The tidal Tamar flows in a tight meander near Hooe beneath the steep woods and coverts of Pentillie and around the expansive mud bank off Clifton. From the narrow peninsula within this river loop are short views across to more familiar territory on the Cornish side ? to Halton Quay with its lime kilns covered in ivy and the chapel which was once an office and store for the Co-op's coal depot. Mount Ararat and the mausoleum built for Jimmy Tillie, who died in 1713, loom above Hornifast Marsh opposite and dominate the overgrown pittosporums and abandoned market gardens of Brentswood. The bewigged statue of that landowner, sitting in his Jacobean-style chair, gazes uninterrupted across this remote part of the valley.
Ewes which have been recently turned out of the sheds with their lambs, numbered in red and blue like their mothers, baa and bleat in well-drained pastures, while the call of curlew marks the riverside habitat. Mud banks gleam like silver beneath the brightening sky as the tide creeps towards saltings of purslane broken by a slipway and cut to the main channel. Seaweed and reed stems litter the slaty shore. Low ground, protected from high tides by an embankment, is rushy, waterlogged and puddled with rainwater and runoff.
Spar or quartz stones incorporated into the stoned-up banks of the drier fields hint of the mineral lodes beneath this ridge that extend deep beneath the river. When these were worked in medieval times and later, in the 19th century, the winding river would have been thronged with boats carrying ores, smelted silver and lead, and all the necessary supplies for mines and miners. Now, just a few geese glide by on the flooding tide past orange mooring buoys, vacant until summer.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/23/country-diary-tamar-valley
Cricket Switzerland Alps Pensions Niclas Alexandersson Vladimir Putin
No comments:
Post a Comment