Roughtor, Showery Tor and Brown Willy

 It was one of those walks when, if you weren't going up, you were coming down. A walk taking in the highest points in Cornwall. OK, not quite the Alps but still a good stretch of the legs. I've been waiting a long time for this one and it certainly didn't disappoint. There was a general feeling of accomplishment in the group when we'd finished this one. Nice to know that we could still do it.

A walk that looked more strenuous than it actually was. Just over 5.5 miles and quite straightforward - up to Roughtor, across to Showery Tor, down and then up to Brown Willy and finally down and around Roughtor back to car park. And all in glorious weather that was not too hot and not too cold: in fact, it was just right.

Roughtor from the car park, at 1313 ft, the second highest point in Cornwall. Another place for which the pronunciation separates the locals from the tourists. It is not pronounced 'rough tor' but 'row-tor'. The local dialect word 'row' means 'rough'. A fairly boring piece of linguistic information for you there. 

 Roughtor looking, mmm, pretty rough. The summit is, apart from an ideal spot for a tea break, encircled by a series of Neolithic stone walls. Also there's reputed to be the foundations of a mediaeval chapel up there somewhere but I've never been able to find it.

Showery Tor is a similar geological structure to the Cheesewring at Minions. It is encircled by a massive ring cairn of piled stones and is thought to have been a prehistoric religious site. It must have been of some significance for people to have carried all those stones to the spot.

Brown Willy, at 1378 feet, is only a little higher than Roughtor. Brown Willy is actually a distortion of the Cornish 'Bronn Wennili', meaning 'hill of swallows'. We didn't see any. In fact, apart from a few desultory Wheatears, we didn't see many birds at all.

Looking eastwards from halfway up Brown Willy and the white towers of the Davidstow cheese factory can be seen. It's biggest selling product is the Cathedral City brand. No, I can't spot a cathedral or a city either. But the extra mature variant is a rather tasty cheddar.

It's somehow in the order of things that the summit of Brown Willy is marked by a trig point. For those of us who like the details, it has a Flush Bracket with the number S1772 and it's the 456th most visited in the UK. It dates from 1st June 1949 and is an Order 1 point. Do I hear someone yawning at the back?

Lunch with a view! Looking across to Roughtor from the top of Brown Willy. Roughtor looks lower relatively than it is. Although not visible, we are looking over various settlements and field boundaries. There are thousands of years of history in this landscape, excluding the subjects in the foreground, of course.

Roughtor from another angle.

Just one hut circle amongst many. So many that 'hut circle blindness' set in after a while. Oooh look, a hut circle - again. Sometimes, by way of a change, the hut circles were within larger settlement circles. Seriously, this area abounds with the evidence of previous settlers, the span of which ranges from some 3000BC almost up to the present day. And I find that pretty amazing.

Roughtor showing a chunk out of the middle. Surely that's a man-made artifact?

Heath Spotted Orchid with unidentified yellow moth.

The Charlotte Dymond Monument commemorates a young woman, who was murdered on Rough Tor in 1844. Charlotte was born in 1826. At the time of her death she was a servant at Penhale Farm on Bodmin Moor. She was in a relationship with a farmhand called Matthew Weeks. On the 14th April, 1844, the couple were walking on the moor and began arguing. Matthew is said to have lost his temper and cut her throat. Charlotte's body was found one week later in the stream near the ford.
Matthew was finally found in Plymouth and tried at Bodmin, where he was found guilty and was convicted to death by hanging. 20,000 people attended his hanging. He was buried at Bodmin Gaol.
Charlotte was laid to rest at Davidstow Church and a monument was erected to her memory, by public subscription, near the place where her body was found at Rough Tor. In recent times it has been suggested that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and that Matthew may not have been her murderer. Charlotte's ghost is said to walk the moor still dressed in her Sunday best clothes that she wore on her last day.

The memorial is just a few yards from the car park and is easily reached, if you don't mind ducking under some dodgy wire fence and leaping over a raging stream. Well, not really raging when we were there, more susurrating.