A Natural Christmas at Penrose

Despite a few heavy down pours visitors to Penrose were able to pop in and create their very own wreath made out of things collected by rangers from the estate. Including willow, dogwood, ivy and holly 

Everyone was having a great time and it got even better when mulled wine and mince pies were served warmed on the camp fire!

There were also oppotunities to make home made wrapping paper with potato prints and mulled wine saches, as you can imagine the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg as well as chritmas songs made the atmosphere very festive!

Some people made candle stick holders and other things using the greenery

We also made a very long paperchain out of sweet wrappers, it was over two metres!

Thank you to everyone that came despite the hit and miss weather look out for this event next year!

Merry Christmas :)

Rosie

It never rains it pours!

We hope everyone has been out and about enjoying the cold crisp winter sunshine over the last few days, a bit of a change from the heavy rain! The Lizard didn’t escape the recent extreme weather that caused major flooding across the south west, and over the last couple of weeks National Trust staff and volunteers have been out and about checking and dealing with dangerous trees, blocked drains and damaged footpaths.

With the help of contractors, damaged and hung up trees in the woods at Tremayne have been cleared so they are no longer a danger to walkers. This has had the added bonus of providing lots of firewood!

On the footpaths around Poltesco, Church Cove, Tremayne and Lizard the water running down the paths was too much for the drains, and a lot of stone and sediment was dislodged leaving waterlogged paths with lots of holes, but the worst of it is now sorted with freshly rodded drains, replaced stone and some new culverts!

 

Perhaps the most dramatic and urgent of the storm damage was structural dammage to the coast path around Lizard and Inglewidden. There has been a significant landslip above Polpeor Cove where we have cordoned off a section of the road. We also temporarily diverted the coast path behind the Devil’s Frying Pan last week due to a crack that appeared in the path. However, yesterday a geologist inspected the site and said that the path there was not in danger of subsiding so it has now been reopened.

We’ll keep a close eye on all these sites over the winter, but if anyone has any questions or information or would like to find out about any of our work in the area, give us a call on 01326 291174.

Loe Bar overflow pipes!

The water level in Loe Pool reached a dangerous height this week after all the heavy rained that we had. The Enviroment Agency (who manage the water level of the pool) put in a series of pipes over the weekend to try and ease the pressure on the permenant overflow pipe. As the risk that Helston could flood was a possibility.


                                    

The three metal pipes are in sections to cope with the contours of the sand and travel from the pool to the sea on the western end of the beach.

The pool, which is the largest natural lake in Cornwall, has this week been one metre higher than normal, meaning that both the reed beds and bird hide have been flooded!

We also saw a pretty rainbow!