Search

Increasingly there is an understanding of the complexities of heritage within UK research, practice and policy. This has contributed to a growing recognition of intangible heritage, however there remains low awareness, and lack of sustained support, for Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). This paper outlines a case study - 'The Man Engine Pilgrimage' a popular performative heritage event in 2016 that celebrated the ten-year anniversary of Cornwall as a WHS, designated 'Outstanding Universal Value'. Central to this heritage performance was a twelve metre tall mechanical puppet, replicating parts of the mining process, which made a pilgrimage across the Cornish landscape, visiting old mining sites as an act of community remembrance, spatial identity and celebration. These events called attention to ways that 'heritage' was used and celebrated through formal and informal processes and practices. The study in particular provided insight into structural changes in official heritage processes in Cornwall that facilitated bridging processes or entry points for 'from-below' voices and intangible heritage. The latter included performing Cornishness, which is explored as the living, sensorial embodied performance of heritage in public. This is a reflexive cultural process, where values and symbolic meanings are seen in action – a 'loose' space. Within this performativity meanings and values are created, negotiated, confirmed or refuted in this process of heritage making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the inaugural issue of Past and Present , Eric Hobsbawm cautioned historians against the assumption that a capitalist economy has an inherent tendency to cost-saving and technological innovation, emphasizing that 'It has a bias only towards profit'. Inspired by Hobsbawm, this article shows how a history of profit can elucidate the economic and social history of machines. Beginning with miners' protests at the stoppage of Boulton & Watt steam engines in Cornish copper mines in the late 1780s, it shows that these engines' implications for the people who invested in, and worked, the mines were conditioned by a complex relationship between profit and power: mechanical power, which was crucial to the mining of copper and the costs of its production; imperial power, given fluctuating demand for copper from different parts of the British empire; and market power, since control over price setting on the British copper market was crucial for Cornish mining profits. Understanding what determined mines' profits helps to account for capitalists' decisions to stop their engines as well as copper miners' protests at their actions. More generally, it suggests the potential of studying the economic and social history of new machines through the lens of profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines strategies for improving recycling behaviour within the Cornwall National Health Service (NHS). Using quantitative (questionnaires and waste bin analyses) and qualitative (ethnography and interviews) methodologies, the study examined the waste management practices of staff from the Cornwall NHS. It was found that employee participation in waste recycling at work was low due to a range of factors including NHS focus and policies, group norms, and individual attitudes and beliefs about sustainable waste management. Recommendations for improving the sustainability of NHS, employee waste management practices, with a specific focus on recycling are included in the paper. These recommendations include measures focused towards both the NHS organization and individual staff members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four Cornish buildings with base-cruck trusses are described, part of a distinctive group that share the feature of having the blades passing the tiebeams to clasp the arcade plates. They have been dated, using a combination of ring-width and stable-isotope dendrochronology, to between the late thirteenth and late fourteenth centuries, making them the earliest known secular buildings in Cornwall. The paper discusses how these trusses relate to the development of the base-cruck form nationally and sets the buildings into their broader historical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces a historical geography of antiquarianism in the English county of Cornwall, paying particular attention to the period from 1750 to 1900 and to research conducted into the region's ancient stone monuments. The paper argues that from the mid-eighteenth century onwards Cornish antiquarianism was largely a field-based activity. After a short discussion of the work of notable eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century antiquarians the paper focuses on the labours of those in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Differences between the two periods are discussed – these, it is argued, centred around different valuations of place and method – before the anatomy of Victorian antiquarianism's field culture is mapped out. The paper concludes with a discussion of the place of Cornish antiquarianism in wider networks of intellectual exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to our understandings of the geographies of science through an analysis of nineteenth–century natural history and, in particular, of the provincial natural history society. Focusing on nineteenth–century Cornwall and one of the main natural history societies operating in the county at that time – the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society – it is argued that a set of key spaces were integral to the operations and outputs of such societies. The paper details the significance of the Penzance Society’s museum, field sites and lecture hall as sites for communal work of local natural historians. They were also important, it is argued, in their construction of West Cornwall as a site of national natural scientific importance. Lastly, these spaces defined an agenda for regional scientific study. In particular, they promoted a taxonomic method that would transform local people into rigorous scientists and the local region into a ‘book of nature’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines participatory budgeting (PB) as an instrument of localism – the devolution of political governance with the aim to produce sustainable democratic communities. This will be achieved through a detailed exploration of the decision-making mechanisms for creating local governance through PB schemes designed and organised by the