This exquisite cist set within the polo remains if its cairn would appear most easily approached via the official car park/pic nic site at the eastern end of the reservoir. However follow the road to its terminus and the visitor has the additional opportunity to visit the nearby Fernworthy ‘circle and complex.... and, should one be supercharged enough – those days are long gone, mind – the restored Grey Wethers upon the bare moor.
One wonders what the landscape resembled before the reservoir came... a small, natural lake... bog?
Excellent monument, this.
08.08.2011
24th December 2004
The kist that was removed from the Thornworthy Cairn and originally taken to Torquay Museum.It now resides in the garden of the High Moorland Centre in Princetown.
The kist at Thornworthy.
The cairn and kist at Thornworthy.
The cairn at Thornworthy Down sits on the south side only a few metres from the edge of Fernworthy Reservoir.When it was excavated in the 1870’s it was found to contain two kists,the one in the photo in the centre and a smaller one on the southern side.The smaller one was removed and placed on display in the Torquay museum where it remained until 2004 when it was taken to the High Moorland Centre at Princetown.
