Baker's Pit Nature Reserve | |
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Baker's Pit Nature Reserve information board | |
Location within Cornwall | |
OS grid reference | SW 480355 |
Unitary authority | |
Ceremonial county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | PENZANCE |
Postcode district | TR |
Dialling code | 01736 |
Police | Devon and Cornwall |
Fire | Cornwall |
Ambulance | South Western |
UK Parliament | |
Baker's Pit Nature Reserve is a nature reserve in the parish of Ludgvan, west Cornwall managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust (CWT). The reserve is on the moorland of Noon Diggery and is south of the Castle-an-Dinas hillfort and Roger's Tower, a folly built within the hillfort. Within the reserve is a distinctively shaped enclosure with a funnel-like entrance resembling a banjo enclosure, which is an Iron Age ritual site found mostly in Wessex and south-east England and the only known one in Cornwall,
The land was donated by Imerys to the CWT in 2000 and part of the reserve is a disused china clay quarry.
Bakers Pit is a 45 ha nature reserve managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, on moorland known as Noon Diggery, on the eastern edge of the granite uplands of West Penwith. The nearest village is Nancledra and the reserve is approximately mid-way between the towns of Penzance and St Ives. On the southern boundary is the Castle-an Dinas quarry, and Roger's Tower, a folly built on an Iron Age hillfort. [1] The granite is fine grained and is quarried and used mostly as aggregate; in its kaolinised state it was mined at Baker's Pit. The reserve is on a plateau and slopes gently to the south-east with little shelter from the south-westerly prevailing winds. [2]
There is no onsite parking and access is via minor roads off the B3311, or via footpaths.
The upland areas of West Penwith are known for the surviving prehistoric and medieval features in the landscape, which include ritual, settlement and pastoral components. They have a degree of preservation unparalleled in the British Isles. A 1979–80 field survey by the Cornwall Committee for Rescue Archaeology (CCRA), on the moorland of Noon Diggery, found the remains of ten field systems, eight of which are within the Baker Pit nature reserve and another three were found by the National Mapping Programme. Dates of pre-historic field boundaries can range from the Bronze Age to Romano-British in date. Also within the reserve is an early Bronze Age barrow which is visible on the skyline and are the main focus of a settlement; barrows usually date from 2000 to 1600 BC. There are other low, stony mounds nearby, which may also be ritual monuments. [2]
In the Kelly's Directory of 1873, an extensive china clay work and quarry, belonging to Mr Baker of Amalveor is recorded, and extensive works are also mentioned twenty years later in the 1893 edition. [3] [4]
Chûn Castle is a large Iron Age hillfort (ringfort) near Penzance in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The fort was built about 2,500 years ago, and fell into disuse until the early centuries AD when it was possibly re-occupied to protect the nearby tin mines. It stands beside a prehistoric trackway that was formerly known as the Old St Ives Road and the Tinners’ Way. The name Chûn derives from Cornish: Chi an Woon. The area is now sometimes known as Chûn Downs. Nearby is Chûn Quoit.
St Erth is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.
The Avon Wildlife Trust aims to protect and promote wildlife in the area of the former county of Avon – now Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, in England. It has its headquarters in Bristol and runs wildlife centres at Folly Farm, Somerset and Grow Wilder, Frenchay, North Bristol.
Ludgvan is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, UK, 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) northeast of Penzance. Ludgvan village is split between Churchtown, on the hill, and Lower Quarter to the east, adjoining Crowlas. For the purposes of local government, Ludgvan elects a parish council every four years; the town elects a member to Cornwall Council under the Ludgvan division.
Wittenham Clumps are a pair of wooded chalk hills in the Thames Valley, in the civil parish of Little Wittenham, in the historic county of Berkshire, although since 1974 administered as part of South Oxfordshire district.
St Agnes is a civil parish and a large village on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is about five miles (8 km) north of Redruth and ten miles (16 km) southwest of Newquay. An electoral ward exists stretching as far south as Blackwater. The population at the 2011 census was 7,565.
Walton Common is a 25.5 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) near the village of Walton in Gordano, North Somerset, notified in 1991.
