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Stone Circle
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Greywethers Stone Circles - 29.3.2003
Aubrey Burl can be a miserable sod sometimes. To describe the walk from Fernworthy Stone Circle to the Greywethers as ‘through the forest and across the shabby moor’ and as ‘tedious but rewarding’ hardly does it justice. I was honoured by a beautiful day, and a tinder dry moor, but I think it would be a great walk even in worse weather. You could probably just about do it without a map and compass, but it’s a risk I would not encourage anyone to take. It’s not worth the risk to get stuck out there for the sake of a 7 map (or printed off OS website for squat) and a compass (starting from 4 in Index). From Fernworthy Stone Circle join the track again and walk straight on (as if you hadn’t stopped at the stone circle). Keep on going straight ahead, even though it becomes a much smaller track than some of the bigger left and right tracks. You will be going uphill for about 10 minutes. Trust me. As you come towards the brow of the hill there is a large clearing on your right and soon you plunge down hill, through thick sexy forest, punctured on a sunny day by a huge hole of light awaiting in front of you. As you get to the end of the forest the moor suddenly opens up in front of you.
The official footpath on the map (to the Greywethers) is not really clear on the ground but don’t worry too much - within reason, and especially on a clear day, all roads south lead to Rome. You can walk along the top of the field (i.e. close to the forest) and you’ll pass through a clear hole in the first field wall, or you can decide to head for a very visible (at least on a clear day) old set of gate posts further down the field. Once past this wall, a wooden gate is visible in the far distance in the second wall. The Greywethers are literally behind this wall. One advantage of the higher route (or disadvantage if you want a surprise) is that you can see the stones from quite a distance. Judging from the state of the small gullies down these two fields and the presence of marsh grasses I can imagine that when it’s wet, it’s a much harder walk! On this nice day it was a very brisk 30 minute walk for me.
Because I arrived on the lower route, the first time I could see the stones was as I approached this gate. Wow. And then all of them unfolded as I walked up to them, saying to me “look, we are a double circle, and yes we are almost complete - that bloody showed you what a major ancient site could have looked like didn’t it”. After seeing so many ‘difficult’ circles: tiny things, broken up, battered, ploughed over, stolen and pillaged; this is a shock. A truly stunning and a spectacular setting.
All the way there and back I didn’t meet one other person. However at the Greywethers themselves one group of young kids (probably doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award or something) suddenly yomped down over the hill, soon to be joined by another group, and another. Later a fourth group were making there way towards the circle just after I’d left.This post appears as part of the weblog entry Another Kernow Week |
Posted by pure joy
6th April 2003ce
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