Cornwall

Godolphin Hill walk

Enjoy a gentle ramble up to the top of Godolphin Hill, which offers one of the most impressive views over West Cornwall you can find – on a clear day stretching to St Michael's Mount and St Ives bay.

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Total steps: 6

Start point

Godolphin reception/tea room; grid ref: SW600318

Step 1

Leave the car park and turn right, up the track past the path in the hedge on your left.

Step 2

2. Continue past the barns and where the track curves to the right go over the cattle grid on the far left and follow the path across the field. At the far end, go over the stile to enter the wide tree-shaded lane known as the Slips.

The Slips

This old lane – its walls cloaked in ivy, ferns, herb robert, navelwort and red campion – runs directly from Godolphin House to Godolphin Hill. The name 'slips' crops up in many Cornish places, referring to narrow pieces of land, strip fields or 'stitches'. In medieval times, this lane passed through a strip-field system and this might explain the name. Its width is typical of moorland droving lanes, used for moving sheep and cattle to and from summer hilltop grazing lands. In the 17th century, the lane was planted with sycamore trees.

Step 3

Turn right and follow the path up the Slips to reach an arrangement of gates and walls, developed over centuries to give livestock access to the estate's main water supply, which follows the line of the avenue. Continue through the gate and uphill, passing fenced-off pits on your left and mine shafts protected by 'collors' of moss-covered stone walls. Follow the path through a gateway and continuing uphill until you reach the junction with the path encircling the base of Godolphin Hill.

Pits and mine shafts

The shafts around you are about 400 years old and include an old adit which carries the water supply to Godolphin House from the workings. They are now home to lesser horseshoe bats and the Slips provide an excellent night-time feeding area for them. The old deer park to your left was created when the family was at its most wealthy, around the 16th century. It was very much a status symbol as the park extends down to the garden, making it prominent for any eminent visitors.

Step 4

Turn left and take the path around the hill. Follow the path until, close to Leeds' Shaft, a path forks left down to Park Gate, an opening in the old deer park pale.

Deer park boundary

You are now walking towards Tregonning Hill, topped by a distinctive war memorial and rich in archaeological remains. The wall surrounding the deer park pale is at least 400 years old and is part of the original boundary of the earliest deer park at Godolphin. As you walk up the hill you are walking through a landscape scarred and pitted by centuries of human activity: beneath the gorse and heather lie the remains of ancient field systems, tinner's pits, artificial rabbit warrens and Bronze Age settlements.

Step 5

Ignore this path and take the one on the right up towards the summit of Godolphin Hill.

The summit of Godolphin Hill

As you follow the circuitous route towards the summit, you may encounter grazing ponies in the summer and Red Devon cows in winter. By munching the gorse and trampling the bracken, both help to create a more diverse habitat for wildlife. The top of the hill, in the view of so many other hills, was an old beacon site. There is a prehistoric enclosure from the neolithic period, 4,000-3,000BC, similar to those at Carn Galver, Carn Brea, Trencrom and St Michael's Mount.

Step 6

When you reach the top of the hill, the full panorama is revealed. On a clear day you can see both coasts, to the south views of Mounts Bay and the iconic St Michaels Mount and to the north views of St Ives Bay. Leaving the summit take the path north, on the right, which will lead you down towards the Slips, from where you can retrace your steps to the car park.

End point

Godolphin reception/tea room; grid ref: SW600318

Trail map

Godolphin Hill walk map | © Crown copyright and database rights 2013 Ordnance Survey

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01736763194

godolphin@nationaltrust.org.uk

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Godolphin Hill walk

Total steps: 6