Bodmin Moor
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Bodmin Moor (Template:Langx)<ref>Place-names in the Standard Written Form (SWF) Template:Webarchive : List of place-names agreed by the MAGA Signage Panel Template:Webarchive. Cornish Language Partnership.</ref> is a granite moorland in north-eastern Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is Template:Convert in size, and dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. It includes Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall, and Rough Tor, a slightly lower peak. Many of Cornwall's rivers have their sources here. It has been inhabited since at least the Neolithic era, when early farmers started clearing trees and farming the land. They left their megalithic monuments, hut circles and cairns, and the Bronze Age culture that followed left further cairns, and more stone circles and stone rows. By medieval and modern times, nearly all the forest was gone and livestock rearing predominated.
The name Bodmin Moor is relatively recent. An early mention is in the Royal Cornwall Gazette of 28 November 1812.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The upland area was formerly known as Fowey Moor after the River Fowey, which rises within it.<ref>Template:Cite book; p. 72</ref>
Geology
[edit]Bodmin Moor is one of five granite plutons in Cornwall that make up part of the Cornubian batholith.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The intrusion dates from the Cisuralian epoch, the earliest part of the Permian period, and outcrops across about 190 square km. Around the pluton's margins where it intruded into slates, the country rock has been hornfelsed. Numerous peat deposits occur across the moor whilst large areas are characterised by blockfields of granite boulders; both deposits are of Holocene age<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> (see also Geology of Cornwall).
Geography
[edit]Dramatic granite tors rise from the rolling moorland: the best known are Brown Willy, the highest point in Cornwall at Template:Convert,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Rough Tor at Template:Convert. To the south-east Kilmar Tor and Caradon Hill are the most prominent hills.<ref name=OS/> Considerable areas of the moor are poorly drained and form marshes (in hot summers these can dry out). The rest of the moor is mostly rough pasture or covered with heather and other low vegetation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The moor contains about 500 holdings with around 10,000 beef cows, 55,000 breeding ewes and 1,000 horses and ponies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Most of the moor is a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Bodmin Moor, North,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), as part of Cornwall AONB.<ref>[1] Template:Webarchive</ref> The moor has been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area (IBA) because it supports about 260 breeding pairs of European stonechats as well as a wintering population of 10,000 Eurasian golden plovers.<ref name=bli>Template:Cite web</ref> The moor has also been recognised as a separate natural region and designated as national character area 153 by Natural England.<ref name="naturalengland">Template:Cite web</ref>
Institutional landowners within Bodmin Moor, North SSSI include the National Trust, the Ministry of Defence, the Forestry Commission and Highways England.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Rivers and inland waters
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Bodmin Moor is the source of several of Cornwall's rivers: they are mentioned here anti-clockwise from the south.
The River Fowey rises at a height of Template:Convert and flows through Lostwithiel and into the Fowey estuary.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The River Tiddy rises near Pensilva and flows southeast to its confluence with the River Lynher (the Lynher flows generally south-east until it joins the Hamoaze near Plymouth). The River Inny rises near Davidstow and flows southeast to its confluence with the River Tamar.<ref name=Rivers>Template:Cite web</ref>
The River Camel rises on Hendraburnick Down and flows for approximately Template:Convert before joining the sea at Padstow.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The River Camel and its tributary the De Lank River are an important habitat for the otter, and both have been proposed as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC)<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The De Lank River rises near Roughtor and flows along an irregular course before joining the Camel south of Wenford.<ref name=Rivers/>
The River Warleggan rises near Temple and flows south to join the Fowey.<ref name=OS>Template:Cite web</ref>
On the southern slopes of the moor lies Dozmary Pool. It is Cornwall's only natural inland lake and is glacial in origin. In the 20th century three reservoirs have been constructed on the moor; these are Colliford Lake, Siblyback Lake and Crowdy reservoirs, which supply water for a large part of the county's population. Various species of waterfowl are resident around these rivers.<ref>Bere, Rennie (1982) The Nature of Cornwall. Buckingham: Barracuda Books, pp. 63–67</ref>
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Rivers south of Bodmin Moor
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Rivers southeast of Bodmin moor
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Rivers northwest of Bodmin Moor
Parishes
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The parishes on the moor are as follows:
History and antiquities
[edit]Prehistoric times
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10,000 years ago, in the Mesolithic period, hunter-gatherers wandered the area when it was wooded. There are several documented cases of flint scatters being discovered by archaeologists, indicating that these hunter-gatherers practised flint knapping in the region.<ref name="Tilley, C 1996"/>
