Mr Hamhead
can not find any evidence to support the fact that this is a cairn but...sitting on the eastern slope of Tolborough Tor is what looks like a natural rock formation. I only went over to it because I had seen a fox emerge from within it. Standing on top I noticed three stones running around the back of it that looked like ones I have seen at other cairns. (see photo)
Seeing that the cairn on top of the tor is built into a natural feature this could possibly be the same..but smaller.
Tolborough Tor sits high overlooking the A30 and Jamaica Inn. Bit of a climb from the road (see my directions for Tolborough Menhir) but the views north to Brown Willy are superb.
It is a cairn built into the natural rock of the tor and it is difficult to make out what is natural and what is man-made. Simmerly I can not decide if the cairn was at one time much higher or if it just had a covering. A ‘ramp’ enters the central plateau from the south east and then you have the large flat slabs sitting on the surface, were they originally covered? and was the ramp the entrance Sabine Gould talked about in his novel ?(see Rhiannons Folklore posting).
The cairn from the SW on a sunny October afternoon. Natural rock formation built into left side.
Looking towards Brown Willy, Catshole Tor in middle distance left.
The two flat stones in the centre of the cairn may be natural, may be the remains of a chamber...who knows?
Catshole Tor is one of those bits of Bodmin Moor that very few people visit...which is a shame. The hillside is littered with rocks and the views cross to Brown Willy are superb.
I had not expected to find anything man made up there so was only snapping pictures of the landscape. However when I got home and started reading up on Tolborough Tor I came across a piece in ‘Romance of the Stones’ talking about a chambered tomb on Catshole Tor.
Looking through the photos I realised I had taken several shots of it whilst trying to get some foreground into my Brown Willy photos.
Looks like I will have to go back up there and take a closer look...
Looking from downslope, the size of the barrow can not be appreciated. Hump on left with gorse bush atop does not look like it was part of original barrow.
Described by EH as a bowl barrow, I though it was just a barrow that had been dug into. It measures about 35 metres across at its widest but is not that high. Although it now has a hedge behind it and a row of trees a little down slope of it I would guess that when it was built it had a commanding view down the valley to the Truro River.
Access is by a footpath from St Clement village or from Malpas village (where there is a very nice pub).
Easy to spot in a field beside the road from jamaica Inn to Codda. Parking is a bit of a problem if you want to be away from the car for a while and I would advise either driving along to the end of the road or parking on the side of the road when it turns to Bolventor Church.
Field is open access so no problems there and you can carry on up onto top of tor from stone.
Stone is about 7ft high and it has been suggested that it is a modern erection...looks pukka to me!
Close up of the tip of the menhir, nice collection of mosses and lichen.
This exhibition at the Royal Academy explores the work and achievement of the Fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London since its foundation in the early eighteenth century to the present day.
Organised by the Royal Academy of Arts and the Society of Antiquaries of London to celebrate the Society’s tercentenary, the exhibition showcases treasures from Britain’s oldest Learned Society concerned with the study of the past and is complemented by works from national and regional museums.
It features works of art, antiquities and manuscripts of unique historical importance, such as a processional cross of King Richard III and his defeated Yorkist army recovered from the battlefield of Bosworth (1485). Also on show will be the earliest known medieval manuscript illustrations of Stonehenge, as well as drawings and paintings of this and other historic sites and monuments by great artists such as Constable, Turner, Girtin and Blake.
A selection from the Society’s extraordinary collection of early English royal portraits from Henry VI to Mary Tudor will be displayed together in public for the first time.
Some interesting papers first published in 1986. They cover everything from the mesolithic to the neolithic in the county.
Those who venture west of the Hurlers will come across these two cairns over near the small engine house known as Silver Valley. From here it is a pleasant walk towards the Craddock Moor sites.
Low cairn just to the side of the main summit cairn. capstone can just be seen right of picture
The first cairn found when coming from the north. Brown Willy (left) and Roughtor (right) dominate the skyline.
One of the most featurless hills on Bodmin Moor, best known for its man made tin streaming remains that encircle it. It is a large rounded lump to the east of Roughtor and Brown Willy best approached from the ford at Bowithick.
I last ventured on to its barren slopes about 20 years ago and my memory was of feeling quite disorientated by the lack of landmarks.
Today, 12 Aug 07, there is a good clear sky and plenty of daylight to let me explore the hill further.
I start up by climbing a gully to where I remember there being some mining remains, these are easily found and I continue on towards the summit, not sure exactly where it is.
I pass what could be a stone row but is more likely to be an ancient field boundry and suddenly Roughtor and Showery Tor can be seen away to the west. Brown Willy appears soon after.
On reaching a highpoint I turn left and make for the summit. Two low cairns can be seen, looking like any other robbed out cornish cairns but as I get closer I can see that the nearest has a stone standing inside it. This cairn is about 12 ft across with the central stone about 3ft high. From this cairn it is a short walk to the larger cairn that crowns the summit. Even from this close all I expect to find is a low pile of stones, all be it larger than the last cairn.
How wrong could I be! The low bank of the cairn, about 30 to 35ft across, surrounds a cist with all four walls intact and the capstone perched over it. The cist is about 6ft long and 3 ft wide with a solid granite floor. How come I have not read about it before? This is one of the best preserved cists I have found on the moor. Part of me starts to think it has been built in later times to fool people like me but....
