A sun-dappled way leads towards the quiet, airy summit, away from hot tarmac, camera-watched traffic and new housing estates in St Ann’s Chapel. Tumuli (ancient burial mounds) up on the ridge and Roundbarrow Farm are reminders of the prehistoric respect for this upland, and in the 19th century a copper mine dominated the skyline. Mined to a depth of 130 fathoms (240 metres), in 1864 it was the work destination for more than 200 men, women and children, many trudging miles uphill to break and sort ore at the surface or descend deep underground.
Until 1872, and the completion of the mineral railway and incline towards the quays at Calstock, ore sent for smelting in south Wales was carted along tracks all the way to the Tamar.
On this unusually hot afternoon, past cultivated allotments and the cool shade of Gray’s Plantation, the final section of the wide lane towards the now derelict mine engine house is overhung with oaks and ivied thorn trees; polypody ferns colonise mossy branches of elder, and dragonflies zoom about in sunny glades.
Tangled masses of flowering bramble hint at a heavy crop of blackberries, tall gorse bushes sprout soft green shoots, and the westerly breeze ripples across pollen-full grasses, sorrel, rush and the pink spires of rosebay. Fenced-off shafts adjoin the remains of degraded burrows (dumps of mine waste), which are mostly devoid of vegetation, in contrast to the scrubby woodland obscuring the edge of a huge quarry that is still worked for roadstone.
Views extend east, towards the misty greens and blues of Dartmoor’s tors, southwards across the pastoral landscape of the Tamar valley, and beyond to the haze of Plymouth, the Hamoaze estuary and Rame Peninsula.
Closer, in the parish of St Dominic, familiar landmarks stand out – Viverdon Plantation on Sentry Hill, the folly tower at Cotehele National Trust, and the clump of beech trees near home. Down there, off Summers Lane, this year’s “wet May brought loads of hay” – there were more than half as many extra bales compared with last year. Tall and prolific foxgloves, along the verdant banks and beside hedges, are now fading, but were a remarkable feature of this June’s cool weather.
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