Treffry Viaduct received a spring clean last week and it was no easy task! Standing at 90 feet high and 670 feet long the iconic aqueduct, which nestles in the beautiful Luxulyan Valley, was due to receive some attention last year however the routine maintenance was delayed due to the Coronavirus restrictions.
The viaduct is owned and maintained by Cornwall Heritage Trust and we carry out vegetation clearance using rope access every three years. Due t
o the size of this Scheduled Ancient Monument it requires expert attention which is provided by St Ives Steeplejacks who abseil from the tramway in order to work on the external walls on both sides of the structure.
Clearing the weeds and vegetation helps maintain the viaduct and avoid further deterioration to this iconic monument, which was built between 1839 and 1842 for Joseph Treffry. We are very grateful to the D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust who helped to fund this important work.
Cornwall Heritage Trust has owned the viaduct since 1989 and it is freely accessible for everyone to visit all year round.
For more information about Treffry Viaduct click here
We were very grateful to Kensa Broadhurst for the excellent Virtual Story Cafe she presented on Thursday, which was live streamed to our Facebook page and via Zoom.
If you missed the opportunity to catch the event live, we have now uploaded the recording of the story cafe onto our Youtube Channel.
We were delighted to have received a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to commission educational films on three of our sites. Idenna Creative did a wonderful job, incorporating drone footage, some Cornish phrases and packed with interesting information on Castle an Dinas, Carn Euny and The Hurlers.
Through our popular Schools Transport Grants scheme, over 14,000 primary school children have experienced trips to historic places in Cornwall between 2015 and 2020. The aim of these new films was to provide a teaching resource so that children who usually visit these sites would still be able to access them during Lockdown.
As lockdown restrictions start to ease, the films will remain an important resource, not just for school age children, but also for all ages!
If you would like to watch the films, they are available to view on our Youtube Channel or via our website here.
Calendar 2022 – Photo Competition – “Heritage in our Landscape”
It’s that time of year we start looking for photos for the Cornwall Heritage Trust 2022 Calendar.
Cornwall has an abundance of heritage and stunning landscape so let’s capture that to make our increasingly popular calendar more spectacular than ever.
To enter the competition, please email your photograph to info@cornwallheritagetrust.org and provide the following information:
- Name of person who took the photograph
- Email address
- Age of person who took the photograph
- Title of image
- Location of where the photo was taken in Cornwall
- Date the photo was taken
12 winners will be chosen with each winning photo published in the Cornwall Heritage Trust 2022 Calendar with their name. Each winner will receive a free calendar.
In addition to the calendar there will be prizes for the top 3 winners:
- 1st Prize – £50
- 2nd Prize – £30
- 3rd Prize – CHT Family Membership (worth £25)
For more details on how to enter and the Competition terms & conditions please visit our Terms and Conditions Competition 2022
Cornwall Heritage Trust presents… A Virtual Story Cafe with Kensa Broadhurst, who will talk about her research into the Cornish Language.
Kensa Broadhurst is currently studying for her PhD and hopes that not only will the research she carries out help our understanding of the use of Cornish during the nineteenth century and give more legitimacy and status to the language today, but also give the Cornish language a status within higher education. Kensa is hoping to find evidence that the Cornish language was being used between 1777-1904.
Every year Cornwall Heritage Trust awards bursaries to post-graduate students at the Institute of Cornish Studies to assist in study costs for one or more students producing a dissertation/thesis centred on any aspect of Cornwall’s Heritage.
More about Kensa and her research
Join us on Zoom to take part in this virtual story cafe, or if you miss one of the limited places you will be able to watch the story cafe being live streamed to our Facebook Page.
How to book
To register for a free place via the Zoom event, please follow the link to book (you only need to book one ticket per household).
Last Thursday we had an informative and lively virtual Story Cafe with Laura Garcia and Richard Trethewey from The Rowan Tree, who gave a fascinating talk about Kolar’s Gold, their multimedia project on the Cornish diaspora in India.
Through their music and stories and their collaborative work with Indian musicians, Cornish choirs and brass bands, The Rowan Tree have brought to life the stories of the people from diverse cultures who lived and worked together in the mining community. For more information about the project, and how to order the Kolar’s Gold CD, please visit https://www.therowantreemusic.com/about
We have now uploaded the recording to our Youtube Channel for those who may have missed the live event.
Cornwall Heritage Trust presents a free virtual Story Cafe with The Rowan Tree : Kolar’s Gold, led by Laura Garcia, Tom Fosten and Richard Trethewey.
Join us live on Zoom or our Facebook Page, as we listen to the fascinating account of their research into the forgotten stories of Cornish miners, their families and their Indian counterparts who lived and worked at Kolar Gold Fields from 1890-1940 and beyond.
The multi-media project, funded by a grant from Cornwall Heritage Trust, brings the forgotten stories alive in The Rowan Tree’s song-writing and music.
‘Although often invisible in the history of Cornish emigration, the Indian sub-continent in fact played a role of some significance in the Cornish diaspora’ Philip Payton, The Cornish Overseas
The Rowan Tree began researching the project in 2018, and received a grant from Cornwall Heritage Trust. They began to unearth a treasure trove of stories. As quickly as the incredible stories of hardship, heroism and adventure of Cornish miners and their Indian counterparts emerged, so dawned the realisation that their stories had been all but forgotten (in Cornwall at least).
