On the eastern edge of the moor, granite sleepers mark part of the Kilmar railway, used in the second half of the 19th century by trucks carrying moorstone destined for the port of Looe via the Liskeard and Caradon railway. Turfy hummocks mask mine workings beside the way, which weaves between flowering gorse bushes and hawthorn trees draped in bearded lichen. Blue sky reflects in puddles and frost crystals sparkle in cold hollows.
Dumps of wasted stone interspersed with tall conifers tower above the track as it passes beneath disused Cheesewring quarry; ahead, above sunlit sheep pastures, Sharp Tor is fringed with orange bracken.
On this bright winter day a few walkers make for the rocky top and gaze back towards the shadowy side of Stowe’s Pound, its summit group of tors edged in an ancient boundary of tumbled boulders. Northwards, in sight of distant Brown Willy and the cheese factory at Davidstow, wind sweeps across the tawny grasses and splashy rushes of Langstone Downs.
Even here, seemingly remote from farmsteads and settlement, scattered boulders show evidence of past working. Tons of loose rock, the moorstone, was split in situ, dragged towards ramps for loading along the final section of the railway that curved around hillsides to its terminus amid the clitter of Kilmar Tor, some 1,150 feet above sea level.
Now this moorland is deserted, apart from a herd of belted galloway cattle spread across the rough grazing. Sheep have trodden the shallow embankments and cuttings leading gradually downhill towards Wardbrook, past degraded field boundaries, prehistoric hut circles and rough-hewn lumps of granite studded with tufts of emerald moss.
Close to Minions (known as Rillaton or Cheesewring Railway in the early days of the mining boom) people and dogs stroll away from the village, its car park, pub and cafe. In afternoon sun they linger in the Hurlers stone circles and skirt around a placid group of long-haired cows towards the derelict quarry of Gold Diggings.
A loud buzzing sound is not a hornet but a drone, flying away from its controllers towards Witheybrook Marsh.
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