Cornwall Council (UK). First introduced in the UK by the previous Labour administration in 2008, PB has become a tool of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and is central to the neoliberal ethos of Big Society and localism. In a time of rapid political change, we respond to Eaton's [2008. From feeding the locals to selling the locale: adapting local sustainable food projects in Niagara to neocommunitarianism and neoliberalism.Geoforum, 39, 994–1006, 996] suggestion that greater attention be paid to “the specificities of particular neoliberal projects” by focusing on the micro-politics of PB. We draw upon empirical evidence from PB pilot schemes run in rural Cornwall in 2008, examining the effect of “nudging” decision-making. Grounding this inquiry in the existing literature on neoliberal statecraft, this paper investigates the role of government technologies which seek to frame local governance using mechanisms of libertarian paternalism [Painter, J., 2008. European citizenship and the regions.European Urban and Regional Studies, 15, 5–19; Painter, J., 2010. Rethinking territory.Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 42, 1090–1118; MacLeavy, J., 2008. Neoliberlising subjects: the legacy of new labour's construction of social exclusion in local governance.Geoforum, 39, 1657–1666]. We argue in this paper that neoliberal ideology has integrated the epistemology of behavioural economics. We draw conclusions commensurate with the outcomes of PB projects conducted in Latin America, namely that citizens can be steered towards making certain decisions. We assert that in order to direct decision-making successfully, governmental “top-down” frameworks and goals need to be married with local geographies and “bottom-up” local desires and aspirations, thereby enabling a “countervailing power” [Sintomer, Y., Herzberg, C. and Rocke, A., 2008. Participatory budgeting in Europe: potentials and challenges.International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 32, 164–178] to develop. This power is exercised by a participating and scrutinising citizen that contribute towards, and balance, governmental practices of PB. With a wider governmental emphasis on designing or “architecting” choice in opportunities for local governing, there is now an even greater necessity to recognise the context of geography in local government community-orientated initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses some of the main processes that occur during a flash-flood with a two-dimensional (2D) model (InfoWorks RS with a 2D module). The data collated in the Valency River after an extreme rainfall event in the Boscastle area, in the north coast of Cornwall (UK) in August 2004, are used to analyse such processes. The paper focuses on blockage of structures, which clearly influences flow distribution and water levels in the floodplain and on changes in flow paths by collapse of some structures, which have a relatively local influence. Changes of channel dimensions due to geomorphological processes as scour and deposition are also studied, although their influence is reduced by the effect of bridge blockage. Understanding the processes that occur in the river during a flash-flood contributes to the development of risk models to reduce vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working out from an encounter with a series of memorial benches at Mullion Cove, Cornwall, this paper develops an account of landscape in terms of absence and the non-coincidence of self and world. Arguing that recent work on the topics of landscape, embodiment, perception and material culture has tended to stress presence in various ways, I seek to explore instead here motifs of absence, distance, loss and haunting. The paper further attempts to combine descriptive and experiential accounts of the memorial benches and the views they open with conceptual arguments regarding the limits of certain phenomenological understandings of self and landscape. In particular, Derrida’s critical reading of Merleau-Ponty is outlined and explored. The final substantive section of the paper then takes a further cue from the memorial benches to discuss what it terms the geographies of love. The argument here is that such geographies constitute a fracture forbidding any phenomenological fusion of self and world, entailing instead a simultaneous opening-onto and distancing-from. It is within the tension of this openness and distance, perhaps, that landscape, absence and love are entangled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to determine how people value species for conservation and apply it to policymaking. This paper is the first attempt to value one of the UK´s rarest birds specifically; the redbilled chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax). Classical economic theory struggles to assign value to resources that are not a product of markets, such as endangered wildlife. The contingent valuation method will be used to gauge how P pyrrhocorax is valued in Cornwall via a questionnaire method, eliciting responses to how much individuals are willing to pay to preserve this rare species. The methodology requires diligent questionnaire design, implementation and regression analysis. It was found that the average willingness to pay was £23.60 to mitigate habitat damage to this endangered and iconic bird. Economic valuation has a large role to play in determining policy for species conservation. However, there are other more complex and non-orthodox forms of valuation occurring such as aesthetic, intrinsic bequest and relational values that cannot be accounted for by direct valuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory paper examines the role of food tourism in developing and sustaining regional identities within the context of rural regeneration, agricultural diversification and the creation of closer relationships between production and consumption in the countryside. It focuses on Cornwall, South West England, an area with rural development issues, increasing tourism impacts and contested issues of regional identity. A literature and policy analysis, and in-depth interviews with 12 restaurateurs, were undertaken in four popular tourist locations. Correlation was found between increased levels of food tourism interest and the retention and development of regional identity, the enhancement of environmental awareness and sustainability, an increase in social and cultural benefits celebrating the production of local food and the conservation of traditional heritage, skills