Trethevey and Trevalga
A walk from Boscastle in January 2008 took in Trevalga hamlet, Trethevy village, St. Nectan's Glen and Forrabury church. Trethevey I remember from my early days of touring when I, unsurprisingly, looked unavailingly for Trethevy Quoit there. So imagine my surprise when I found at the roadside 'King Arthur's Quoit', a massive flat rock said to have been hurled there by Arthur from Tintagel Castle but possibly once the capstone of a real qouit. In the village on the other side of the road I was pleased to find St. Piran's Chapel and Well but failed to find the Roman milestone. Trevalga I researched after hearing from a German who holidays in Cornwall. A charming hamlet, its last Lord of the Manor, Gerald Curgenven, left it in 1959 to a trust managed by his old school, Marlborough College. It's six farms are now just two and its important buildings are away from the hamlet - the Manor House on the cliffs, the Rectory half-a-mile inland. My walk included the following: Forrabury church is of little interest, except for its font and Cornish cross, but leave the north-west corner of the churchyard and you are on Forrabury Stitches, a medieval field system maintained by the National Trust. Forget about St. Nectan's Glen, it is gloomy and the owners of The Hermitage want �3.50 (2008) to see the famous waterfall!
Round walk- Boscastle, Trevalga, Forrabury.
'King Arthur's Quoit' on the roadside at Trethevey
The church on its lann (mound) in Trevelga hamlet
UPDATE AUGUST 2018: Possible disastrous news! Due to a legal anomaly in the formation of Marlborough College's charitable trust, Trevalga estate was offered for sale in 2010 for around �10 million. Not surprisingly, the tenants were unhappy. But happily the sale came to naught and the residents can continue to enjoy their charming isolated village.
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Trevalga
I was back in Trevalga in July 2018. Parking is not easy; you could park in a small lay-by on the main road but these days that means more walk than I can sometimes cope with. Happily I found a small usable space close to the gate to the churchyard. Previously I had not been inside the church; this time I did and report on it on my Churches page.
Treverbyn
I visited St. Peter's Treverbyn in mid-October 201`9. At first I thought I was out of luck as the church was locked. However, in the village hall over the road I found churchwarden Rod Phillips who kindly opened up the church and gave me a guided tour. Thank you, Rod. There is not much to Treverbyn village which, as near as makes no difference, is part of Stenalees, the southern continuation of Bugle, towards the eastern edge of Cornwall's China Clay Country. However, a little surprisingly, Treverbyn is the main parish of this part of Clay Country and includes Bugle, Stenalees and Penwithick, Trethurgy, Scredds and Carthew within its extended parish boundaries. Treverbyn itself consists of little more than church, old vicarage, new vicarage, school, village hall, a farm and some recreational facilities. Appropriately for a Clay Country church, Clay Country settlements being mostly relatively recent, St. Peter's in Treverbyn dates from 1848 and was the work of prolific Victorian architect G E Street. This was only his second Cornish church, the first being St. Mary's Par at Biscovey. Pevsner rates this as "good early Street with strong design, simple detail and skilled use of local materials." The exterior is modest with steeply pitched slate roofs. Windows in the north and south walls have Decorated tracery to 2-light windows. The east and west ends have larger 4-light windows. The interior is bold, lofty and spacious. The nave is rather barn-like with its arch-braced roof and a soaring chancel arch. The sanctuary ceiling is boarded and painted. Careful lighting gives prominence to the altar. Stained glass includes two windows on the south wall of the nave. The 1897 windows of the north wall are all by E R Suffling. There are good contemporary wrought-iron gates to the churchyard. Nearby are a few other buildings by Street; his 1858 former vicarage, described by Pevsner as "solid and workmanlike," has a circular stair turret. The school room and school house are also by Street.
Troon
Although I had been near Troon - south of Camborne - on several occasions when seeking mining relics in the area, it was not until August 2007 that I actually drove through the village. On my way from Carwynnen Quoit to King Edward Mine, I found myself in what I think is Treslothan Road, part of the Pendarves Estate mining settlement. Although I know nothing else about the village - except that it boasts (or certainly has in the past) a great cricket team, I was so struck by the lovely terraced cottages and their long front gardens that I had to include an image of the street.