Devoran, at the upper reaches of one of the Fal tributaries,
is an old Victorian quayside. Maintained by the small village (two roads of
terraced cottages built of Cornish brown stone, with stunning views across the
upper reaches of the estuary and its mudflats and marshes), the quayside
includes the old, long abandoned hutchings where copper and tin ore were stored
before being loaded onto barges and later small coastal steamers tied up, bound
for the smelters in South Wales.
In its heyday, Devoran quayside must have been some place.
The Redruth and Chasewater railway arrived at the quay in 1826, replacing the
pack horses that bought the copper and tin ore down from the mines inland. Devoran
became the principal quay for copper ore on the Fal. Following the railway in
1826, a new town was developed by the Lanhydrock estate – during the 1840’s two
long terraced streets appeared; one being commercial with shops, a market
house, four pubs, a post office, police station, school, church and chapel. For
a time Devoran was the busiest quay in Cornwall, with nearly 100,000 tonnes
passing through it in 1853. Several hundred tonnes of copper and tin ore exports
and coal imports would be hand barrowed across the quayside whilst rafts of Scandinavian
timber would be poled further upriver to be seasoned in ponds, ready for pit
props at a later date.
Now the long quayside is grassed over, gorse bushes creep in
from the margins and a number of discreetly placed benches are all that is
left. The small creek alongside the quayside has silted up although I still
thought it would be an excellent dinghy cruising destination on a high spring
tide. I could tie up alongside the quay, dry out on flat mud as the tide ebbed
and whilst camping isn’t allowed on the quay itself, I’d hope that the village
council wouldn’t mid a one-night stay on board under tarp tent.
How did we arrive at the lovely village with its pub,
school, chapel and stunning terraced houses? Well we turned south instead of
north when we arrived at Bissoe and its bike hire shed and café. We followed the small brook downstream as it
meandered and slowly widened to a stream; down through the old industrial
heartland, now a nature reserve of clay pit lakes and heathland. We admired
butterflies and soaring buzzards, marvelled at the engineering accomplishments
of the great western railway engineers who built such monumental viaducts
across the Cornish valleys and sat on the banks of the meandering stream where
rushes were starting to grow in the warm spring sunshine and river weeds were a
verdant green in contrast to the coppery brown muds and gravels below.
From the upper creek at Devoran, the stream widened rapidly
to a river. Wading curlew, oyster-catchers and sandpipers strode purposefully along
the waterline dipping slender beaks into the brown ooze in search of tasty
morsels. On the far bank, fallen branches, weathered silvery grey with exposure
to the elements over the years, provided useful roosts for heron and egret.
From the small square harbour with its small yachts and boats, sounds of
maintenance – a mallet and chisel; then a drill. Essential refit work being
done ready for the coming season. Way to
the south, along the eastern bank, large detached houses with long lawns sloped
down to the riverside and somewhere around the far corner lay the port of
Falmouth; but that seemed a far, far away distance from this sleepy little
village basking in the higher than average sunshine temperatures.
Having cycled south, we headed back north, stopping for
salted caramel ice creams before navigating the cycle trails across the old
mining landscape to the south of Scourrier. Here the landscape showed the scars
of its past industrial heritage; huge slate grey spoil tips stained with yellow
and copper brown streaks; piles of old waste slate and mine workings; capped
mine shafts with their now familiar conical iron lattice frameworks to stop the
unwary from a nasty fall.
On the skyline the old wheal mines, tall round
chimneys and the two-story engine houses with their triangular gable end
silhouettes. In places abandoned mine buildings provided exploring
opportunities. Yesterday was a leisurely 7 miles. Today we did 12. Building up
the fitness for the summer, slowly but surely!
Back at the campsite, we sat out in the sun in the lee of
the caravan and an old stone wall covered with grasses, low hawthorn hedges and
cow parsley; cuppas and the Saturday papers, the sun began its descent in the
far west, a deepening but dimming fiery orangery pink ball casting the same
colour palette mix across a linear swathe of the silvery grey Atlantic ocean.
It was going to be a spectacular sunset from the dining table tonight!
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