Rough Tor long cairn

Also known as:
Rough Tor Bank Cairn and Showery Tor long cairn
Nearest town:
Hallworthy (7km NNE)
OS reference:
SX14308172
OS sheet:
200
Latitude:
50° 36' 17.95 N
Longitude:
4° 37' 28.77 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Rough Tor long cairn by GLADMAN

One might say ‘What could be more enigmatic than this fantastic monument?’... but, actually, Nature Herself provides the emphatic retort upon Showery Tor, seen upon the skyline.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 15, 2024
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by GLADMAN

I didn’t appreciate this wondrously enigmatic monument for what it was when I last ascended Rough Tor very nearly 20 years ago now. Had to come back one day. It appears Wessex Archaeology term this a ‘Bank Cairn’, presumably since it kinda resembles the stone equivalent of Dorset’s great ‘Bank Barrows‘

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 15, 2024
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by GLADMAN

Landscape context of the ‘long cairn’ – for want of a better description – looking from the main car park to the east. This view explains why Time Team had to come here to prove it was indeed the real deal... looks just like a field boundary.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 15, 2024
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

From the car park, the long cairn, a longer one I know not of, curves below Showery Tor.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

The western section is aligned on Showery Tor.

Phil Harding stood here for three days, excavating for Time Team, seen it on TV, it’s not often you get to stand in an actual gods footsteps.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

The curve that takes it away from Showery to Rough Tor

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

Thought I’d found a cist for a bit but it’s probably one of the big kerb stones, that has done that strange thing that stones do, move about.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

Only one car in the car park, an unpopular place this, at 6am anyway.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

The south east terminus, apres sunrise en route back to the car for my lighter, then it’s back up again, d’oh.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016
Image of Rough Tor long cairn by postman

Zoomed at from my little nook or cranny on Rough Tor.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Mar 21, 2016

Articles

In the Shadow of the Tor - Time Team Dig

Time Team focus upon the Bank Cairn and some hut circles beneath Rough Tor, Bodmin Moor.

GLADMAN
GLADMAN Jun 1, 2024

Rough Tor long cairn

postman
postman Mar 21, 2016

I’ve known about a few stone circles in the area for ages, ive known about the king of ring cairns on Showery Tor for a smaller age. But it took a TV show to really peak my interest, strangely there are no monsters, aliens or spaceships in this TV show, a common theme for most of my viewing, it’s an archaeology program, I doubt you’ve heard of it, it’s finished now, Time team it was called. This one episode has the team on Bodmin Moor below Rough Tor, investigating what they hope is a Bronze age settlement, and a very weird long curving cairn like thing.
I watch time team a lot, i’m very sad to say that ive even seen the digging up a plane one three times, so you can imagine how many times ive seen the prehistoric ones, it’s comfort watching in it’s purest form, during the many many hours of watching these characters reveal the past I have in my mind elevated them to the high position of gods. Seeing as no one can definitively say what a god is then it’s up to me to satisfy for myself what a god is or isn’t.
So to stand in the very place that the highest god of them all stood in whilst performing his miracles is a blessed thing to be doing, goose bumped and giddy I nearly exploded.
Sadly I couldn’t really tell which round house Goddess Raksha was in, I really would’ve exploded if I had.

In the Time team episode Phil only dug in one place, but he was able to detect the method of construction, the turf was stripped, large kerb stones on the outside, rubble infill with paving at the side and the turfs probably replaced on top, it would have looked very striking. But they didn’t really address the curve to it, they said it was aligned on Rough Tor, how can a curved anything be aligned, if so then only the east end is aligned on Rough Tor the western section is very much aligned on Showery Tor and it’s massive ring cairn, is it multi phase ?
North of the long cairn there are only a few cairns, and a standing stone or two, but on it’s south side it just explodes into a frenzy of things, things? there are more round houses than ive ever seen anywhere, they are everywhere, curving lines of stone cover the hill side, if they were all occupied at the same time there would have been hundreds if not thousands of people here. Bonkers.

It’s not really a long cairn though is it, it’s in an indeterminate class of it’s own, if you know of anything vaguely similar let us know.

Me and Phil Harding occupied the same physical space on earth, and to a lesser extent with Francis Prior.

Sites within 20km of Rough Tor long cairn

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