The OS map marks five cairns on the hilltop, I can only find another two, one of which is just a platform of stones adjecent to the summit cairn. The other sits a little distance downslope to the SE.
From the summit my journey took me down to the source of the River Fowey, which once gave its name to the moor. It is a quiet place, rarely visited by man, and yet his handywork is all around in the form of tin streaming channels, something started on the moor by bronze age man. Somewhere in the area there is a stone row, but today I fail to find it. perhaps next time.....
This collection of stones, three standing and one lying across another is not noted on maps and I can find no references to it in any books. The uprights form a semi circle around the other stone which lies atop of another. Other stones may at one time have compleated the circle but are now fallen or lost. The setting lies in an area of the moor that has been heavily robbed of stone over the years and is only a short distance from a low lying quarried outcrop. Goldiggins Quarry is just to the NE, a good point to make for if trying to find this site.
I have received this email today from a group called the Sustainable Trust...the third paragraph is the interesting bit...
Crenver Grove, the 14Hectare woodland we manage for the Dandelion Trust, now entertains local children as part of Forest School activities. Any initiative to bring volunteers of all ages and abilities in contact with nature and their heritage is welcomed. Help with clearance of the invasive species is constantly needed, and is always a light-hearted activity. Just ring us for details. 01209 831718. ’ Breathing Spaces’, a Big Lottery fund have just made us a sizeable award for works to Crenver Grove, mending walls, an archaeological study, green woodworking workshops and training.
Globally-our little project in Sri Lanka helping tsunami victims has moved on. The Saga Charitable Trust have put a further £5,000 into the neglected village we helped back into employment with a Cornish boost to their coir spinning cottage industry last year. They will buy sewing machines, train and provide a showroom together with our Sri Lankan partners, the Centre for Environment & Development. We have also been instrumental in forming a Credit Union in this village, Madampagama. Microfinance often help poor villagers cross the poverty line, making their work and lives more sustainable. Scooby, a photographer from University College, Falmouth recorded the project. Her images of the progress is being exhibited around Devon & Cornwall this year. The exhibition is called ‘Recovery’. Prints are for sale at (www. Travellightphotos.co.uk)
Locally, we are engaged in negotiations to buy the ‘Giants/Pendarves/Carwynnen Quoit/Cromlech/Dolmen- also known as the ‘Frying Pan’. Naming it is a weighty problem, the least of our worries is clearing a planning technicality and raising the money to buy this Listed Scheduled Monument together with the surrounding 5 acres of land. We would be delighted to receive any donations towards the £22,000 asking price, or any offer of help or suggestions towards running a series of events to involve a wide audience. H.R.H the Duke of Cornwall , Camborne Town Council and The Cornish Gorsedd have kicked off the fund with Community Energy Plus donating 200 indigenous trees to extend the wildlife corridor on this land, which was formerly set aside land, owned by a bulb growing company.
So we trundle on, pleased with an involvement in a new magazine called ‘The Source’, happy to make charcoal for cooking and drawing, and most of all to welcome new people to help us ‘treat the world as if we intend to stay.‘
The website for this is sustrust.co.uk/new_projects.html
If approaching from the A30 direction, having parked in the lay-by near Temple Fisheries. Walk out accross the moor in a sth westerly direction passing some earthworks on your right. This will be your first view of the northern stone.
St Agnes Beacon is a landmark for anybody driving down the A30 towards the END. Surprisingly for such a large and conspicuous hill the barrows/cairns on the summit are just the opposite. My feelings are they have been robbed not only of any remains but also of stone over the years. What is left are a few scattered mounds, and even these can be mistaken for mining remains and vice versa. The hill is great for views..but don’t make a special trip for the archaeology.
Looking towards the ‘modern’ summit (on the right) To the left is a low pile that is possibly one of the barrows, althgough very ruinious.
I believe this to be a section of the hedge above the West Looe river at SX23555439. Very nearby is the fallen Watergate menhir.
Stone is about 6ft long. Earthwork of Giants hedge can be seen behind.
To find this stone requires a bit of hedge hopping..and is on private land. Please make sure no fences are damaged as it allows sheep and cattle from the fields to get into Kilminorth Woods where they have caused great damage in the past.
This stone is mentioned in Paynes ‘Romance of the Stones’ as having been standing 5ft high when seen by OS inspectors in 1962. There is some thought that it might only have been a rubbing post...and who am I to say otherwise, but...
It sits (lies) on a north facing slope that drops steeply into the West Looe river valley. Woodland now hides the landscape and the view up river towards Bodmin Moor. Just behind it is an earth bank that I believe is part of the Giants Hedge or a Iron Age hillfort that was later turned into a rabbit warren. (viewing said hilltop from above the modern wall looks as if the field is circular, it isn’t but if it went right out to the earth bank it might be)
Naturally shaped stones like this do not occur in the Looe area and rubbing stones tend to be made of granite, brought down from the moor.
The stone features on the EH list of sites (hence me seeking it out). A similar but smaller stone lies hidden in the woods just to the south.
A early 19th century drawing of Mulfra from Gilberts ‘History of Cornwall‘
Image credit: CS Gilbert
From “History of Cornwall” by CS Gilbert
Image credit: CS Gilbert
Another drawing from Gilberts early 19th century ‘History of Cornwall‘
Image credit: CS Gilbert