The volunteers keeping Cornwall’s historic places standing

Long before anyone walks a path to an ancient monument or leans on a dry stone wall for a photo, someone has already been out in the wind and the wet making sure it is still there to see.

📷Credit: Cornwall Heritage Trust

Thousands of hours, no fanfare

Every year, Rangers and volunteers from Cornwall Heritage Trust put in thousands of hours protecting Cornwall’s historic places. The work is not limited to the monuments the charity owns outright. Through its Practical Tasks Scheme, a team of volunteers heads out every week, whatever the weather, to help other organisations and local landowners look after the historic sites in their care.

The tasks vary from site to site. Some weeks it is clearing overgrown paths, others it is managing habitats around a monument, or the slower, heavier work of conserving a wall or a structure stone by stone.

📷Credit: Cornwall Heritage Trust

Carrying on where Penwith left off

The scheme continues work first started by the Penwith Landscape Partnership, and Cornwall Heritage Trust says it is having a major impact on the area’s heritage. Clearing paths, managing habitats and conserving monuments all feed into the same aim, keeping these places part of the Cornish landscape for generations still to come.

It is easy to walk past a well-kept stretch of wall or a clear, dry path and not think about who made it that way. Cornwall Heritage Trust‘s message is a simple one: next time you visit one of the county’s historic places, it is worth a moment to appreciate the people helping to keep it special.

📷Credit: Cornwall Heritage Trust

The man behind the wheelbarrow

The Practical Tasks team is led by Richie, the charity’s Practical Tasks Officer. His role is currently supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, funding that keeps the weekly rota of clearing, repairing and conserving going across the charity’s sites and beyond.

No two weeks look the same for the team. Some days it is a quiet corner of moorland with only sheep for company, others a clifftop site with an audience of grazing cattle and a lighthouse on the horizon. Either way, the work carries on.

📷Credit: Cornwall Heritage Trust

📷Credit: Cornwall Heritage Trust