Photo: Victoria Whitehouse

Ups and downs
in mid-Cornwall
Breney Common and Red Moor are two of the Trust's largest wetland nature reserves. Totalling nearly 150 hectares (370 acres) in area, they are separated by the imposing Neolithic hill settlement of Helman Tor. Water has played a major part in shaping this landscape, resulting in habitats which today support a varied abundance of wildlife.
The early Neolithic tor enclosure has been dated to the fourth millennium BC and at this time Breney Common and Red Moor would have been largely wooded. In the Dark and Middle Ages Christian missionaries and pilgrims passed by the tor along the trans-Cornwall route, the Saints' Way. The most dramatic impact on this landscape has been that of its history of alluvial mining. At Crift Farm, to the south of Helman Tor and also on the Saints' Way, evidence has been found of an early occupation around 1200AD with related tin processing works. By the early 20th century alluvial mining, or tin streaming, had become mechanised and the landscape beneath the tor was reshaped for ever. Alpha Dredge, photographed here on Breney Common with Helman Tor in the background, was capable of working two acres of land per week, where it blasted high-velocity water jets at faces of overburden to release the deposits. This method was replaced by a large floating bucket dredge that worked Breney Common until the company, Tin Alluvials Ltd, was declared bankrupt in 1917. Remnants of tin streaming equipment can still be seen in one of the ponds at Breney Common. Such a seemingly brutal land use has resulted in a hummock-hollow landscape with perched water tables supporting a mosaic of open water, scrub, heathland and mire communities. The post-war threat of agricultural intensification nearly changed the site again when attempts were made to drain parts of Red Moor. Fortunately this was halted and the site became a nature reserve.