Prideaux Castle is a multivallate Iron Age hillfort situated atop a 133 m (435 ft) high conical hill near the southern boundary of the parish of Luxulyan, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is also sometimes referred to as Prideaux Warren, Prideaux War-Ring, or Prideaux Hillfort. The site is a scheduled monument and so protected from unauthorised works by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979.
Towan is found in many placenames in Cornwall. However, The Towans usually refers to the three-mile (5 km) stretch of coastal dunes which extends north-east from the estuary of the River Hayle to Gwithian beach with a midpoint near Upton. The South West Coast Path crosses the towans.
Warton Crag is a limestone hill in north west Lancashire, England. It lies to the north west of Warton village, in City of Lancaster district. At 163 metres (535 ft) it is the highest point in the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and is listed as a "HuMP" or "Hundred Metre Prominence", having a "drop" or "prominence" of 126 metres (413 ft) with its parent being Hutton Roof Crags. Two areas are Local Nature Reserves, called Warton Crag and Warton Crag Quarry. Different sections are owned by Lancashire County Council, the Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside, Lancaster City Council and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Bartinney Castle is an Iron Age enclosure located in the Penwith Peninsula of Southwest Cornwall, England, it is surrounded by a circular earthwork standing on a hill surrounded by various archaeological prehistoric remains, including ancient settlements, field systems, tumuli and cairns.
Hillforts in Britain refers to the various hillforts within the island of Great Britain. Although the earliest such constructs fitting this description come from the Neolithic British Isles, with a few also dating to later Bronze Age Britain, British hillforts were primarily constructed during the British Iron Age. Some of these were apparently abandoned in the southern areas that were a part of Roman Britain, although at the same time, those areas of northern Britain that remained free from Roman occupation saw an increase in their construction. Some hillforts were reused in the Early Middle Ages, and in some rarer cases, into the Later Medieval period as well. By the early modern period, these had essentially all been abandoned, with many being excavated by archaeologists in the nineteenth century onward.
Crickley Hill and Barrow Wake is a 56.8-hectare (140-acre) biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Gloucestershire, notified in 1974.
Cornish promontory forts, commonly known in Cornwall as cliff castles, are coastal equivalents of the hill forts and Cornish "rounds" found on Cornish hilltops and slopes. Similar coastal forts are found on the north–west European seaboard, in Normandy, Brittany and around the coastlines of the British Isles, especially in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Many are known in southwest England, particularly in Cornwall and its neighbouring county, Devon. Two have been identified immediately west of Cornwall, in the Isles of Scilly.
The Cornish Killas is a natural region covering most of the county of Cornwall in southwest England. It has been designated as National Character Area 152 by Natural England.
Ceredigion is a large rural county in West Wales. It has a long coastline of Cardigan Bay to the west and the remote moorland of the Cambrian Mountains in the east, with the mountainous terrain of Plynlimon in the northeast. Ceredigion has a total of 264 scheduled monuments. That is too many to have on a single list page, so for convenience the list is divided into two, 163 prehistoric sites and 101 Roman, Medieval and Post Medieval sites.
Chalbury Hillfort is an Iron Age hillfort about 1 mile (1.6 km) south-east of the village of Bincombe, in Dorset, England. It is a scheduled monument.
The Cornish Bronze Age is an era of the prehistory of Cornwall that spanned the period from c. 2400 BCE to c. 800 BCE. It was preceded by the Cornish Neolithic, and followed by the Cornish Iron Age. It is characterized by the introduction and widespread use of copper and copper-alloy (bronze) weapons and tools.
The prehistory of Cornwall spans an extensive timeframe from the earliest evidence of archaic human presence in Cornwall, perhaps c. 225,000 years ago, to the Roman conquest of Britain c. 43 CE, encompassing the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age periods. Throughout this era Cornwall underwent significant cultural and environmental changes, evolving from a sparsely-populated hunter-gatherer society reliant on rudimentary stone tools to an agricultural society characterized by developed metallurgical practices, expansive trade networks, and emerging social complexity.