and ways of life. The paper draws attention to three issues: the role of food tourism in increasing tourist spending, the potential role of food tourism in extending the tourist season, and the re-examination of food tourist typologies within a sustainability framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a well-established interest in the relationship between space and identity, geographers still know little about how communal identities in specific places are built around a sense of religious belonging. This paper explores both the theoretical and practical terrain around which such an investigation can proceed. The paper makes space for the exploration of a specific set of religious groups and practices, which reflected the activities of Methodists in Cornwall during the period 1830–1930. The paper is concerned to move analysis beyond the 'officially sacred' and to explore the everyday, informal, and often banal, practices of Methodists, thereby providing a blueprint for how work in the geography of religion may move forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we look at how landscape and climate change are simultaneously apprehended through institutional strategies and then negotiated through local knowledge and social relations on the ground. We argue that by examining landscapes that are practised, embodied and lived, it is possible to gain an understanding of people's actions, beliefs and values in relation to climate and climate change. This attention to cultural landscapes also enables us to ask how a variety of publics make sense of climate change, and how they are invited to do so by organisations that take responsibility for the management and preservation of landscape, such as the National Trust, Europe's biggest conservation organisation. This paper considers how the Trust makes sense of climate change via the document Shifting Shores and how its strategies are operationalised on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brexit means that regions of the United Kingdom will lose access to the EU Cohesion Policy. Have EU funds been effective, and what might be the consequences of an interruption of EU financial support? This paper studies the impact of 'Objective 1' funding-the highest form of EU aid-in Cornwall and South Yorkshire, two of the U.K.'s most subsidized regions. Counterfactual methodologies assessing their labor market and economic performance provide evidence of a positive effect of EU Objective 1 funds. When in 2006 South Yorkshire lost Objective 1 eligibility, this massively reduced its share of EU funds and the region was unable to sustain the gains obtained in previous years. This suggests that while Structural Funds may be effectively improving socio-economic conditions of poorer regions, the performance of subsidized areas could be deeply affected by a reduction (or worse, an interruption) of EU aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses cluster analysis, a form of a posteriori market segmentation, to understand the attitudes of tourists and the local community towards using the Looe Valley Branch Railway Line. The research revealed five segments of users distinguished by their attitudes towards using the train. Following this, the paper discusses the implications of the survey findings for attracting more people to use the Looe Valley Line. It sets its findings in the context of the sustainable tourism aims of reducing transport congestion and emissions, as well as recent work on assessing the scope for sustainable transport development in the leisure and tourism markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an evaluation of the Cornwall Young Carers project (jointly funded by social services and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Health Action Zone), conducted during the period 2000–2002. A diverse range of methodological approaches were adopted (comparative national statistics, local pilot study, monthly and quarterly data capturing instruments, and a service user focus group) in monitoring and evaluating the project's high level statements/outcomes. Four evaluative themes are discussed, namely: identification of young carers; assessment of young carers' needs; direct service provision; and partnership working. Recommendations and action steps are proposed with a view of informing future planning and service delivery, as well as developing an ethos of integrating evaluation into everyday practice for the Cornwall Young Carers Project. Overall, the project has made significant progress in meeting and exceeding its original targets. The fact that the project has been able to identify 202 new young carers over this period is a key milestone in demonstrating the critical need for the project's services. It is suggested that existing referrals are only the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for work with young carers in Cornwall. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse linguistic variables which are well-established in British English, the vowels in the trap and bath lexical sets. We demonstrate that the social meanings of these variables are both historically substantiated and locally-elaborated. Our data is taken from the speech of individuals living on the Isles of Scilly, a group of islands off the south-west coast of England. Our initial analysis shows that trap and bath variants found on the islands are linked to contact with Standard English English, on the one hand, and the nearest neighbouring variety of Cornish English, on the other. The general distribution of variants is shown to reflect educational differences amongst our speakers. However, two case studies show speakers using forms atypical of their education type in order to position themselves in interactionally-dynamic ways. This reveals how speakers exploit the multidimensional meanings of linguistic variants to reflect and construct local practices and alignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability is a key challenge facing society in the twenty-first century, although its implementation at heritage sites can present some significant challenges for the custodians. This paper investigates progress in the adoption of sustainable practices in the management of a sample of 416 heritage properties and sites in Devon and Cornwall. The findings are based on the compilation of an inventory of selected heritage resources; an extensive questionnaire survey of managers of historic houses, churches and museums, which investigated the extent of, and opinions