Merry Christmas!

Wishing all our guests a very Merry Christmas

 and a wonderful Tamar Valley New Year!

as we say in Cornwall

"Nadelik Lowen ha Blydhen Nowydh Da"

Kit Hill for the Day

Kit Hill Country Park is our highest point with views for many miles around. A good walk up to the top, or around the contours using the pony paths and free roaming access to reach all the hidden mines and views.  Plenty of parking/picnic areas at various heights up to the summit and sheltered spots even right up at the top where kite flying is very popular. 

 Takes about 10 minutes by car to get from Albaston Farm Barn to the top.  We make a day of it by walking the old footpaths and up the lanes with a picnic and a kite. 

At the base of Kit Hill is the fantastic Louis Tea Room which is well worth the walk, or the drive just for the views from the windows.

Kit Hill 

Kit Hill was given to the people of Cornwall in 1985 to mark the birth of Prince William by his father, the Duke of Cornwall Prince Charles. Kit hill consists of 400 acres of breathtaking cornish landscape making it the most dominant landscape feature in East Cornwall  The hill stands high enough that even with the all the bends and high hedges of Cornwall's roads, the occasional glimpse of the monument on the horizon gives a driver something to find your way back with!

The 'Monument' as it is often referred to is actually a chimney stack, built 1858, just a year before the famous Brunels 'Royal Albert' Railway Bridge was finished, (which crosses the River Tamar into Devon,) and can be seen from up here.

The chimney served a steam engine which pumped water and lifted ore from the deep mine workings, before this, a windmill stood here in the 1830s.  Tin was the main extraction.



Kit Hill Panorama

Both Tamar bridges which cross the trains and traffic over the Devon/Cornwall border at Saltash can be seen in the far distance to the right horizon of this panorama photograph. 

Recently a few of the ponies from Dartmoor were brought to Kit Hill to graze and trample down the undergrowth. This hill has sheep and cattle, usually Highlanders, which continually walk around the hill in a full time job to keep out of the coldest winds in this area that blow around here. 

There is a ridge running from Tavistock to Callington which shelters the southern side of this area, on one side of this ridge there will be frost, on the other (our side) merely dew.  For the sake of a mile or two, the choice of where you choose to live can make so much difference.

Flooded Quarry at Kit Hill

One of the remnants from the mining and quarrying days is the Kit Hill Quarry which filled up with water and doubles up now as a dog wash and canoe pond!  Wonderful nature reserve too with damselfly, dragonfly and many butterflies with the near constant presence of the Buzzards riding on the thermals

We like to use this handy spot for a picnic. Stone was often dressed on site here as it makes sense not to move more weight than needed when you have a serious hillside to move the blocks down.  An Incline Railway was built here for this purpose.

View from Kit Hill