Secret Cornwall 2 - King Arthur's Down
King Arthur is often in the news - which is amazing given that he lived and ruled many centuries ago - if he lived and ruled at all… Certainly Cornwall is a place that celebrates the legendary monarch - and some places associated with him such as Tintagel could never fit under the title “Secret”…
But my favourite Arthurian location was out in the middle of nowhere. It’s an enigmatic place called King Arthur’s Hall which can be found on the flanks of King Arthur’s Down, high above the village of St Breward. There is only one way to see it apart from hiring a helicopter, and that is to walk.
The strange compound in the moors known as King Arthur’s Halls
St Breward is a charming village, perched on the edge of Cornwall’s rooftop, but it is not the easiest of places to reach. Having negotiated the myriad lanes that riddle the western slopes of Bodmin Moor, I thought it would be worthwhile make a bit more of a hike out of my Arthurian sojourn – the area is as atmospheric in a cold, boulder-strewn, way as it is beautiful.
I parked up at Churchtown – a sort of suburb of St Breward just north of the main community – and found the footpath that heads east over Church Hay Down. It leads across several of the small stone-lined fields that are a feature of the western moors, before crossing a lane and making its way towards a place called Penwood House.
Close by this residence the right of way veers north east, crosses a small tract of moorland and eventually passes though the farming hamlet of Lower Candra. Now we negotiate a small stream and climb across a couple of fields to King Arthur’s Down.
At the top of the second field there’s a stile and the walker is introduced to the moorland proper. Turning right we make our way along the stone wall and head directly into the heart of Bodmin Moor.
This becomes apparent as the shallow curve of the hill introduces the hiker to the vast central tableland of the western moors. Almost directly ahead Garrow Down offers the first hunchback eminence, but behind that and slightly to the north-east, there’s a side-profile of the dramatic razorback otherwise known as Brown Willy – Cornwall’s highest hill.
North again there’s Rough Tor – pronounced Rowtor – a jagged mountain if ever the West Country could boast such a thing. And, lying between all this empty vastness, there’s broad, empty, King Arthur’s Down.
Well, not quite so empty. For if we continue walking east into the virgin moor we find a series of standing stones that seem to mark the right of way. And, after passing a couple of these, we are introduced to a strange rectangular area of hillocks which, at first glance, doesn’t seem worth either a detour or a mention.
But this is King Arthur’s Hall, and if you take the trouble to walk over to the hillocks, you will see that the place is really a sunken rectangular corral lined with standing stones. It’s about 50 metres long by 25 metres wide, and there are some 47 stones lining the perimeter.
Sue snoozes on the edge of King Arthur’s Halls
No one really knows who built the place or what it was used for. One book says: “Various suggestions as to its origins have been made. These vary from it being a Bronze Age ceremonial monument relating to the nearby circles, to some form of Neolithic mortuary enclosure, to a prehistoric livestock corral.”
It’s easy to imagine some local warlord meeting with the tribal elders up here during the times when the Anglo-Saxons were pushing the poor old Celts ever westward.
At this point I decided to make a circular route of my meanderings, so headed due north from the Hall right across King Arthur’s Down. It’s a good mile and a half of nothing much at all, save for a few cairns and a small stone circle, which you come across just as you are about to reach the farm track that leads to the remote agricultural settlement under Rough Tor.
Be warned that none of this passes anywhere near a public right of way, but most of it is across public access land.
At the farm track I turned left to walk over Candra Hill. After a while I reached the public road and, soon afterwards, turned south to head over yet more moorland so that I could “bag” Alex Tor. This is a low rise just north of Trewallock Downs – and between the two there’s a public footpath that leads west, down into the fields.
By taking this I regained the lane I’d been on earlier, and followed the metalled road as it snaked around Mellon Farm and Treswallgek. A few hundred yards past the latter, another footpath issues to the left and takes walkers down over half a dozen small fields to Churchtown, which is where we began.
Bodmin Moor is nowhere near as well endowed with public rights of way as Exmoor or Dartmoor, and sometimes you have to look at the map to see which bits are free to access. But this is a classic route for anyone who loves the western moors. Not only is it exquisitely remote and full of views, you get realistic traces of the world’s favourite legendary king thrown in for good measure.
Fact file
Basic hike: from Churchtown, St Breward, west up onto the moors via various footpaths to reach King Arthur’s Hall – then north across King Arthur’s Down to follow track to Alex Tor and then back via yet more paths through the fields.
Recommended map (essential for this hike): Ordnance Survey Explorer 109 Bodmin Moor.
Distance and going: six miles, very easy going in summer – could be boggy in winter.
