Bodmin Moor

Ask many people about Cornwall and they probably will not even mention Bodmin Moor. It does not incorporate a wonderful coastline, there are no ‘hidden gardens’ or superb biomes - but it does have stunning countryside, wonderful wildlife, unspoilt villages and some of Cornwall’s most important prehistoric sites, including The Hurlers and Trethevy Quoit – ‘Quoit’ is the Cornish name for a type of megalithic structure comprising granite rocks arranged into what may have been burial chambers, whose outer covering of earth has washed away over the centuries.

Stretching for 30 miles through the middle of Cornwall Bodmin Moor, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, which lies between 800 and 1,400 feet above sea level and covers around 100 square miles, is the smallest, mildest, most accessible of the West Country’s great moors. The granite upland is characterised by saturated moorland and weather-beaten tors and from here the rivers Inny, Lynher, Fowey, St Neot and De Lank flow to both the north and south coasts of Cornwall.

At 1,377 feet, Brown Willy is the highest point of the moor and of Cornwall while, just to the northwest, lies Roughtor (pronounced ‘row tor’), the moor’s second highest point. Standing on National Trust-owned land, Roughtor is a magnificent viewpoint and also the site of a memorial to the men of the 43rd Wessex Regiment who were killed during World War II. Throughout this wild and beautiful moorland there are the remains left behind by earlier occupiers: there are scattered Bronze Age hut circles and field enclosures, such as Fernacre Stone Circle, and Iron Age hill forts.

Available Guidebooks for this region:

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