about, sustainable management approaches; and targeted, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with a small number of heritage managers that probed key issues in greater depth. The results indicate that very few heritage sites produce sufficient surpluses to facilitate investment in sustainable practices that might ultimately enhance their financial viability and fund enhanced conservation activities. It is argued that future strategies for the management of heritage resources must therefore not only deal with capacity-building, such as access to information and training on sector-specific sustainable management, but also address institutional factors governing heritage in the UK, such as strategic leadership, the most effective models for governance and funding mechanisms for sustainability, and the creation of local and regional heritage networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change as a global problem has moved relatively swiftly into high profile political debates over the last 20 years or so, with a concomitant diffusion from the natural sciences into the social sciences. The study of the human dimensions of climate change has been growing in momentum through research which attempts to describe, evaluate, quantify and model perceptions of climate change, understand more about risk and assess the construction of policy. Cultural geographers' concerns with the construction of knowledge, the workings of social relations in space and the politics and poetics of place-based identities provide a lens through which personal, collective and institutional responses to climate change can be evaluated using critical and interpretative methodologies. Adopting a cultural geography approach, this paper examines how climate change as a particular environmental discourse is constructed through memory, observation and conversation, as well as materialised in farming practices on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation and complementarity are important but understudied components of tourism clusters, in general, and of the tourist attraction sector, in particular. This paper addresses product similarities, in general, and thematic similarity, in particular, in the context of spatial proximity and clustering among tourist attractions. These relationships are examined by exploring cooperation between tourist attractions in two tourism clusters in Cornwall, UK. Interviews with attraction managers and other key informants, and case studies, reveal that tourist attractions have established cooperative–complementary relationships of production based on external economies at both the local and the regional scales. Differences between the two clusters in terms of interviewees' perceptions of the relationships between factors indicate the importance of understanding the specific features of individual clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines an account of Cornwall published by Wilkie Collins in 1851, focusing specifically upon Collins's claim that the region lay 'beyond' the railway. In so doing it explores the way in which mid-nineteenth-century Gothic discourse can be understood to inform a scalar opposition between localised place - conceived of as static, isolated, anachronistic and particular - and globalised space - conceived of as kinetic, networked, modern and homogenous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the community regeneration dynamics of the Heartlands Project in Cornwall, UK. It is grounded in our autobiographical and experiential participation as artist consultants on the project during much of 2008. The paper addresses the issue of how landmarks of tin and copper mining are important spatial icons that generate some cohesion amongst the ambiguous constructions of culture and identity politics. The value of these derelict landscape features, which exist predominantly because of a large-scale shifting of matter, is of local, national and international significance. As emblems of heritage, such ruins provide a link with the past and equally a link with western industrialisation, capitalism and migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air inflated cushions are being used more and more as light roofs for large span structures, such as the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK (fig. 1). Most of the air inflated cushions are made of FTFE foil. Because air inflated cushions are form active structures they are subjected to geometric non-linear behaviour. This is usually dealt with by calculating these types of structures with form finding and finite element programmes with special membrane elements. For design purposes these calculations can be cumbersome, and do not necessarily provide the designer the required insight to make effective early design decisions. For this reason researchers have tried to derive simpler analysis methods without disregarding its geometric nonlinear nature (Wagner [1]). The method presented in this paper is a further step in developing these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cornwall has implemented significant changes to the way that it delivers its safeguarding adults training. This paper outlines the benefits of combining safeguarding adults, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (HM Government, 2005a) and equality and diversity training within a human rights framework. It examines the notion of learning transfer and considers how the design and delivery of training can improve the transfer of learning into practice. Finally, it highlights the importance of a receptive workplace culture to promote effective learning transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the process and progress of safeguarding adults in Cornwall since the murder of Steven Hoskin and the Serious Case Review that was carried out (Flynn, 2007). Interviews were carried out with frontline staff to assess how the processes have been delivered and whether this has had a beneficial impact. Multi-agency working has improved information sharing, but there is still work to be done to deliver consistent and effective responses from everyone involved in safeguarding adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the murder of Steven Hoskin, there have been considerable changes in the way that agencies in Cornwall operate. In order to prevent further tragedies on such a scale, a protocol was agreed by the agencies about when an alert should be triggered (Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Safeguarding Adults Board, 2008). This