Walk 2 - St Agnes Beacon

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Polbreen Lane, Beacon Farm, Beacon Summit, Wheal Coates, St. Agnes Head, Trevaunance Cove, Wheal Friendly. Starting and ending at St. Agnes Car Park.

Polbreen Lane

Start at the car park in the village centre. Go to the top end; between the Public Library and the Scout Hut entrance you will find a track which leads past a row of garages and brings you to Polbreen Lane. Turn right and follow the lane to a road junction. The lane led in the past to Polbreen Mine, one of St. Agnes' many tin and copper mines. Cross the road and continue between the bungalows of Whitworth Close. After 100 metres the Close joins a road from the right; keep straight on towards a grassy area and wooden seat on the right. Opposite bungalow No 7 at a post marked 'St Agnes Beacon', turn right, then follow the footpath on your left at a way-mark post. Follow the narrow lane for 100 metres with bungalows on your left. Turn right at a junction with a broader path and follow this until it meets a road.

Beacon Farm

Cross this road taking the lane immediately in front of you to Beacon Farm. Pass a row of terraced cottages on your left. Take the old green lane ahead. Climb over a stile beside a field gate. Walk across a very sloping field, parallel to a hedge on your right.

Beacon Summit

Climb another stone stile and follow the path for just a few metres. Turn right up a very narrow path which climbs through the heather to an overhanging rock (beneath which there is a seat). Follow the path on the left-hand side of the rock and after a few metres turn right at another smaller outcrop of rock.

The two rocks were known in Cornish as Garder Wartha (upper seat) and Garder Wollas (lower seat). The path leads to the highest point of the hill at 192 metres (628 feet). From here on a clear day there is an excellent view along the coast from St Ives in the west, to Trevose Head near Padstow to the north. A topographic plate on the Ordnance Survey triangulation pillar ('trig point') indicates other points of interest A. The base of the mound on which you stand is the remains of a Bronze Age barrow, dating from between 2000-1500 B.C. Two other smaller barrows, heaps of stones or 'cairns', are hidden by undergrowth at the southern end of the ridge, with another to the northern end. The main function of the barrows was burial, but they doubtless provided the focus of other 'ritual events'. The Beacon derives its name from the hill-top beacon light or fire which could be lit to warn of invasion, part of a chain throughout the country. At the end of the eighteenth century the beacon light was joined by a white painted tower, variously known as St Ann's Summer House, the Pleasure House, and Unwin and Donnithorne's Castle (the Donnithornes lived at Trevellas Manor). In March 1812 the 'West Briton' printed a request for information (with a 10 guinea reward) on 'persons who broke and carried off the window frames and broke floors and doors'. By the 1850s the 'ruins of a pleasure house' were noted, and it is probably on this rubble that the present trig point stands. When the topograph was added in the late 1990s the concrete pillar was encased in stone.