This walk: 2013-9-18. The Hurlers stone circles, The Pipers, incised cross, RJL 1846 boundary stone, mine engine houses, The Cheesewring, ponies, rainbow, sheep, Sharp Tor, Stowe's Hill, fleur de lis, Daniel Gumb's House, Rillaton Barrow, Caradon Hill, archaeological 'dig' for a crystal pavement.
Walk details below - Information about the route etc.
Link to Google Satellite view of the area - including the GPS track of the walk (compare with the Ordnance Survey map plus track below)
Bing and Google maps side by side - but no GPS track.
Our happy band - prepared for the rain, despite the forecast!
Tell me!
The Hurlers, Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age (the "border" was 2,500 BC) - English Heritage link, English Heritage-2, Cornwall's Archaeological Heritage, Wikipedia, The Megalithic Portal - the site of three stone circles in a row; with Stowe's Pound hill fort in the distance.
Popular, even on a wet day .....
Three of the better-looking stones.
Two stones apart, these are The Pipers, at SX 25711 71351 - turned to stone for playing music for ther dancers on the Sabbath! The left stone here bears an incised cross high on the inner face .....
The small cross is almost touched by the walking pole .....
The cross, on its own.
A nearby boundary stone .....
The boundary stone with Stowe's Pound hill fort behind (and The Cheesewring) .....
This looks like a "G" or a "6" above RJL 1846.
The cutting of a square hole, to start with.
Dartmoor CAM movie.
TIP .....
A movie panning from one mine engine house to another. |
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Click the photo to download Length 50 secs |
Zoomed view to one of the engine houses in the movie above, one of these is probably at SX 2536 7124 .....
The other engine house, very close to a stone circle?
First view of The Cheesewring.
Tree growing in a mine shaft ......
Another view, the surrounding wall forms a rather large plant pot! Click the image to see a larger version.
Pool with quarry in the distance.
Zoomed view to one of the finger waste dumps from the quarry.
The Cheesewring.
A piece of a granite jigsaw? Or, a locking stone used in the construction of lighthouses.
The Cheesewring.
Tors at the opposite end to The Cheesewring on the ridge of Stowe's Hill.
Ponies near The Cheesewring .....
These look like pure-bred ponies.
The Cheesewring - note the human scale.
One of Bodmin Moor's elusive miniature pigs, they are elusive by virtue of their natural camouflage.
My big cat story: BBC News: South Brent pony injured, August 2003 : "Several years ago the area was sealed off and police marksmen were called in to track down what was believed to be a lion which was roaming the area, but no animal was found". "Several years ago" was probably 1998. Local BBC news showed the marksmen at a farm I used to visit a lot. A week prior to the police marksmen story, I had seen a large black cat, larger than the farmer's sheepdog: it answered the description of a panther. The interesting thing was that when the wind caught its fur, as it went through a hedge, it was doe-coloured underneath the black-tipped fur. It bothered me to think I was roaming a farm with an animal like that on the loose! I went immediately to the the farmer who said he already knew about it and that the rabbit population was dropping nicely! The BBC News item on the internet has now disappeared, possibly being fifteen years old. Newspaper items usually disappear after 12 months.
Rainbow, slightly enhanced!
Cross-bred Herdwick and local Bodmin Moor sheep. (Bodmin Moor Flora and Fauna: "The favoured sheep breeds on the moor used to be Cornwall Longwools and Dartmoors, but since the 1930s, Scottish Blackface and North Country Cheviots have become more common."). A Herdwick ram was brought in to try and give some diversification to the local lambs, similarly with a Jacob's ram.
Wardbrook Farm.
Sharp Tor, SX 259 737, elevation 353 metres (1158 feet) .....
Zoomed view.
'Ee knows which way the wind blows!
I thought it came from over there!
Rocks on Stowe's Hill with Sharp Tor behind.
The quarry with extensive finger dumps of waste .....
Zoomed view.
View to High Wilhays and Yes Tor on Dartmoor, with a bit of a rainbow .....
Zoomed view.
Dartmoor CAM movie.
TIP .....
A movie made on top of Stowe's Hill, inside the Late Neolithic pound that encircles the hilltop. |
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Click the photo to download Length 50 secs |
The Cheesewring.
Nearby tor.
The Cheesewring.
The Cheesewring.
The Cheesewring.
Click the image to see a larger version.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Fleur de Lis, associated with the Rosicrucians and the Duke of Cornwall.
Showing the extent of the incised emblem.
The Cheesewring.
What is this? It appears to be something like a gert or openwork but the wall on the left is revetted (i.e. lined with stone) .....
Zoomed view along the feature.
From the online Cornwall Guide, South Bodmin Moor .....
"On the southern slopes, under the Cheesewring, sits Daniel Gumb's Cave, once the dwelling place of a local stone cutter, Daniel Gumb, who preferred not to pay rent in Minions but to construct his own house by tunnelling into Stowe's Hill. Gumb made three stone-lined rooms in which he brought up nine children by three wives and taught himself advanced mathematics. Although the cave was rebuilt when the quarry was worked, the stone bearing Gumb's name and the date, 1735, is original, as is the one on which he carved Pythagoras' theorem."
More detail: Pensilva History Group: Daniel Gumb.
The entrance .....
D Gumb 1735 - this has lasted well!
The roof to the entrance has incised gutters!
And - Pythagoras' Theorem, if you can see it. The theorem dates from around 535 BC: a better photograph.
Miners' trial pits?
The entrance to Rillaton Barrow (Bronze Age) .....
Yes, that's the entrance!
Looking inside, warning: it's a tight squeeze!
Caradon Hill UHF and DAB transmitters.
Looking back at the barrow.
Mine engine house .....
Another engine house.
Meanwhile, back at the Hurlers, an archaeological team are preparing to re-excavate a "crystal pavement" last uncovered in 1938 ..... the "crystal" actually refers to white quartz stones that may link the three circles - that is yet to be determined .....
A Heritage Trust link ..... and here is a Dartmoor CAM "first", besides the Twitter links on the home page, here is an attempt at 'posting' a link to a Twitter search where you can find other up to the minute tweets about the crystal pavement": Twitter Crystal Pavement Search.
Discussion with an amateur archaeologist afterwards suggested that the "crystal" is actually whitish granite.
Photograph taken by Annie MacKenzie two days later, on the Friday.
MAP: Red = GPS satellite track of the walk.
© Crown copyright and database rights 2012 Ordnance
Survey
Licence number 100047373
Also, Copyright © 2005, Memory-Map Europe, with permission.
This walk was reached as follows.....
Park at SX 2595 7112 (although there is a second large car park nearby) ......
Approaching LISKEARD from Plymouth, take slip road to .... LISKEARD & A390
1st roundabout, take 2nd exit i.e. turn right .... then take right-hand "LISK" lane
Cross A30 dual carriageway to ....
2nd roundabout (with a Cornish cross), take 3rd exit i.e. turn sharp right (PLYMOUTH A390) ....
3rd roundabout take 2nd exit (straight across, A390) ....
Straight on A390 to 4th roundabout, take 1st exit i.e. turn left (TOWN CENTRE)....
600 metres, watch for school sign and mini-roundabout where you turn RIGHT into St. Cleer Road (B3254) .... to St. Cleer
Go through St. Cleer, turn RIGHT to Minions, 2 miles.
Car park ON LEFT just before entering Minions.
Statistics
Distance - 5.49 km / 3.41 miles.
All photographs on this web site are copyright ©2007-2016 Keith Ryan.
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