paper describes the process and implications of the protocol from the perspective of Devon and Cornwall Police, South Western Ambulance Service Trust and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust. The protocol has improved and encouraged information sharing within and between agencies, which will help to identify and reduce the risks to vulnerable adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime and disorder audits provide the opportunity to identify and address the concerns local people express about local policing. This paper discusses the findings of the 2001 and 2004 Cornwall Crime Surveys (CCSs) and identifies public perceptions of police and policing in the county. The 2004 survey is used to compare those holding more favourable views with those who are critical of the police. The findings are then used to test the hypothesis that those who are more critical of the public police will be more positive about plural policing alternatives. The findings indicate that rural residents' concerns over public safety are accentuated by their concerns that the police in Cornwall are less accessible than those in urban areas and they are generally supportive of increasing the policing mix. However, they clearly see improvements to the public police as the preferred solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper's aims were to investigate the time and costs of healthcare professionals involved with follow-up clinics for breast cancer patients; and to quantify the numbers of local recurrences detected. An audit of breast cancer patients diagnosed with disease recurrence was conducted, and data were collected from the cancer audit system and from an analysis of relevant case notes. Costs of the time spent in follow-up clinics by clinical staff were also collected. The study found that sixty-nine breast cancer patients were diagnosed with local recurrence between 1 January 1999 and 31 December 2004. Only 15% (10) of recurrences were detected at routine follow up, 48% were first noticed by patients themselves, and 37% were detected at routine mammography. Six separate follow-up clinics were scheduled each week. This involved a total clinic time of approximately 20 h, and a total weekly cost of around £4857, with an annual cost of £252 564. Our recommendation is that alternative methods of follow up need to be implemented so that healthcare professionals have more time for newly diagnosed patients, those on active treatment and those with relapsed disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite paying lip service to the local dimension to crime and disorder auditing,government policies in Britain have tended to prioritize national goals and standards. This is regrettable. The early acknowledgement that Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships could be grouped into families with distinct social, economic and criminogenic profiles underlined the importance of assessing crime and disorder issues in context. One example is the impact that tourism has upon crime and anti-social behaviour in areas catering for mass tourism and especially youth tourism. Using data from the 2001 and 2004 Crime and Disorder audits in Cornwall, and other local evaluations, this paper illustrates both how tourism impacts upon local crime patterns and how its impact needs to be recognized and incorporated into local planning processes.Crime Prevention and Community Safety (2008) 10, 158–173. doi:10.1057/cpcs.2008.11 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper challenges superficial views of ‘recyclia’ (or recycled art) so to consider more conceptual, holistic perspectives. In questioning how the ‘cultural and visual art world’ invests a new imagination and creativity onto abandoned possessions and derelict artefacts, the paper explores the recovery of social memory and the recycling of the past. With an emphasis on the conversion of Cornish shipping and fishing artefacts into recyclia and recycled narrative, the paper thus addresses the recycling of identities, histories and social relations. It does so from an interdisciplinary approach grounded in social anthropology, human geography and material culture studies. My main concern is to map out the journeys that certain tangible markers of prosperity and socio‐economic hardship take through official and low‐key recycling initiatives. Hence, the aim is to look at how Cornwall's historically significant nautical relics and waste are transformed into works of art and therefore into solid metaphors of cultural distinction. In this way, issues pertaining to cultural resurgence are knotted into the creative production for an ‘afterlife’ of things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the submission in January 2005 of The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status, this paper addresses briefly the contribution which the steam beam engine made to the Industrial Revolution through the development of mining in southwest Britain and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is motivated by a problem in veterinary epidemiology, in which spatially referenced breakdowns of bovine tuberculosis are classified according to their genotype and year of occurrence. We develop a nonparametric method for addressing spatial segregation in the resulting multivariate spatial point process, with associated Monte Carlo tests for the null hypothesis that different genotypes are randomly intermingled and no temporal changes in spatial segregation. Our spatial segregation estimates use a kernel regression method with bandwidth selected by a multivariate cross-validated likelihood criterion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to examine the effectiveness of "Logical Framework (LogFrame) Analysis" in developing intended strategy and linking it to operational planning in a collaborative environment, specifically in the context of developing Cornwall, England, Education Authority's 14-19 education strategy. Cornwall County Council has a structure based on the Cabinet and Leader model. Building collaboration will be essential as the 14-19 strategy seeks to influence the behavior of institutions and organizations that are beyond the statutory control of the local authority. This paper will first clarify the strategic issue, then consider the relevant strategic processes, through a review of the literature, and finally analyze the effectiveness of LogFrame analysis in being able to develop the intended strategy and link it to operational planning in a collaborative environment.

