Road, hollow way, Turnaware Point, The Roseland (Trelissick)

Summary

This is an early road to Turnaware Point, reused along much of its length to form the military road serving the D-Day embarkation hard at Turnaware Point (96223), currently the vehicular access to the Point. It is interpreted as a pre-19th century, probably medieval, route to the fishery and landing place on the River Fal between Turnaware Bar and the mouth of Tolcarne Creek (94840, 96204), and to the ancient woodland extending along the south of the creek (94842).

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Description

This is an early road to Turnaware Point, reused along much of its length to form the military road serving the D-Day embarkation hard at Turnaware Point (96223), currently the vehicular access to the Point. It is interpreted as a pre-19th century, probably medieval, route to the fishery and landing place on the River Fal between Turnaware Bar and the mouth of Tolcarne Creek (94840, 96204), and to the ancient woodland extending along the south of the creek (94842). The steep Turnaware end of the road, not adopted for the D-Day hard access, seems to have been shifted west in the early 19th century as part of the improvements to the Point by the Trelissick Estate, leaving hollow-ways on its earlier line in the edge of Camerance Wood and the adjoining plantation (described below). The upper half of the newer curve of road west of the wood was probably re-used during World War II, more or less unaltered. It would have linked the greater part of the road - adopted as the approach to the hards at Turnaware Point – and a cluster of military buildings on the west of Camerance Wood (96228). The lower half of the curve, though, was truncated by the deeply cut side branch of the access road leading to the east side of the D-Day embarkation hard, and by the hard itself (see 90502, 96224).
Part of the old road, not incorporated in the main military road (though probably used in the war to serve military buildings set above the hard, 96228) is represented by the straight track south of the plantation (94843), just outside the National Trust property. This track, reused as an access for forestry work, is 3m wide and has a levelled surface slightly raised above the gentle slope on its west, with rough metalling probably dating from World War II. The remains of the early route further down its course in the woodland, mentioned above, consist of two lengths of hollow-way, following the same alignment. One is a clear linear depression 1.8m wide and 0.3m deep, running across the north-west corner of the plantation, to be cut by the boundary between the latter and Camerance Wood. The second, more substantial though less well defined, is a sunken area in the wood below this boundary, between a scarp 1.1m wide and 0.7m high on its east, and the present boundary of the wood (Fig 25). The curve of road replacing the hollow-way, to the west, is disused, and is partly re-absorbed into a field, and partly obscured by dense scrub. A bank 1.7m wide and 0.7m high on its north, 0.2m high on its south, runs through the scrub on top of the ‘island’ between the forked end of the access to the D-Day hard. This may represent a fragment of the truncated bottom end of the shifted road, left stranded 7m or so above the surrounding ground level.

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