Cornwall

BROWN WILLY, Bodmin Moor.

31 August 2021.

Otherwise known as ‘Bronn Wennili’, ‘Hill of the Swallows’. 1378 feet.

Weather: looming dark clouds all day.

Duration of walk: About 2.5 hours.

Artistic endeavour: a short poem.

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I parked at the Forestry Commission carpark on Rough Tor Road, at the Northern edge of Bodmin Moor.

The path to Brown Willy crosses a ridge of three tors, in inverse order of height Showery Tor, Little Rough Tor and Rough Tor. Showery Tor has a Sphinx-like stack.

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Rough Tor is the second highest point in Cornwall. The top of this peak is a rock stack which is manageable but not recommended in high winds. 

Brown Willy is easily seen from the top of the Rough Tor ridge, and the path to the top is an easy walk. Only a few travellers were about today, so I had the top to myself. The peak is marked by a triangulation marker, but the most striking feature is a sharp pointed cairn visible from miles around. It is said to be ancient and to mark the burial site of a Cornish king.

The moor around Brown Willy lacks the relics of tin and lead mining, the chimneys and wheelhouses, which distinguish the landscape to the south. Bracken, heather and gorse, bogs and cairns have defined this place since the Bronze Age. The outcrop of Brown Willy appears settled and weathered, covered in lichen and overgrown with lush vegetation, whereas its neighbour Rough Tor is strewn with massive bare boulders, wilder and younger looking. It is easy to see how Cornwall spawned legends of giants – Cormoran, Bolster and Gogmagog – striding the landscape, tossing rocks at each other, and sometimes themselves being turned to stone (the ‘Hurlers’ stone circle on Bodmin ). Rough Tor, the last ridge of North Bodmin Moor, would surely have been the last point of defence in a battle before a giant was driven into the sea by his enemies, boulders raining down from above. If Gog did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent him.

The gloomy clouds gathering over the peaks summoned the spirits of these ancient monsters.

Gogmagog frowns,

his grey brows topping the triple tors,

the last barrier before the sea.

The memory of giants

is not our memory. They probe deep into the soil

for ancient vibrations.

Momentous echoes

of clashing continents are dulled with time

to a grumbling bass.

Trivial tappings

of crawling men, following the bright roots of tin,

chime but faintly

But the thunderings

of the Hurlers, striding the moor in the pomp of youth,

still beat a loud and joyful drum.