Walk through the Luxulyan Valley

By Sarah Hoggett with photos by Jon Hibberd

T HIS is a circular walk of just over two miles through the beautiful Luxulyan Valley, which was designated part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site in 2006 thanks to the fascinating early 19th-century industrial remains that can be found throughout. Over the centuries it has been home to several industries, including tin streaming, copper mining, granite quarrying and the production of china clay. Nowadays it’s a tranquil area of ancient woodland, the silence broken only by birdsong, the tumbling waters of the River Par and the occasional rumble of a train passing by.

From St Austell, take the A391 towards Bodmin and follow the signs for the Eden Project and Luxulyan. On entering Luxulyan, pass the Kings’s Arms pub on your left, then follow the road round as it bears right, through the centre of the village. Pass the church and village shop and follow the steep, narrow road down for about 0.3 miles. Just after you cross Gattys Bridge, turn right into another narrow lane that brings you, after 0.4 miles, to the Black Hill car park, where this walk begins.

From the car park, go up the steps that lead to the start of the Fowey Consols path (closed at the time of writing for essential structural work), then turn left across the footbridge (shown below) and walk diagonally up through the beech trees and steps; this short section is steep and a little uneven, but once you go through the gap in the wall at the top you’re on well-maintained paths for the rest of the walk. The track here, known as the Carmears Tramway, will take you past the end of the Treffry Viaduct (see Treffry’s vision, page 26) and it’s worth making a detour across the viaduct for the views over the valley below.

Return to the Carmears Tramway and continue to the Wheelpit. Along the way you’ll see granite sleeper blocks of the 19th-century tramway still set into the ground (shown right), as well as the original horse-drawn tramway rails. The track goes through mature deciduous woodland, with beech, oak, sycamore and ash trees all visible, as well as holly, hazel and alder. (In fact, the Cornish for Luxulyan Valley is Glynn Gwernan, which means ‘valley of alders’). The valley is also incredibly rich in mosses, lichens and ferns (more than 40 species of fern have been recorded here), and ground flora include bluebells, celandine, wood anemone, bilberry and many more.

The Wheelpit, built in 1841, housed the waterwheel that worked the winding cables at Carmears Inclined Plane, hauling wagons up the slope to the tramway. Pick your way carefully down the steps at the side of the pit for a closeup view of what remains. The wheel itself was partially recycled in 1940 to provide metal for the war effort, but fragments of the rim can still be seen in the bottom of the pit (see below). Although they’re now rusted and partially hidden in the undergrowth, you can still get a sense of the scale.

Back on the Carmears Tramway, you’ll see the ruins of a small stone building on your right and another in a clearing on your left. These were a checker’s hut (to count and check the wagons going up and down) and a smithy. Continue along the tramway until you get to the top of the Inclined Plane. Walk down the Inclined Plane and turn right onto the Velvet Path, shown above. (This was originally an 8-mile private carriageway called the Long Drive. After it fell into disuse it became covered in moss and acquired its current, more poetic, name.)

The Velvet Path brings you back to the car park and passes under the Treffry Viaduct, allowing you to really get a sense of the scale of this incredible construction.

Treffry’s vision

The industrial remains that we see today are largely the work of Joseph Thomas Treffry (1782–1850), whose business interests included the Fowey Consols copper mine just outside Luxulyan Valley. Faced with the seemingly impossible task of moving raw materials up the steep slopes of the valley, Treffry’s solution was to build the Carmears Inclined Plane, which rises 91 metres on a 1 in 9 gradient. As this was too steep for horse-drawn wagons, a waterwheel more than 10 metres in diameter worked the winding cables, hauling wagons up the slope to the tramway. The waterwheel itself was powered by the Carmears Leat (a watercourse that ran through the Treffry Viaduct, precisely sloped at a gradient of 1 in 260). Stretching 200 metres and rising 30 metres above the valley floor, the Treffry Viaduct is a marvel of 19th-century engineering.