Roche, Cornwall

Roche (pronounced Roach,Cornish: Tregarrek, meaning homestead of the rock) is a civil parish and village in mid-Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village gets its name from a granite outcrop east of the village. Roche is the Norman-French word for Rock. On the southern flank of the village is the 20-metre (66-foot) high Roche Rock, a large granite outcrop. The parish population at the 2011 census including Belowda, Bilberry, Carbis, Coldvreath and Criggan is 3,381, and the ward population at the same census was 3,867.

Nearby are the towns of Bodmin and St Austell, as well as the Eden Project. The civil servant Charles Knight was born in Roche and Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament Matthew Taylor retired there.

Roche Rock (Cornish: An Garrek) stands out as a rocky outcrop some 20 metres (66 ft) high on the northern flank of the St Austell granite with an approximate area of 600 metres (2,000 ft) x 300 metres (980 ft).) The rock is of interest to geologists as it is a fine example of quartz shorl; a fully tourmalinised granite, with black tourmaline crystals. The Rock itself lies approximately 500 metres (1,600 ft) north of the northern margin of the St Austell granite, which is the smallest of the five main apophyses of the Hercynian batholith of Southwest England. The presence of numerous pegmatites occurring as sheets and containing abundant miarolitic cavities carrying quartz, tourmaline, zinnwaldite, topaz. and a wide range of other phases, is why it is considered to have been close to the roof of the intrusion The site is considered to be of prime importance for future research and notification by English Nature as a geological SSSI occurred in 1991.

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