Woodland colonization on wetlands is considered to have a detrimental effect on their ecological value, even though detailed analysis of this process is lacking. This paper provides an evaluation of the ecological changes resulting from succession of poor fen (base-poor mire) to willow wet woodland on Goss Moor NNR in Cornwall, UK. Different ages of willow carr were associated with eight understorey communities. During willow colonization, in the ground flora, there was a progressive decrease in poor fen species and an associated increase in woodland species, which appeared to be related to an increase in canopy cover and therefore shade. The most diverse community was found to be the most recent willow and was dominated by poor fen species. The oldest willow was the second most diverse and was associated with a reduction in poor fen species and an increase in woodland species. Architectural features were used successfully to assess the general condition and structure of willow. Tree height and DBH were identified as useful parameters to accurately assess willow age in the field. The implications of active intervention to remove willow in order to conserve the full range of communities within the hydrosere are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the emerging territorial framework of west Cornwall in relation to community expression and power. It examines such issues as increasing administrative competence, territorial order and communal action. However. although such notions as emerging territoriality, secular political development and local communal cohesion are often associated with studies of modernisation and the emergence of distinctly modern systems and relations, this paper focuses on a peripheral region during the later medieval period (c. 1350-1550) and identifies such transitions as inherent within this pre-modern society. Evolving local ecclesiastical patterns in Cornwall during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries saw numerous small chapels and sub-parochial foundations struggling for status and recognition amid an increasingly well-delineated territorial framework of parishes. By relating accounts of incidents and episodes of local ecclesiastical politics and discord to the territorial expressions of community organisation, combinations of local people are identified that were operating to control and order their local affairs. As well as questioning the implicit assumptions that some geographers and other scholars have about a medieval society that was supposedly dominated by a collage of lordly manorial and high ecclesiastical power, this paper also makes space for theories of territoriality and organisational complexity as a way of examining the developments of a period for which the written record is both sparse and partial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from recent research undertaken into the characteristics and support needs of ethnic minority owned businesses (EMBs) in Devon and Cornwall. The study was commissioned by PROSPER (formerly Devon and Cornwall TEC and Business Link), in collaboration with the Rural Race Equality Project in South West England. EMBs have been the subject of growing interest from a variety of sources in recent years, generating considerable debate about their distinctiveness in comparison with other small firms and their needs in terms of public policy. Not surprisingly, perhaps, a great deal of this research has focused on areas where EMBs are concentrated, such as London and Birmingham. In contrast, this research focuses on EMBs in an area which is some distance from the main centres of EMB concentration and where the ethnic minority population is more dispersed, many in a rural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a case study in the relationship between people and place based on D.H. Lawrence's experience of living in Cornwall during the Great War. The first part shows the extent to which Lawrence's heavily Celticized vision was woven from a wider ideological web of Edwardian constructions of Cornwall. The second part goes beyond the borders of cultural construction to consider how far Lawrence's 20-month engagement with West Penwith departed from his 'imagined Cornwall'. His experience is contrasted both with the gaze of the passing tourist and with the traditional way of life of his farming neighbours. In maintaining his connections beyond Cornwall, and in his role of migrant, Lawrence can be productively compared with the Cornish people. Understanding the bond which Lawrence formed with his temporary home contributes to our broader comprehension of different ways of 'dwelling' in the modern world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. This paper discusses some well-known legends and hagiographic stories, and explores the context of their production and consumption. From an examination of Welsh foundation legends and Cornish hagiographical accounts, we focus on the methods by which versions of history were used in the Middle Ages to provide a context for fundamental changes in the way in which society was organised. It is found that, far from abandoning traditional versions of history, accounts of the past were promoted that sought to couch newer territorial notions of organisation within existing constructions of identity and mediations with the past. In an examination of the production and reception of these popular stories, we attempt to relate the legends to the generation of communal identity and memory. Consequently, drawing on Bourdieu's notion of habitus, we argue that pre-existing beliefs and customs were an important part in the development of newer institutional structures. Rather than initiating new practices that had no grounding in any particular past, institutional developments gained social currency by being inherently grounded in existing facets of cultural identity. In essence therefore, changing societal and institutional structures were unintentionally couched in the language and understandings of existing structures, so that in many ways a concept of continuity was at the very heart of actual change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The latest full survey of breeding Cirl Buntings Emberiza cirlus in the UK, in 2016, recorded an estimated 1,079 territories in 186 occupied tetrads. The UK population is still largely confined to south Devon but there is now a self sustaining population of 65 pairs in south Cornwall, established through a reintroduction project and considered the first successful passerine reintroduction in Europe. There is some evidence of natural recolonisation elsewhere in Devon and Cornwall. Between the 2009 and 2016 surveys, the size of the breeding population increased by 25% and the number of occupied tetrads by 37%. Overall, since conservation action commenced in the late 1980s, the population has increased ninefold. This is directly linked to the delivery of relevant options within agri-environment schemes. This paper describes the results of the 2016 survey and conservation measures that have facilitated population recovery to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information about a submarine telegraph system that is located in Porthcurno beach in Cornwall, England. It mentions that it is one of the world's most important telegraph cable stations which offer several benefits in long-distance telegraphy. It also offers information about the construction procedure and also mentions about Porthcurno's Cable and Wireless Museum.

