Desolate Destinations

29.05.2025

I had planned two walks today to find two stone circles in two very remote locations. I packed my rucksack, put on my waterproof socks and walking boots and headed out from a service area on the A30 near Plusha. Just before the village I turned right down a quiet lane and very soon I was in woodland with the sound of the A30 receding behind me. I crossed a pretty tree lined river via a footbridge next to a ford and started to climb up a winding lane through the hamlets of Trekernell and Tolcarne to a beech wood that fringed the edge of the moor. I followed a line of stones through newly sprouting ferns to what looked like a cairn. An old weather beaten tree leant in from it’s edge to it’s sunken centre. According to OS this was Clitter Cairn and I realized I was way off track. Looking around me the moorland terrain looked marshy and unwelcoming but in the distance about half a mile away to the north west I could see the tiny teeth like features of the Nine Stones Circle.

I cut across towards it expecting the ground to be soft and wet but it was ok. I knew I was in for a treat as I got close and saw the variable shaped stones each occupying a pool of brown peaty water. It was a small circle with a diameter of fifty feet with a small leaning centre stone lighter in colour to it’s granite companions. Straight away I knew it would be difficult to get close to most of the stones without getting my feet wet. The tri stone on the southern edge was particularly watterlogged. The circle had been restored in 1889, but you wouldn’t know it from it’s natural appearance. It was a timeless setting and one that reminded me of another waterlogged circle, the Twelve Apostles in West Yorkshire. I felt very satisfied as I left the circle and headed down off the moor through the pastures of it’s northern slopes.

I drove down the A30 to Jamaica Inn where I would overnight for a few days. After an hour of rest I set out down to and under the A30 and took a dead end road to the hamlet of Codda. I was on a three hour mission to find the Leskernick megalithic complex in the northern part of Bodmin Moor. Again the hum of the busy A30 faded away and birdsong took over. The sun emerged from behind a billowy clouded sky. I was in a good place, reflecting on my morning’s encounter and full of anticipation of what awaited me up the valley. At the end of the lane I took a path down to a stream of shallow water full of green weed swaying in the sunlight. Over the narrow footbridge there I made my way up the other side of the valley and onto the wild moor. There was another valley and river to negotiate before the rugged moorland levelled out onto a barren treeless wilderness. As a solitary walker this was not a place to twist an ankle or break a bone. Somewhere up ahead were the two circles of Leskernick, but they were both made up of collapsed uprights now half buried in the ground, so would be difficult to spot. OS kept me on track and took me straight to Leskernick SE. I had sought out a similar circle on Dartmoor a few months back and been disappointed at seeing very little in the atrocious mist and rain. Now the conditions were much better and I could see the arc of a series of large flat stones.

The circle had been discovered as late as 1973 by a volunteer group and I could see why. It looked dormant and defeated, lacking the atmosphere and majesty of the Nine Stones. It was however a wonderful place to be with the ruins of the Leskernick Hill settlement to the north and the profile of Brown Willy off to the west, the highest point in Cornwall. I walked towards the hill across a white granite track and a mining ditch to find the lesser circle of Leskernick NW. There were fewer stones here but there were two stand out features, a standing Tri stone and a giant nine foot prostrate centre stone that may have one time stood upright. This circle was discovered even later in 1983 by the Timekeepers volunteers. It was a long walk back with familiar feelings I had had from other underwelming encounters. Luckily these feelings don’t surface too often.