Chysauster Iron-Age Village

Thursday 20 August 1992. Continuing our week's holiday in Cornwall, after visiting Land's End (first and last public toilet in Britain...) we headed for a totally different experience altogether. Chysauster is the site of an Iron Age village.

Mum and Dad got in as pensioners despite falling short of the age limit - in Mum's case she was short to begin with! The village is approached through a fogou. This would have been an enclosed tunnel but now the roof has fallen in and it is more like a narrow but fairly deep alleyway.

The huts here were still occupied as recently as during Roman times and are between 1500 - 2000 years old. Each had several rooms around a central courtyard and some had gardens at the back.

The courtyard of this hut has a water channel (to the left of Dad). The family's animals would have lived here. The water must still run along the channel as can be seen from the darker patch of grass at the bottom of the picture.

Looking from Hut 6. The hillside was covered in glorious purple heather. We all waved at a helicopter making it's way to Penzance. Whether they saw the crutch or thought perhaps that we were lost I don't know - but they circled round for another look!

Hut 4 had either a rather large hearth, or maybe it was the smallest room???

The afternoon was drawing on. As it starts to go dark we reach St Agnes model village and theme park.

We thought this was very funny but some Germans who were walking round behind us were not amused - especially when I offered them the twig so they could take their own photos...

Cornwall 1992 Holiday Index

Beer Village in Devon

Friday 13 (eek!) August 1993. We have travelled from our campsite to Beer, just a few miles to the east of Sidmouth and on the edge of the Jurassic Heritage Coast.

It is a very old village. At the time of the Domesday Book survey in 1086 it had 28 households. It now numbers over a thousand inhabitants. Tourism is its main source of inclome these days but lace making, quarrying of its chalk and flint cliffs and smuggling were all local industries at one time or another.

It is a delightful little village. I was kicking myself for forgetting to pick up the sketch pad which was still in the tent back at Sidmouth. The name of Beer incidentally is nothing to do with the drink, but derives from the Old English word Bearu which means a grove (a group of trees standing so close as to allow only the bare minimum of shrubbery or other growth between them).

A small stream flows down the main street, channelled into an open stone conduit that is far too modern looking due to the extension of the modern footpath to its edges. Here and there are stone structures housing a pump that could be used for washing or drinking. It would have been a risky thing to do perhaps. Before the conduit, the stream used to run down the middle of the street, spread wide and shallow, yet joined by each household's effluent and the guts of fish that the village women would sit outside, cutting out of the fish and flinging into the stream in the hope that rain would soon swell the stream making it strong enough to carry them down into the sea. The street smells much better these days I should imagine.

The village today is extremely lovely. In fact almost no matter which way you turn, whatever direction you look, you could take a pleasing photograph. The buildings are mostly made of local stone and faced with the glassy flints that are found within the chalk caves of the quarry.

The road becomes steeper as you approach the beach, which is shingle. A part of the cliff at the side of the road and fronting onto the beach has been turned into a large platform, now a great place to sit on the benches provided to gaze out to sea.

It looks so innocent, yet during World War II when invasion was thought to be likely, it disguised the entrance to a gun emplacement, given away by the broad slit in the cliff face below it which allowed a wide field of fire cover the beach on which enemy troops would have been likely to land if an invasion had gone ahead.

The shingle beach looking east. The limestone cliffs were quarried from at least Roman times and perhaps even earlier. A thirty foot (9.14 metres) layer contains fewer flints and is the main seam for quarrying. The stone can be easily cut in any direction when first quarried but exposure to the air makes it go extremely hard. Stonemasons would therefore work within the caves to shape the stone before it became harder and more difficult to saw and sculpt. Windsor Castle, Westminster Abbey and St Pauls are just some of the buildings that are built of it.

The beach looking west. There is no harbour here. Boats are dragged up the steep shingle slope, now by chains connected to engines and in the past by a capstan high on the beach which could be turned by up to 20 people so presumably was capable of hauling quite large fishing boats up the beach. The shingle makes for uncomfortable walking but here and there are long strips of rubber forming paths. They turned out to be old converyor belts that had become too worn for their original purpose, when I enquired.

We had lunch in a tea rooms. Is there anything as satisfying as taking a break in a traditional tea rooms rather than a common cafe? Perhaps there is no difference but a tea room always seems a bit more refined somehow. This one was licensed too, so we went for a refined booze...

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Morwellham Quay Part One

Tuesday 10 August 1993. Morwellham is a village on the north side of the River Tamar, which places it in Devon not far from the town of Tavistock. Its livelihood and the reason for its existence was a copper mine, The George and Charlotte, named after the King and Queen who were on the throne at the time of its sinking. Er... that's the sinking of the mine shaft, meaning the digging of it, not that it sunk into the river...

Anyway at some point the copper in the mine ran out and the villagers ran out not long afterwards. Morwellham became a ghost town and the weeds took over until they in turn were taken over by thicker shrubbery and bracken. And that's how it stayed until the 1960s when the village was rediscovered and cleaned up. They found a young girl fast asleep on a bed next to a spinning wheel. She had been there so long that there was no-one who even knew her, let alone be in love with her, so sadly there was no true love's first kiss and instead she woke with a jolt and said "'Ere!!! Wot you all doin' in me bedroom?" The village became a living museum with actors and staff in period costume and a narrow-gauge train ride down into the copper mine and with a historic ship in the Great Dock and nature trails around the countryside.

The village was on the doorstep of the estate of the Duke of Bedford who, being fond of a turn in his horse-drawn carriage, had a carriage ride built through the countryside close to Morwellham.

We clambered into a waiting carriage and waited for the Duke to take us up and down his drive and perhaps a spot of tiffin and the chance to bag a couple of peasants. "We'll give you a chance - we'll count up to two and then here we come!"

The Duke had to go for a lie down with a bottle of port after his exertions and we found ourselves being driven by a young lady with a quoite gaaargeous aahccent! Here the gang are enjoying the gentle clip clop of the horse's hooves as the carriage makes it's way along his Grace's drive. We learned that the village name was pronounced almost as two words - "Morwell" with the accent on the first syllable, followed by a tiny pause before the "ham".

The River Tamar, seen from the pathway to the George and Charlotte Copper Mine. Once the mine was closed the villagers had to move elsewhere to look for work and the village died. The dock and houses were abandoned and became overgrown until the 1960s when work started on restoring the village as a living museum.

We had a peek in all the tradesmen workshops and all in all had a great day out! There's still a bit to see - the dock with a masted barque, a huge water wheel and other bits, so there will be a second article to come before we leave Morwellham.

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