Kennall Vale nature reserve

Habitat type: Woodland and open water Size of Reserve: 8ha (20 acres) OS Map No. 104 Grid reference: SW 753 375 Best time to visit: Winter
Cornwall Wildlife Trust encourages the use of environmentally friendly forms of transport wherever possible. Click on the locator map above to go to the National Cycle Network website and view an Ordnance Survey map of this reserve highlighting nearby cycle routes.

Kennal Vale photograph by Roger Driver

Directions:

Turn off the A393 at the post office in Ponsanooth and follow this road for a few hundred yards. Access to the reserve is via a footpath on the right as you ascend the hill.

Access:

Very limited parking in lanes near the site, so please be careful not to obstruct access routes. Tracks and paths run throughout the reserve; these can be muddy and in some places the surface can be wet and very slippery.

Classification

Description:

A picturesque woodland with rich undergrowth and open glades. It contains a water-filled quarry and the wooded slopes are punctuated by the remains of granite gunpowder mills.

Water wheel at Kennal Vale photograph by Roger Driver

Characteristic wildlife of this reserve:

The dipper is a land bird, with the appearance of a huge wren. It swims and dives because most of its food, such as insect larvae, freshwater snails and small fish, is found in the water. The dipper can stay underwater for about 30 seconds. Its nest is large and dome-shaped and can usually be found over running water. The dipper's beak is short and straight, and its plumage is generally brown, although it sports a dashing white throat and a partial white breast.

Unlike three-cornered leek, the common and widespread alien, ramsons are rather unusual in West Cornwall. The smell of the plant lets us know that it is an onion, but the flowers, grouped like a cluster of white stars on top of a rather tall stem surrounded by two or three deep-green broad leaves, make this a most attractive woodland plant.

Other information

Kennall Vale Gunpowder Works was established in the early 19th century and produced high quality gunpowder for the mining industry. Its remains, scattered throughout the reserve, include several mills and buildings and a complex system of leats; the Works became a Scheduled Monument in 1999.

Other items that may be of interest:

Visit the Look around Cornwall web site for a panoramic view of Kennal Vale and other Cornish places.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust Nature Reserves

List of reserves ... Armstrong Woods Bakers Pit Beales Meadow Bissoe Valley Bosvenning Common Cabilla and Redrice Woods Caer Brân Carn Moor Chûn Downs Churchtown Farm Chyverton Devichoys Wood Downhill Meadow Fal-Ruan Estuary Five Acres Fox Corner Greena Moor Halbullock Hawkes Wood Helman Tor Kemyel Crease Kennall Vale Lanvean Bottoms Loggan's Moor Loveny Lower Lewdon Luckett Maer Lake Nansmellyn Marsh North Predannack Downs Park Hoskyn Pendarves Wood Penlee Battery Phillips's Point Priddacombe Downs Prideaux Wood Quoit Heathland Redlake Cottage Meadows Ropehaven Cliffs Rosenannon Downs St Erth Pits St George's Island Swanvale Sylvia's Meadow Tamar Estuary Tincombe Trebarwith Tresayes Tywardreath Marsh Upton Meadow Upton Towans Ventongimps Moor Welcombe & Marsland Windmill Farm

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