All In A Day's Work

Working in a rural community has its compensations. My "patch" is a delight to drive around on a nice day with many interesting things to see and pleasant spots to pull in for a light lunch.

Just a short distance from my office is one of the oldest man made stuctures in Britain - Trethevy Quoit.

The quoit was erected around 4,500 BC as a burial chamber. Originally, it is believed, it would have been covered in earth and grass. The stone is Cornish granite.

Five or six miles west is the most patronised store in the West of England, Trago Mills. Trago was founded by the eccentric father of the present owner, Bruce Robertson. His father, Mike, started selling very cheap goods from a small shed on the site and in a very short time became a multi millionaire.

The founder was always incurring the wrath of the local council and the planning committees by just developing the site without planning consent. It is now an attractive country park with a number of lakes stocked with Koi Carp and many varieties of duck and other birds. The Fowey river runs through the property and I often sit by the river with a light lunch. There is a large restaurant and "takeaway" with a comprehensive menu.

My travels then often take me to Launceston two or three times each week. Launceston is an old market town dominated by the castle.The castle was built in the 13th century on the site of an old defensive earthwork. In the 17th century it was used as a prison and in 1656 George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) was imprisoned therein for eight months. George Fox believed in truth, equality and peaceful solutions to conflict. His offences were to refuse to doff his hat to the gentry, to not swear oaths in court and to speak against what he believed to be the hypocracy of the established church.

(The autobiography of George Fox is available in full on the web. Just Google "George Fox Journal" to get it. It covers well his imprisonment at Launceston and elsewhere. I often wonder what he would think of the mixed bag of folk that comprise Quakers today - including "yours truly").

(I will add to this post when I get a chance to take a few more pictures - I can't spend all my working day doing things other than working -lol)

Today I had to take a different route. The first place of note to pass was "The Hurlers". The Hurlers are one of three stone circles quite near to each other. They date from the Bronze Age and were erected, probably as a religious site, around 1500 BC. It is said that the stones were once local folk who played "hurling" on the Sabbath and were turned to stone for their sins.

Just a short distance down the moorland road was an opportunity for a quick photo stop at King Doniert's Stone. Doniert, or Dungarth, was an old king of Cornwall and Cornish people still consider themselves separate from the rest of England.

There is a thriving Cornish independence political party known as Mebyon Kernow and a number of them speak Cornish, though now as only a second language.

Lunch was taken, ( with one on my patient's I must add), at a delightful tea room on Kit hill. The 400 acre hill was given to the people of Cornwall by Prince Charles, the Duke of Cornwall, in 1985. It is dominated by an ornate tin mine chimney, sadly now spoiled by an array of mobile phone aerials and such like.

The views on a nice day however are still impessive. The cafe has lots of small animals and birds which makes it a good attraction for children.The whole area is strewn with the remnants of tin mining. Tin has been mined in Cornwall since the time of the Phoenecians with whom they are said to have traded around 1300BC. The last mine ceased production in 1997. There is talk of this last mine, South Crofty, being reopened but I doubt it will happen.

For my next contribution I hope to write about the days I work in the coastal area of North and East Cornwall. Just by way of introduction to that I close with a snapshot of my favourite Cornish beach on my working travels - Bossiney Cove.