Cornish Secrets by Rebecca Ford

Colin Wills lifts a silvery piece of tin and holds it to my ear. "Listen carefully," he says, then moves the metal gently between his fingers. For a moment there is silence. Then I hear it - a gentle grinding sound that comes from deep inside the metal, like a whispered message from an ancient land. Colin smiles. "That," he says "is the cry of tin." It is a cry that has been heard by Cornishmen for thousands of years and one that is as secret and elemental as Cornwall itself.

Nestling far down in the western tip of Britain, Cornwall is not just another English county. It has a rich Celtic heritage and a strong sense of identity. You could live in some villages for as long as 40 years but still be classed an 'incomer'. It is the sort of place that you can visit extensively but never truly understand.

I travelled down from London by rail. It’s more fun than flying, not only for the stunning views of the coastline around Dawlish, but also for the sense of excitement I felt as the train rumbled across the bridge over the Tamar, the ancient river border between Cornwall and England. When I eventually got off the train at Penzance, where the gulls wheeled and mewed in greeting, I realised that this really was the end of the line.

I went first to Mousehole, a tiny fishing village not far from Penzance. (Say 'Mouzel' unless you want your pronunciation to provide hours of innocent fun for the locals.) Apparently it was the embarkation point for pilgrims setting off for Rome in the early days of Christianity. I used to come here on family holidays when I was a child. With tiny cottages snuggled round a picturesque harbour it looked just as I remembered - though I was quite sure it never used to rain.

I wandered through the narrow, winding streets in a haze of nostalgia, then spotted a plaque on a cottage. It declared that this was once the home of Dolly Pentreath, who died in 1777 and was the last native speaker of the Cornish language. Which just goes to prove you can't believe everything you read on these touristy plaques: for Cornish - which together with Welsh and Breton, is one of the Brythonic Celtic languages - did not disappear with Dolly. In fact it was still spoken, though not widely, right up to the end of the nineteenth century. Dolly's reputation was gained following an incident in 1768 when she swore for several minutes in the ripest Cornish at a visiting historian, who had pretended he did not believe anyone spoke the language.

The next day I picked up a car and drove east towards St Agnes. They used to say that Sten Sen Agnes an gwella yn Kernow - St Agnes tin is the best in Cornwall. Now the tinners have all gone and the decaying engine houses and chimney stacks of abandoned mines dot the coastline like plundered churches. They’ve now been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The tin industry in Cornwall dates back to the Bronze Age – and continued until the South Crofty mine closed in the late 1990s. It was an industry that evolved a typically Cornish web of superstition. I met Mark Kaczmarek, an ex South Crofty miner. He told me that he quickly learned that it was considered unlucky to whistle underground or mention hares. And when they had eaten their food miners would always leave a small piece to placate the 'knockers' who haunted the mines and would otherwise create trouble. The knockers may still be there, but they have now been joined by foxes, badgers, peregrines and many other sorts of wildlife who have made the crumbling mine buildings their home.

Tin mining in Cornwall may have died, but ironically tin streaming, an even more ancient industry, has not. I drove deep into Jericho Valley, a lost world of blazing yellow gorse dotted with the round chimney stacks of mines long deserted. There, at Blue Hills Tin Streams, I met Colin Wills who lives in an isolated cottage with his wife and son. Colin still makes a living by extracting tin from alluvial deposits, then smelting it in a small furnace. Like a gold prospector in a wild west film he practically has tin running through his veins. "On sunny days," he says "the beach glints because of all the tin in the sand." He reluctantly admits that sometimes he can even 'feel' when tin is present.

Cornwall's stunning coastline attracts thousands of visitors every year and a number of tacky 'attractions' have opened up in recent years, which are in danger of turning the place into a sort of celtic theme park. However these are easily avoided and there are plenty of other places of interest to visit. My final stop were the celebrated Lost Gardens of Heligan - 80 acres of grounds near Mevagissey on the south coast. These gardens, on the Tremayne family estate, disappeared under a blanket of bramble, ivy and laurel after the first world war and were only rediscovered in 1990 when Tim Smit and his friend John Nelson heard about them. They hacked their way through with machetes and discovered tantalising glimpses of a grand Victorian garden. Restoration began in 1991, with more and more features, such as a vegetable garden and pineapple pit, being discovered all the time.

Today it is a magical, yet mysterious, place to visit, particularly the area called the Lost Valley. I had heard that it was here that John Nelson, alone one evening, found himself confronted by a black shadowy figure that oozed evil. I met John, a no nonsense man, who was initially unwilling to speak about his experience. However he eventually admitted that the story was true. Apparently, when he told Tim Smit about it, Tim, already disturbed by reports of other strange happenings at Heligan, called in a local vicar. He exorcised the gardens and the events ceased. The shops may sell chocolate and banana pasties but Cornwall, it seems, is still full of secrets.