Baker's Pit Nature Reserve is a

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

in the parish of

Ludgvan Ludgvan ( ; kw, Lujuan) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, UK, 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 go ...

, west Cornwall managed by the

Cornwall Wildlife Trust The Cornwall Wildlife Trust is a charitable organisation founded in 1962 that is concerned solely with Cornwall, England. It deals with the conservation and preservation of Cornwall's wildlife, geology and habitats managing over 50 nature reser ...

(CWT). The reserve is on the moorland of Noon Diggery and is south of the Castle-an-Dinas

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

and Roger's Tower, a

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

built within the hillfort. Within the reserve is a distinctively shaped enclosure with a funnel-like entrance resembling a

banjo enclosure In archaeology, a banjo enclosure is the name of a type of archaeological feature of the British Middle Iron Age. It is so named because in plan it consists of a small round area with a long entrance track leading inward from one direction. This l ...

, which is an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

ritual site found mostly in

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

and south-east England and the only known one in Cornwall, The land was donated by

Imerys Imerys S.A. is a French multinational company which specialises in the production and processing of industrial minerals. It is headquartered in Paris and is a constituent of the CAC Mid 60 index. Imerys has operations in over 40 countries and ...

to the CWT in 2000 and part of the reserve is a disused china clay quarry.

Geography

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 West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

. The nearest village is

Nancledra Nancledra or Nancledrea is a village in west Cornwall, England, UK. It is three miles (5 km) south of St Ives and four miles (6.5 km) north-northeast of Penzance.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 203 ''Land's End'' Nancledra is ...

and the reserve is approximately mid-way between the towns of

Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated ...

and St Ives. On the southern boundary is the Castle-an Dinas quarry, and Roger's Tower, a folly built on an

hillfort. 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 wind In meteorology, prevailing wind in a region of the Earth's surface is a surface wind that blows predominantly from a particular direction. The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point on ...

s. There is no onsite parking and access is via minor roads off the B3311, or via footpaths.

History

The upland areas of West Penwith are known for the surviving prehistoric and medieval features in the landscape, which include

ritual A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized, b ...

, settlement and

pastoral A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...

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 Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

field boundaries can range from the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...

in date. Also within the reserve is an early Bronze Age

barrow Barrow may refer to: Places England * Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria ** Borough of Barrow-in-Furness, local authority encompassing the wider area ** Barrow and Furness (UK Parliament constituency) * Barrow, Cheshire * Barrow, Gloucestershire * Barro ...

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. In the

Kelly's Directory Kelly's Directory (or more formally, the Kelly's, Post Office and Harrod & Co Directory) was a trade directory in England that listed all businesses and tradespeople in a particular city or town, as well as a general directory of postal addresses o ...

of 1873, an extensive china clay work and quarry, belonging to Mr Baker of

Amalveor Amalveor ( kw, Amal Veur, meaning "great Amal"; 'Amal' appears to be the name of a river) is a hamlet in West Penwith, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom at . The hamlet is south-west of St Ives. It is in the civil parish of Towednack. A pair o ...

is recorded, and extensive works are also mentioned twenty years later in the 1893 edition.

References

Bibliography

* {{Portal, Cornwall Nature reserves of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust Penwith Quarries in Cornwall