Those of you with eagle eyes might have spotted some pebbles between the two tree rhododendrons by the Druid's chair which occasionally appeared from underneath the leaves. We hoped that they were part of a path although they only seemed to be about a foot in width, but we hoped one day to be able to investigate further. We were aware that a path used to exist there as there was evidence on old OS maps and an old photograph from the 1950's.
Following the very wet winter and spring and the fact that Menacuddle was being visited by many more people, particularly due to Covid Lockdowns, the walking routes became a muddy mess and we realised we would have to try and make the paths more accessible and safe. We also wanted to make the area more accessible to wheelchairs which was hampered by the state of the routes and by the metal chicane at the site entrance.
We obtained some quotes for the work but these were prohibitively expensive, but as if receiving manna from heaven, two things transpired to make it possible to go a long way to achieving these aims.
The first, was that a son of one of our trustees was given permission by his bosses at NMCN, a large engineering company, to provide some expertise and labour for a few days to construct the two main paths. Ben Marley who had grown to love Menacuddle through his parent's connection with the site, also sought some help with funding materials and machinery from Steve Wills Haulage and Sunbelt Rentals. The day came and four workers arrived on site but had to wait a while for the materials and so while they did this they started to carefully excavate the pebbled area, which grew and grew. What they found was that the pebbles were just the edging of one side of a path and that this path was a carriage width with a matching edge on the other side! It was an emotional and exciting find and allowed the engineers to establish exactly the route of the original path.
The second exciting thing which happened nearly simultaneously was that we were awarded a grant form Eden Geothermal for £3,000 to help with the creation of paths at the site. This will therefore enable us to pay for the additional material for the paths and to start on the next area.
Cornwall Council allowed us to remove the chicane and we had a message only a couple of days after the paths were created by a visitor expressing her pleasure at being able to access the picnic area. Our hope, one day, is to be able to re-site the bridge at an angle away from the chapel so that we can get rid of the steps and allow accessibility to the other side of the river. This is likely however to be tens of thousands of pounds which is a daunting sum. They do say though that things come in threes.........
Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts to all of you guys and to the people and companies who have supported this project.
Trustees
Friends of Menacuddle Well