Polmaddy

A couple of years ago, we found Polmaddy by chance. We were looking for somewhere to picnic and saw the sign to the viewpoint. On that last visit we found Bilberry bushes absolutely straining under the weight of fruit. So we thought we would take advantage of a sunny day to see if the Bilberries were ready for picking yet this year.

Sadly there were hardly any !! Last time must have been a freak year !!

So we put on our boots and headed off over the bridge and along the trail to the ruins of the ancient village.

As we crossed the narrow bridge we thought we might even find some more Bilberries.

Downstream

Upstream

Across the bridge we found a sheltered spot where the strong winds were not getting through and found that quite a few butterflies were enjoying the shelter too!!
The path was only just visible and at each step we were disturbing moths, hoverflies, bees, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers and even lizards. Many of these were camera shy and didn't cooperate by sitting still.

Moving into the remains of buildings we found some rather wet patches and needed to back track or take slight diversions around the walls.

The 1853 OS map shows the village as a ruin and at one time it had consisted of a few basic houses, byres, corn-mills and an inn(!). It is thought that the basic nature of the farming here had been affected by the Enclosure Act of 1801.

On one of the boggy  patches of ground we came across a group of  orchids that had no chance of avoiding the cameras.

On the return journey, some of the wildlife was more cooperative.

Star find - Northern Brown Argus

We didn't harvest any Bilberries but we did capture a few different insects on camera.