Music was and is a huge part of life at the Kolar Gold Fields and The Rowan Tree project reflected that with new compositions, traditional Cornish and Indian folk music, songs, hymns and carols know to have been sung at KGF by Cornish miners. The resulting film and CD of recorded music was a collaboration with The Rowan Tree, Cornish musicians as well as musicians from the Kolar Gold Fields area, representing the different cultures that co-existed at Kolar Gold Fields.
There are 30 free places on the Zoom event which will take place on Thursday 25th March at 7.30pm.
Here is a link Eventbrite to book your place (you only need to do one per household):
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/kolars-gold-by-the-rowan-tree-tickets-145224230583
This story cafe will also be live streaming onto the Cornwall Heritage Trust Facebook page, and a recording will be available on our website the following week.
Our series of virtual Story Cafes have been kindly funded by Cornwall Community Foundation.
Following a successful bid to the Culture Recovery Fund through the Architectural Heritage Fund, Cornwall Heritage Trust is seeking consultants to formulate a Business Development Plan for the next five years which addresses the needs of the Trust to secure its future sustainability and enable it to continue to look after and promote Cornwall’s heritage.
The successful consultant will have:
- Extensive experience in business planning
- A clear understanding of the sectors within which CHT operates and the challenges and opportunities these represent.
- Demonstrable experience of developing sustainable business development and income generation strategies and providing staff and trustees with the necessary training and tools to successfully carry them out
If you think this could be you please take a look at the Information Pack and don’t hesitate to contact Cathy Woolcock with any questions: cathy@cornwallheritagetrust.org
Deadline for submissions is Wednesday 31st March at midday.
The recording of Peter Herring’s Story Cafe about the cutting, saving and use of turf as the principal household fuel on Bodmin Moor is now available to watch on our Youtube Channel.
The talk by Peter Herring was fascinating. The Zoom event was fully booked and we had lots of questions and engagement from the audience watching on Facebook.
Peter talked about his research into this practice, which he carried out in partnership with Tony Blackman, former Chair of Cornwall Heritage Trust.
Peter is one of our new Trustees, and brings to the Trust his extensive knowledge and expertise as a landscape archaeologist, historian and characteriser. He worked with Historic England on championing historic characterisation approaches to place and landscape and managing expert teams undertaking research on historic places. Peter’s work with Cornwall Council included leading the historic environment policy and partnerships team, including the Historic Environment Record.
Watch the recording of the Story Cafe to learn more about this fascinating subject.
The publications mentioned in Peter’s talk are available at:
The Bodmin Moor : An archaeological survey Volume 1 The Human Landscape to 1860, can be downloaded here: https://map.cornwall.gov.uk/reports_event_record/1994/1994R034.pdf
and
Volume Two is available to purchase at :
The Bodmin Moor : An archaeological survey Volume Two The industrial and post-medieval landscapes
: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/bodmin-moor-archaeological-survey-vol-2
Thank you to Cornwall Community Foundation for helping to fund Cornwall Heritage Trust’s virtual story cafe series.
A story cafe about the cutting, saving and use of turf as the principal household fuel on Bodmin Moor until a generation or two ago. Pete Herring will talk about his research into this practice, which he carried out in partnership with Tony Blackman, former Chair of Cornwall Heritage Trust.
Pete is one of our new Trustees, and brings to the Trust his extensive knowledge and expertise as a landscape archaeologist, historian and characteriser. Pete worked with Historic England on championing historic characterisation approaches to place and landscape and managing expert teams undertaking research on historic places. Pete’s work with Cornwall Council included leading the historic environment policy and partnerships team, including the Historic Environment Record.
If you would like to join us on our Zoom meeting to learn more about this fascinating subject, please register via Eventbrite by following the link below:
Pictured is a local farmer cutting turf on Pridacoombe Downs, Altarnun in the 1940s.
With grateful thanks to Cornwall Community Foundation for helping to fund this free event.
The Story Cafe will also be simultaneously live streamed onto our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheCornwallHeritageTrust
If you missed Cornwall Heritage Trust’s virtual story cafe on Cornish Scoot Dancing last week, then you will be pleased to know that the recording has now been edited and added to our Youtube Channel.
We are very grateful to Merv and Alison Davey for kindly leading our first ever virtual Story Café. Merv and Alison are both well known throughout Cornwall and its heritage, musical and cultural worlds, and Cornwall Heritage Trust is also lucky enough to have Alison as one of our long-standing trustees.
This year we had planned to introduce build on our Story Café scheme and introduce a programme of Story Cafes throughout Cornwall, however that was not meant to be and so we thought online versions were the next best thing!
For details of future events, please sign up to our Mailing List.
Song and Dance Project on our website
Did you know that we have some wonderful song and dance resources on our website, which are free for all to use? They are aimed to be used by schools as a resource, but we thought they are also interesting for everyone to view.
Hosted by Cornwall Heritage Trust, our first ever Cornish Story Cafe held on Zoom will be led by Merv and Alison Davey. The theme is Cornish Scoot (Step) Dancing, and Merv and Alison will talk about the tradition of Cornish dancing and show archive footage.
We invite participants to join on Zoom and you will have the opportunity to ask questions and share stories, there are a few places remaining – please follow the link to book via Eventbrite.
With grateful thanks to Cornwall Community Foundation for helping to fund this free event.
The Story Cafe will also be simultaneously live streamed onto our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TheCornwallHeritageTrust