During the Neolithic era, from about 4,500 to 2,300 BC, people began clearing trees and farming the land. It was also in this era that the production of various megalithic monuments began, predominantly long cairns (three of which have currently been identified, at Louden, Catshole and Bearah) and stone circles (sixteen of which have been identified). It was also likely that the naturally forming tors were also viewed in a similar manner to the manmade ceremonial sites.<ref name="Tilley, C 1996">Template:Cite book</ref>
In the following Bronze Age, the creation of monuments increased dramatically, with the production of over 300 further cairns, and more stone circles and stone rows.<ref name="Tilley, C 1996"/> More than 200 Bronze Age settlements with enclosures and field patterns have been recorded.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and many prehistoric stone barrows and circles lie scattered across the moor. In the late 1990s, a team of archaeologists and anthropologists from UCL researched the Bronze Age landscapes of Leskernick over several seasons (Barbara Bender; Sue Hamilton; Christopher Tilley and students).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In a programme shown in 2007 Channel 4's Time Team investigated a 500-metre cairn and the site of a Bronze Age village on the slopes of Rough Tor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
King Arthur's Hall, thought to be a late Neolithic or early Bronze Age ceremonial site, can be found to the east of St Breward on the moor.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Medieval and modern times
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Where practicable, areas of the moor were used for pasture by herdsmen from the parishes surrounding the moor. Granite boulders were also taken from the moor and used for stone posts and to a certain extent for building (such material is known as moorstone).<ref>Clifton-Taylor, A. "Building materials" in: Pevsner, N. (1970) Cornwall. 2nd ed. Penguin Books, pp. 29–34</ref> Granite quarrying only became reasonably productive when gunpowder became available.
The moor gave its name (Foweymore) to one of the medieval districts called stannaries which administered tin mining: the boundaries of these were never defined precisely. Until the establishment of a turnpike road through the moor (the present A30) in the 1770s the size of the moorland area made travel within Cornwall very difficult.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Its Cornish name, Goen Bren, is first recorded in the 12th century.<ref>Weatherhill, Craig (2009) A Concise Dictionary of Cornish Place-names. Westport, co. Mayo: Evertype; p. 6</ref>
English Heritage monographs "Bodmin Moor: An Archaeological Survey" Volume 1 and Volume 2 covering the post-medieval and modern landscape are publicly available through the Archaeology Data Service.<ref>Bonney, D., Johnson, N., Rose, P. (2008) "Bodmin Moor An archaeological survey Volume 1: The human Landscape c.1800" English Heritage.</ref><ref>Giles, C., Herring, P., Johnson, N., Sharpe, A., Smith, J. (2008) "Bodmin Moor An Archaeological survey Volume 2: The industrial and post-medieval landscapes" English Heritage.</ref>
Jamaica Inn is a traditional inn on the Moor. Built as a coaching inn in 1750 and having an association with smuggling, it was used as a staging post for changing horses.
In the 1980s, there was a big problem with the water supply in Camelford. Many people had medical issues after this and some died.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Monuments and ruins
[edit]Roughtor was the site of a medieval chapel of St Michael and is now designated as a memorial to the 43rd Wessex Division of the British Army. In 1844 on Bodmin Moor the body of 18-year-old Charlotte Dymond was discovered. Local labourer Matthew Weeks was accused of the murder, and at noon on 12 August 1844 he was led from Bodmin Gaol and hanged. The murder site now has a monument erected from public money, and her grave is at Davidstow churchyard.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Legends and traditions
[edit]Dozmary Pool is identified by some people with the lake in which, according to Arthurian legend, Sir Bedivere threw Excalibur to The Lady of the Lake.<ref>Cornish Archaeology; No 34, 1995</ref> Another legend relating to the pool concerns Jan Tregeagle.
The Beast of Bodmin has been reported many times but never identified with certainty.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Beast of Bodmin <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is an instance of sightings of a British big cat. Searches for physical "evidence" to support such a claim has typically been found to have far more ordinary and less sensational origins. In the case of the Beast of Bodmin, when a skull found in the River Fowey was presented to the Natural History Museum as proof of its existence, it was found to have been cut from a leopard skin rug.<ref name="Regal">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Dictionary2">Template:Cite book</ref>
Film
[edit]Cornish Cowboy, a 2014 short documentary film screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> was shot on Bodmin Moor.<ref name="cornishguardian">Template:Cite webTemplate:Dead link</ref> The film features the work of St Neot horse trainer, Dan Wilson.
Literature
[edit]British/Australian author Brand King sets much of his second novel, A Cornish Spring<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> on Bodmin Moor. The novel evokes the ghost of murdered 19th century farmgirl Charlotte Dymond to drive its narrative.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Her monument features on the book's cover.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See also
[edit]References
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- Weatherhill, Craig (1995) Cornish Place Names & Language. Wilmslow: Sigma Leisure Template:ISBN
External links
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