Geographical icons are places that
tend to stand out proud and mean something to the community which
they dominate. The Hesp’s Hike walking column has been to
quite a few over the years from Glastonbury Tor to Kit Hill, from
Dunkery Beacon to the Dodman. But none, perhaps, are quite as iconoclastic
as Carn Brea in the heart of Cornwall’s old mining region.
Basic hike: from the hamlet of Piece halfway between Camborne
and Redruth, north along footpaths to the top of Carn Brea, then
back via Carnkie and the Great Flat Lode Trail.
Distance and going: three and a half to four miles – easy
going.
For the few people who don’t know the name, Carn Brea is arguably
the most prominent landmark of West Cornwall, looming dark and craggy
some 750 feet above the twin mining towns of Camborne and Redruth.
Note that all maps on this site are only indicative.
You should never set out without the correct OS map.
You’ll know it when you see it because, where
its distinctive outline reaches the sky, there are the double landmarks
of Carn Brea Castle and the 100 foot granite finger which is a monument
to Lord Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville.
The great hill is a heaving warren of history, both ancient and
modern. The summit is covered in the remains of hut circles and
ramparts, dating back to the Iron Age and even to Neolithic times,
with evidence that there were people up here as far back as 3000
BC.
“You ought to take a stroll up there and admire the views
– you can see half of Cornwall,” said Mark Kaczmarek,
the Cornish county councillor and local history enthusiast. Mark
conducts guided walks in the bleak but surprisingly beautiful ex-mining
districts that cut a huge swathe through the rocky centre of the
peninsula, and he’d been showing me the marvels of the Great
Flat Lode Trail – a seven-mile long circular track and cycleway
that has been developed by Kerrier District Council (of which he’s
also a member).
I didn’t have time on a midwinter
day to march the full seven miles after Mark and I lunched cheaply
and wonderfully in the excellent Countryman Inn at the hamlet of
Piece, about a mile-and-a-half south west of Carn Brea but I thought
his suggestion of climb to the summit a very good one.
Mark also added the following enigmatic lure: “When you’re
up there, look out for the Giant’s Hand Prints and the Cups
and Saucers.”
Just adjacent to the Countryman, a footpath sets off across the
fields in a northerly direction. It passes a place called Bowling
Green and eventually deposits you on a small track. This leads a
few yards north again to where it is crossed by a footpath. You’ll
see this on Ordnance Survey’s detailed Explorer Map 104, just
above the first letter ‘C’ in the words “CARN
BREA CP”.
It’s simply a matter of turning right following
the footpath all the way up to the summit. The views are stunning.
You can see a huge portion of West Cornwall, from the hills of West
Penwith and distant St Ives, right around to St Agnes Beacon –
Carn Brea’s sister hill jutting out into the Atlantic to the
north.
But the first thing you notice having waded through the bracken
to the top of the hill, is the giant granite finger that points
to the heavens. The monument was built in 1836 as a tribute to Lord
Francis Basset, a mining entrepreneur and member of the ancient
and famous Cornish family. The Bassets were one of the principal
mine owners in the district in the 18th and 19th centuries.
A couple hundred yards east of the monument there’s Carn
Brea Castle - it's origins go back as far as 1379, when it’s
believed a chapel dedicated to St Michael stood on the spot. Not
surprising really: almost all the chapels and churches situated
on lofty knolls in the south west are dedicated to St Mike. The
building we see today is probably based on the old hunting lodge
built by the Bassets in the 15th century. I’m told the place
is now a restaurant – a pretty unique one at that.
But what about those Giant’s Hand Prints and
the Cups and Saucers? Well, I did find a huge granite boulder in
which there were all sorts of strange bowls and depressions, so
I guess that these were either the prints or the saucers.
Somehow they set the mood for the rather mysterious atmosphere
which dominates the top of Carn Brea. The place is covered in the
remains of Neolithic and Iron Age dwellings – indeed, between
the monument and the castle are the remains of a massive Neolithic
hill-fort covering some 46 acres.
The other thing to say about the Carn Brea experience is that
you are smack in the middle of mining country. The multitudinous
remains left by that long lost industry are to be seen everywhere
- no single acre of land was left untouched by mining.
Tin was being extracted from the area way back in the Bronze Age
and by 1300 streaming was common in the valley below the town. Redruth
was by then a market town but from the 17th century, when the importance
of copper became evident, it became a sort of Cornish Klondike.
Looking down from Carn Brea, you are left in no doubt of it.
I continued my walk by descending down
the eastern flank to meet up with the footpath which circumnavigates
the hill. But instead of taking that path I crossed and followed
the track which runs south to the hamlet of Carnkie. A few yards
south of this old mining community I was able to rejoin the Great
Flat Lode Trail which took me easily and comfortably west to South
Wheal Frances mine, which I’d explored earlier in the company
of Mark.
This is one of the most remarkable ex-mining sites to be found
anywhere in Cornwall. The buildings are almost cathedral like and
you really do pick up on the ghostly aura of hard times past as
you stroll around. You can also look down one of the deepest pits
in the Westcountry – Marriott’s Shaft is a brick-lined
journey to the centre of the earth that, thankfully, has been sealed
by a heavy duty steel grill.
Through the holes you can see several hundred feet down to the
tiny speck which is the water reflecting back daylight at you. It’s
enough to give you instant vertigo. Time to repair to the footpath
that leads north back to the Countryman pub.
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