PATCHWORK (TRESAVEAN TO BELL LANE )

And now for something completely different, as stated in a previous post I hope to make my birding patch the area of hills overlooking the village of Lanner. Starting at Teasavean on the south east side and finishing at Carn Marth on the North side with the walk back into the village. This area covers 4-3/4 miles in distance, so needless to say I will not be covering all of it in one go as plenty of time has to be allowed for birding. So I have started 200m east of my home at the Trevarth crossroads.

Trevarth Crossroads with the Coppice Inn with the road leading to the village of Carharrack, at this point I will turn around and take the road behind me.

This is the main A393 road leading to Falmouth.

I will be taking this route up through the old Tresavean Mine area to the Mineral Tramway

The lane is now  begining to climb towards the top.

This is the ruins of the Tresavean Mine engine house all that remains of a very extensive mining area.

The lane still continues its upward journey with  open shrub land for a good varity of bird species. On the left in the overgrown area are the old Arsenic tunnels as this was one of the products of this mine. Though they are all sealed up these days when we were kids they were open and I think every kid in the area used to crawl through them on hands and knees, and every so often there were open shafts about 4 ft in diameter to the bottom of the mine many hundreds of feet down. we used to span these with planks of wood and crawl across. You could also see the dried Arsenic deposits on the walls. If our parents knew what we got up to we would have been skinned alive. I WONDER WHAT TODAYS HEALTH AND SAFETY WALLAS WOULD HAVE MADE OF IT.  Bah We were kids and these things had to be done.

As you climb higher the landscape behind you starts to unfold.

Getting near the top of the track the loose stones in the centre can make walking a little difficult.

This view is of the west side of Lanner, the road on the left side is Lanner Hill leading to the town of Redruth 2 miles away. On the right is the rise leadin up to Carn Marth.

At the top this plaque is the start of the old mineral Railway (We call them Tramways or Trams) which used to carry the Tin and Copper and other by products from the mine to ports on the Atlantic coast where they were shipped to processing plants in other parts.

The walking becomes much better along the Tram, and on the Right hand side and in the picture below are the Granite Setts and a section of Track that shows how it would have looked.

Granite Setts with section of track.

Very quiet this morning normally there are Dog Walkers exercising their dogs and during the summer months its a very popular place to take strolls.

This is a  view looking down onto the centre of the Village, The large building in the centre is the Village  Hall and on either side you can see the rows of miners cottages the grew up around the mine. I can remember this area when it was still free from development, the newer buildings did not start to appear until the late 1960's and early 70's. Yes it used to be an open beautiful place to live.

This is the end of the Tram section of this walk as it crosses a small road, I will turn right and make my way back into the Village.

Chapel Hill leading to Bell Lane

At this point I have already walked down the hill 200mtrs but I have condensed the I mages just to give a flavour of the area.All together  I took about 70 Images covering all of this part the walk, I must say at this point that conditions were very Hazy and not the best for clear Photography but its what I got on the day.

Chapel Hill is now leading to Bell Lane around the far corner.

The junction of Bell Lane with the main A393 showing some of the old mining cottages.

View from the junction Westwards towards Redruth, there are many more interesting places around the Village and I hope to include them in later posts.

Looking East down the village.

This is one of the older establisments in the Village and when it was owned by the Morrish family was one of the best Fish and Chip shops for miles around. As a youngster I used to Bash Spuds (Potatoes) here three times a week for a bit of pocket money. Up until about fifteen years ago there were about seven general stores, a Post Office, a Butchers  a Filling Station and Two Pubs.

Sadly only the Post office, 1 Store, the Filling Station with quite a large Self Service Store, the two Pubs and a Bakery are all that remains.

This is one of the larger properties in the village and  possibly belonged to one of the mine owners or a mine Captain.

The Village Bakery.

Back Home, at the bottom of the road is the junction where I started the walk, and are the far left you can just see the front of my car at the entrance of my home.

So I hope you have enjoyed a walk around a small part of my Village and will join me again for Part Two in the near future, and I know the conditions will be much better as its already in the bag.
The photo's for this post were taken on Wednesday 9th December 2009. Equipment used Canon EOS 20D and Tokina 28-70mm f2.8 ATX Pro lens Aperture Priority f8-f16.