Headstreams of the river Lynher run through the Halvana Plantation of coniferous trees (30 miles upstream from its tidal confluence with the Tamar opposite Plymouth). On this windless afternoon, the sound of traffic along the nearby A30 trunk road is muffled by the thick stands of Sitka spruce. Some holly, bramble and willow survive on verges beside forestry tracks, but off track, in the underlying gloom, wan greenness pervades across the ubiquitous mosses that shroud boulders and tree trunks, carpet the ground and smother rotting stumps and piles of brash. Stunted fern fronds cling to trunks and emerge from hummocks of moss and lichen; faded leaves of wood sorrel draw attention as faint points of light in this dismal woodland. Towards Carneglos Tor, wind-blow and thinning has allowed some natural regeneration and variable tree heights. Another expanse of clear-felled ground, recently replanted, opens up views southwards beyond the Withey Brook to the skyline summit of Kilmar Tor.
From the plantation, turfed-over ruts radiate outward from a closed-off gate near the site of an ancient granite cross, criminally removed in 1987, and close to the Lynher’s source. Outside, on the open moor, the rough grazing of East Moor is vacated of the cattle that like to shelter beside the dividing wall, as evidenced in lumps of dung. Hard-grazed molinia and stunted gorse are interspersed with patches of green turf scattered with tiny mounds of peaty earth cast up by worms in the recent mild weather.
Downhill from a huge earthfast boulder, overlooked by the summit of Fox Tor and distant red lights on top of Caradon’s mast, a few ponies browse in steep-sided valleys that run northwards, carrying yet more water towards Halvana. Archaeological surveys have found evidence of medieval tin-streaming here, when valley bottoms and hillsides were exploited for stanniferous gravels; the Cornish word hal means both moor and “stream-work for tin”.
Back inside the plantation the water courses cut between conifers and it is now too murky to find remains of the 19th-century tin mine. Away from the dimness, little pastures around Poldhu rise towards the higher moorland of Trewint Downs and the beacon, which catch the last of the fading light.
