Bright Red

LETJOG PEAK No 27: Brown Willy, Cornwall (420 metres)

Walk Date: Tuesday 13 June 2023

Many a time I have driven down the A30, en route for more distant Cornish destinations, but I have never before done so much as a day’s walking on Bodmin Moor – an omission from my Rambling CV that I was delighted to rectify today in the course of my LETJOG Peaks challenge. Based upon my limited experience (from behind an oft rain-lashed car windscreen) I have always seen this high area of open moorland as being particularly exposed, perhaps to the extent of desolation, but today the landscape basked resplendently under the clear skies of this fine early summer. I have certainly caught the full rays of the sun today, and hence my Blog heading.

Like it’s larger sibling Dartmoor, 40 miles or so to the east, Bodmin Moor is a part of the granite batholith that was extruded during the Permian period, outcropping in several locations across the far South West of England. Here this hard coarse-grained rock produces a landscape of open grassy moorland presided over by steep-sided tors topped by dramatic weather-sculpted rocks. It’s highest point, Brown Willy, with an elevation of 420 metres above sea level, is the County Top of Cornwall and, with a prominence of 314 metres, the mount qualifies handsomely as a ‘Marilyn’, the peak affording commanding views over much of the northern part of the Moor.

I have been spoiled these last 24 hours by the generous hospitality of good friends Philip and Carenza, who many of you will have seen in these Blogs previously – Philip joined me two years ago for the first few days of my LETJOG trek, and again more recently for some fine walks in Cornwall and in the Chilterns. Last night I travelled down to Flushing to enjoy a similarly pleasant evening stroll to the local pub, before we all had dinner together on their veranda overlooking the water. An early start this morning saw us back up the peninsula and onto Bodmin Moor for our walk – my thanks to you both, as ever, for your fine hospitality, for our transport today, and above all for your fantastic company! I hope that my photos convey something of our day’s experience.

I am writing this Blog on the train back to London – quite an experience in itself as the train crosses the Tamar Bridge and, later, as it skirts the coastline of south-east Devon with views out across the English Channel. A fine way indeed to travel home and to reflect upon a splendid day’s walking on the moors with friends. How lucky we were with the weather and the dry conditions underfoot, and what a wonderful first walking experience for me of Bodmin Moor in achieving the 27th summit on my LETJOG Peaks quest: one of the finest for sure!

My Blog heading ‘Bright Red’ is borrowed from a self-penned 2021 number by up-and-coming singer-songwriter Bailey Tomkinson, who hails from St Ives in the far south-west of Cornwall. With a growing popularity heightened by her recent ascent to the top of the iTunes video charts with ‘Astronaut’, Tomkinson is noted for her ‘Kernowfornia’ sound, and she has been billed by the Daily Mail as ‘Britain’s answer to Taylor Swift’. Along with some friends I had the pleasure of seeing her in concert (and even meeting her briefly) at the Chagstock Festival on Dartmoor almost two years ago, and it may be that we will all be hearing a little more from her before too long.