Currently, bioaccessibility testing at contaminated sites is dominated by techniques designed to assess oral bioaccessibility to humans. Determining the plant bioaccessibility of toxic trace elements is also important. In mining landscapes, sulphides are an important source of potentially toxic elements. Simple tests to evaluate readily leachable metals and metalloids exist but do not extract elements temporarily constrained within the sulphide fraction. Sequential extractions describe the association of trace elements with different geochemical fractions but are time consuming, costly and provide excessive detail. This paper proposes a new test for plant bioaccessibility in sulphidic mine wastes and soils that uses hydrogen peroxide to simulate environmental oxidation. The bioaccessible fraction determined is operationally defined and does not predict actual plant uptake. The test targets a) the portion of an element that is currently available in the pore water for uptake by plant roots and also b) the fraction that is temporarily constrained in sulphide minerals but may become available upon oxidation of the substrate. A case study was conducted at a historic mine waste repository site in Cornwall, U.K. where near total As concentrations were extremely elevated and Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb and Zn were also high. Our test determined that bioaccessible concentrations of As, Cd, Cu and Zn and to a lesser extent Sb and Pb were highest in samples of pyritic grey tailings. This is attributed to sulphide mineral oxidation and, particularly for Cd and Zn, the dissolution of soluble secondary minerals. High As concentrations in the marbled tailings were not bioaccessible. Results from the case study show that this new test provides useful information on the future bioaccessibility of contaminants, allowing for classification of mineralised sulphidic waste materials which otherwise cannot be obtained using established geochemical and mineralogical techniques. Furthermore, the test is rapid, repeatable and cost effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper combines point-process modelling, visibility analysis and an information criteria approach to infer the reasons behind the Bronze Age settlement pattern of Leskernick Hill in Cornwall, UK. We formalise three alternative hypotheses as point process models characterised by different combinations of covariates. In addition to using traditional topographic variables, we use a form of affordance viewsheds, which we refer to as visibility fields, to investigate the visual properties of different parts of the landscape, both cultural and natural. We compare these three models by means of information criteria, and generate a fourth hybrid model by recombining variables drawn from each. The results reveal that a mixture of covariates drawn from the three hypotheses combined with a spatial interaction model provides the best overall model for the settlement pattern. We show that the settlement on Leskernick Hill was most likely the result of two separate decision-making processes, one to optimise the visibility of ritual monuments and important natural landmarks, and the other to optimise the visibility of nearby tin-extraction areas. We conclude that by using an information criterion approach it is possible to easily compare the models and identify which among these is the most satisfying in the present state of our knowledge. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on British inventor Richard Trevithick and his revolutionary 1801 steam engine Puffing Devil in context of the Trevithick Day celebrated by Cornish town of Camborne in Cornwall, England in month of April every year. Topics include steam engines operated in Cornwall, England including the Newcomen engine introduced in 1720 and the Watt engine in 1777 by Scottish inventor James Watt, Trevithick's steam boiler, and his engineering innovation Puffing Devil. INSET: THE REPLICA PROJECT.

Abstract: Inshore fishing communities in England, as elsewhere, are facing challenges as they struggle to deal with policy measures aimed at reducing fishing effort. Drawing on findings from a study aimed at exploring the role of fishing for place-making and identity creation in Cornwall, we argue that there may be potential opportunities for developing inshore fisheries under the rural development paradigm. By considering lessons from the agri-food sector, this paper considers models of multifunctionality and the scope for translating these approaches into the fisheries sector. By re-embedding fish in place, through marketing, branding and enabling small-scale supply chains that recognise fisheries' wider role in communities, fishing can be understood as a ‘multifunctional’ activity in coastal areas by re-connecting fishers with markets, consumers and the environment. To facilitate this, the importance of inshore fisheries to the socio-cultural and economic life of coastal communities needs to be recognised. Through valuing the often intangible benefits, such as identity, social cohesion and heritage, that fisheries bring to communities, fishing can be a useful development mechanism to enhance the economic and social sustainability of coastal communities. This creates new agendas for policy makers to understand the wider range of benefits afforded by marine fishing than productivist approaches alone. While initiatives are emerging to move the industry in this direction, coordinated and integrated policy development is needed to enhance these efforts and contribute to the creation of sustainable coastal communities with marine fishing as the focus. