry when we got lost on the Coastal Path(!) so we just headed to the right of Rosewall Hill. We ended up clocking in around 10 miles that day, taking in Zennor Quoit but unable to locate Sperris Quoit. Day 2 (05/11/01CE), and we hobbled around St. Ives. My legs ached too much from trekking about. I picked up Journey To The Stones by Ian McNeil Cooke (he was briefly featured in the Modern Antiquarian film, with Julian at Boleigh Fogou) and Myths and Legends of Cornwall by Craig Weatherhill and Paul Devereux (after reading his Places of Power I thought I'd be in safe hands). Journey To The Stones proved absolutely indispensible - it focuses on 9 different walks across the Land's End, taking in everything you'd expect and more, and backing it up brilliantly with loads of information on the fall of the Motherculture, the influence of the sun and moon, christianised sites, ancient trackways, stone crosses etc. etc. etc. Wonderful. Day 3 (06/11/01CE), and we get a mini-cab[*2] to Keigwin near Morvah (about £15 from St. Ives) to start an abridged version of Cooke's Walks 4 & 2, taking in Chun Quoit, Chun Castle, Men-an-Tol, Men Scryfa (didn't get near it - the cows fancied us), Nine Stones of Boskednan, Bosiliack Barrow and Lanyon Quoit. All in all, we walked for around 5 hours, getting picked up by a cab at Morvah at sundown. Day 4 (07/11/01CE). We took the bus from St. Ives to Penzance and changed there to take the Land's End bus, getting off at St. Buryan. On the way we spotted the Drift Stones from the road, and a couple of other stones marked on the OS map simply as 'Standing Stone'. From St Buryan we did a circular walk to take in Boskawen-Un, having to negotiate a stream and an electric fence whilst still (as far as we could tell) following the footpaths marked on the OS map. Returning to St Buryan's, we recharged and for our final stretch we took what looked like an achievable section of Cooke's Walk 8 ... Tregiffian, The Merry Maidens and The Pipers. By the time we'd done those, it was already getting dark and our London legs couldn't hack the walk down to Boleigh Fogou. We cabbed back to Penzance (about £8) and got the bus back to St. Ives. Even though we cheated in places, I was still amazed by the proximity of these sites and consequently how much we managed to see. If we'd have had a few more days (and didn't need any R'n'R) we could have taken in almost every site in the Land's End and done it mostly on foot. It was the first 'field trip' we'd taken, and it took us a while to get used to basic things like the scale of a map - ie what was achievable and what wasn't - but it was inspiring and we'll definitely be doing similar trips in the future. Notes: [1] I would have added our hotel as a facility to this site but there are so many places to stay down there that you're better off just checking out Cornwall Online (http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk) and finding somewhere suitable for where you want to base yourself. [2] Whilst I'm a bit of a cab-addict in London, out-of-season St. Ives is only served by a bus to Penzance, so for car-less people wanting to go elsewhere we had no choice. |
Posted by Holy McGrail29th November 2001ce Edited 25th November 2002ce
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