Walk 7 - Wheal Coates, Chapel Porth, Wheal Lawrence Valley and Goonvrea

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Where the path forks take the lower path. Head towards the rocky outcrop (known as White Rocks) above the cove at Chapel Porth; by the path in the spring you may be lucky enough to see the lowgrowing burnet rose E, its white petals bright against apple green leaves. White Rocks is a great vantage point for viewing Chapel Porth, and the rock itself is covered by beautiful mustard coloured and blue-grey lichens. Early flowering scurvy grass, followed by sea campion and thrift, take advantage of the cracks and hollows in and around the rock.

White Rocks to Chapel Porth

Retrace your steps for a few yards and follow the path which winds towards the beach. A bench sits by the bend in the path. If you fancy a brief detour to see the rather small imprint of Giant Bolster's foot, take the path immediately behind the bench. About a hundred metres up the path is the moorstone topped by its 'footprint'. Return to the bench and continue towards the cove. On your right is a grassy area, the tussocks and thrift covering old walls where St Agnes Chapel stood. The Eighteenth century historian Dr William Borlase mentions the chapel and describes the building over St Agnes Well in some detail. The well, which disappeared in the nineteenth century, was on the edge of the cliff, probably above the double cave known as Two Vugs. Here in the spring the cliffs are covered with blue squill, yellow kidney vetch and pink thrift and here in May the story of Giant Bolster and St Agnes is re-enacted by the local community F. In the same grassy area in July, glow worms light up at dusk. Another bench provides a point from which, when the tide is out, the boiler from the SS Eltham, wrecked in 1928, can be seen to the left of the beach. Around the edges of the cliffs, samphire, a food plant in earlier centuries, appears as patches of bright green. Follow the path to the road and the car park G.

The Car Park

In the nineteenth century the car park area contained a stamping mill driven by a twenty foot diameter water wheel, positioned by the wall next to the present day toilets. Stamps crushed the rock containing tin ore and buddles then separated the heavy tin from the waste rock.

Wheal Lawrence Valley

Cross the bridge by the café and follow the path by the side of the stream. In spring, the stream is fringed by hemlock water dropwort, and in summer by soft pink hemp agrimony and yellow fleabane H. A hundred metres from the car park two banks of earth form a partial barrier across the valley. During and just after the Second World War, a wooden bridge connected these two banks, built, together with the wide track leading up the hillside, as a training exercise by US troops stationed at the camp near St Agnes Head. Next to the bank is a wet area with a very obviously circular dome of raised bog which reflects the shape of a buddle underneath. Here in summer royal ferns tower over other vegetation and the 'chink chink' of stonechats is likely to be heard as they flit from bramble to bush.

As the path rounds the hillside, Charlotte United engine house comes into view I, part of a complex of mines which is recorded as having produced 23,000 tons of 8.5 percent copper ore. A little bridge below the engine house spans the iron-stained water which flows from an adit or tunnel built to release water from the mine.

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