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Relationships between landscape-scale geomorphology and aspects of the human environment (including heritage and material cultures) are best examined in landscapes with a strong geomorphological imprint of past climatic and environmental changes, and where human activity has been present for a long period of time. In Cornwall, southwest England, a strong geomorphological signature is imparted by weathering of granite bedrock under cold Quaternary climates, and a strong cultural and heritage imprint is manifested in material and nonmaterial ways through archaeology, art, literature and folklore, and is illustrated in this paper through examples of Bodmin Moor (north Cornwall) and West Penwith (west Cornwall). Landscapes of Bodmin Moor include wide valleys with underfit rivers and upland summits with prominent tors, resulting from granite weathering and slope processes during the Tertiary and Quaternary. Pollen records show how human activity has changed on the moor over time, with a peak of settlement during the Bronze Age, and expansion of grazing into the Iron Age. Daphne du Maurier's novels, set on or adjacent to Bodmin Moor, emphasize the moor's relationship to unstable and intense human emotions and crises. In West Penwith, which is geomorphological similar to Bodmin Moor, geomorphology–culture relations are demonstrated in different ways but through a similar sense of place and regional identity. The St Ives School of early 20th Century art, including the local artist Peter Lanyon and the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, draws inspiration from the local land and seascapes. The oral traditions and folklore of Zennor emphasize the importance of witchcraft and superstition that are in part founded on the wildness of upland summits and stormy coastline. Across West Penwith, tin mining and the mining trade exerted a strong impact on regional socioeconomic and cultural development from the Bronze Age until the end of the 19th Century, seen through settlement patterns, scientific innovation and Nonconformism. Today these geomorphology–culture relations are memorialized in the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Concerns about the sustainability of an ageing farming population have brought interest in so called entry-exit issues in policy circles. Policy interventions to date have offered limited scope in stimulating farm transfer in UK, however, the increase in unconventional tenures which include partnerships, share farming and contract farming (collectively called joint ventures) would appear to offer new opportunities for those wishing to enter or leave farming. In recognition of this the Fresh Start initiative in Cornwall set up a matchmaking element with the aim of identifying and facilitating potential joint ventures agreements between new entrants and older farmers. The emphasis was on setting up long-term arrangements that would enable the new entrant to ‘buy into’ an existing farm business, gradually taking over managerial control. This paper examines the processes of matching partners for the possible formation of farm joint ventures, using qualitative data derived from interviews with the participants, deliverers and stakeholders involved in the matchmaking element of this initiative. The results reveal that there is a deep rooted reluctance amongst participants in the initiative to enter formal long term joint ventures due to differing motivations, expectations, and concerns about their respective responsibilities in the working relationship and about the validity of the legal framework. Only where a relationship had already been informally established was there a commitment to formalise a joint venture agreement. Future emphasis in policy should therefore be on helping to facilitate and formalise existing partnerships, rather than trying to artificially orchestrate matches where the parties do not know each other. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper a generic methodology is presented that allows the impacts of climate change on wave energy generation from a wave energy converter (WEC) to be quantified. The methodology is illustrated by application to the Wave Hub site off the coast of Cornwall, UK. Control and future wave climates were derived using wind fields output from a set of climate change experiments. Control wave conditions were generated from wind data between 1961 and 2000. Future wave conditions were generated using two IPCC wind scenarios from 2061 to 2100, corresponding to intermediate and low greenhouse gas emissions (IPCC scenarios A1B and B1 respectively). The quantitative comparison between future scenarios and the control condition shows that the available wave power will increase by 2–3% in the A1B scenario. In contrast, the available wave power in the B1 scenario will decrease by 1–3%, suggesting, somewhat paradoxically, that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions may reduce the wave energy resource. Meanwhile, the WEC energy will yield decrease by 2–3% in both A1B and B1 scenarios, which is mainly due to the relatively low efficiency of energy extraction from steeper waves by the specific WEC considered. Although those changes are relatively small compared to the natural variability, they may have significance when considered over the lifetime of a wave energy farm. Analysis of downtime under low and high thresholds suggests that the distribution of wave heights at the Wave Hub will have a wider spread due to the impacts of climate change, resulting in longer periods of generation loss. Conversely, the estimation of future changes in joint wave height-period distribution provides indications on how the response and power matrices of WECs could be modified in order to maintain or improve energy extraction in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In 1984 two roundhouses within the Bronze Age settlement at Bosiliack were partially excavated byjeannette Ratcliffe and Charles Thomas on behalf of the Institute of Cornish Studies. Six radiocarbon determinations have now been obtained on charcoal from these. The dates fall into two groups, with three in the later part of the Bronze Age in the centuries between 1390 and 1000 cal. BC, and three in the Iron Age between 750 and 200 cal. BC. The radiocarbon dates are important because, although settlements of roundhouses are well known in west Penwith, none had been scientifically dated. They are also significant because they demonstrate the longevity and changing character of occupation within the roundhouses, and demonstrate the differing biographies of adjacent structures. This paper outlines the results from the excavations and the radiocarbon dating programme before moving on to a discussion of settlement on the west Penwith uplands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]