Just below the summit a shaggy-coated cow with long, curving horns gazes into the greyness of this dull afternoon. The sound of rushing water carries up from the river, now swollen with run-off from Redmoor and Tresellern Marshes, the Withey Brook and other boggy headstreams on the eastern side of Bodmin Moor, as well as little tributaries from intermediate waterlogged land.
Up here, on this precipitous hill, topped with defensive earthworks of ditch and rampart, a dozen or so highland cattle of varying age (owned by the Crago family of the nearby Cadson Farm) mooch about, graze and thrive on heather and the coarser vegetation that would otherwise smother this iron age hill-fort and the adjoining hillside. Yellow gorse flowers and the silver bark of birch gleam in the murk and, below, in the Lynher Valley and on the Newton Ferrers estate, the leafless tree canopy (dominated by lichen-encrusted alder and oak) is tinged pale green and purple. Inside the eastern entrance, the encampment of some six acres is a spongy oval space of trampled bracken and mossy turf. This enclave was once a secure area for early farmers, where they and their animals were relatively protected from marauders and wild creatures lurking in the dense woodland below.
Now owned by the National Trust, this ancient site is a destination for local walkers but on this gloomy day, expansive views from the bank around the edge are restricted. Westwards, beyond undulating fields, copses and isolated farmsteads, Kilmar and Sharp Tor merge with rolls of cloud. Red lights on Caradon’s communications mast are part obscured in the mist, as is the monumental stack on the top of Kit Hill to the north. Higher land prevents sight of the distant sea to the south, and Dartmoor to the east is hidden by Viverdon Down, which intervenes between here and our home parish of St Dominic with its own much smaller iron age enclosure – Bury Camp, which adjoins Berry farmhouse.
As darkness encroaches, colours fade to monochrome; crows fly downhill towards sheltered roosts and the valley’s dimness is pricked with lights from commuters’ cars, crossing the medieval Newbridge and processing uphill, past Pencrebar towards Callington.
