Dogwoods, covered in flowers with cream bracts, shine from the prevailing green of Cotehele’s valley garden and in the woods leaves obscure all but glimpses of the ebbing river.
Flag iris, water dropwort and reeds slow the flow of the Danescombe tributary into the Tamar and opposite this little delta, beyond the swirling current, two swans feed on the mud bank where “point stuff” – fallen leaves washed into the river – used to be shovelled into rowing boats for use as manure in the market gardens.
Upstream from this bend, in the 19th century, schooners, barges and steamers moored on the Cornish bank, off-loading coal and limestone for lime kilns and taking on granite, bricks and ore, which were lowered towards the shore on an incline plane. When the railway from Kelly Bray was linked by the viaduct with Devon and upcountry destinations (in 1908) water traffic declined.
Today, a few yachts moor midstream; in the boatyard, pleasure boats are laid up on trailers or props and, when suitable tides coincide with weekends or holidays, excursion boats bring day-trippers to the pubs and cafes of this village with its gallery, health studio, arts centre in a converted chapel.
The steep slopes of former cultivated ground that overlook once busy quays are overwhelmed by bramble, elderflower, dog-rose and tendrils of old man’s beard, while mexican fleabane colonises stone walls.
At Ferry Farm, on the other side, dairy cows lie in the field below the viaduct and, in anticipation of sunny weather, forage trailers are prepared for cutting silage. The riverside path continues past the car park on cobbles of former ore floors and along an embankment that protects playing field and sheep pastures from flooding.
Around the meander is Okel Tor – another old quay that despatched copper, tin and arsenic, won from the nearby mine and its levels that ran under the river. The brick-topped stack protrudes from surrounding trees; vegetation masks dumps, ruined engine houses, the crusher and the calciner (the burning house that was used to extract arsenic from the ore); and, across the narrow but still navigable channel, woodland encroaches on the derelict Rumleigh brickworks and Gawton mine.
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