Bodmin Moor - the Hurlers and Cheesewring

OS Ref: 201, SX258713            Type: Multiple Grouped Circles and a natural rock formation

Access: Good       Disabled: In places for the Hurlers, but not the Cheeswring

The Hurlers

On my latest visit, we found Bodmin Moor in mist and rain; it felt very elemental and, to my surprise, there were a few other people there in that weather, too. Very otherworldly...

On a previous visit the weather had been mostly clear and we were able to see the Cheeswring and clamber upon its weathered sculpted stones.

There are, in fact, three circles here, all bronze age. Legend has it that the stones are men who were turned to stone by a humourless cleric for playing hurling on the Sabbath. There are many circles around the country with similar stories and one must assume that the older clerics were particularly lacking in empathy and human warmth!

According to the Historic Cornwall a2m (access to monuments)  website, "Excavations revealed a quartz crystal ‘floor’ within the central circle and the small granite block currently sited within the circle may originally have marked the true centre." Such a centre must have made the (central) circle an amazing place of power to those ancients whose place it was.

For me, this place is at its most mysterious in the poor weather and the stones in the fog could be people, or vice-versa.

The Cheesewring

This impressive place is a result of natural weathering, leaving discs of stone precariously stacked. Given that they have been there for thousands of years, maybe they are not so precarious - one hopes so as they are an attractive and interesting landscape feature near to the Hurlers stone circles. Of course, the formation could, just maybe, have been formed by giants and saints in a rock-throwing contest - your choice...

(Cheesewring pictures by Simon Lewis of West Country Views)

On a summer's day the walk from Minions to the Cheesewring is a great experience, although it seems to always be somewhat windy.  In more recent times a granite quarry was dug here, although it is thankfully unused now, except for climbing enthusiasts.