Visiting The Cheesewring, Cornwall

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Places to visit in Cornwall

The Cheesewring Tor is a must see on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall.

From Halloween 2016 till October 2021 we lived in a village called Minions on Bodmin Moor. Our five years in Cornwall, were spent mostly working (with the addiction of a global pandemic) rather than exploring. But we did manage to squeeze in some sights.

Life on Bodmin Moor

What happens when the delivery man leaves the gate open?

A garden full of cows!

I feel like there should be a joke here somewhere. How do you tell if there has been a cow in your garden? …hmm…

But this is what you get when living in such an amazing place. Bodmin Moor have free roaming sheep, cows and ponies all over the moor. However they do much prefer garden plants if they get the chance!

The moorland all around the village of Minions is private land. Owned by a collection of people-the commoners-who have rights to graze certain amounts of animals. The animals are then free to range the whole area. There are then cattle grids in the road this is to stop animals wandering off in the wrong direction!

Walkers are allowed to use the land at the commoners discretion. The moor is not public. It is important we look after it, keep it clean and follow the rules so that the commoners can keep it available for future generations to come.

The Cheesewring Tor

One of the key local sites around Minions is The Cheesewring.

The Cheesewring is a tor, a large piece of weather eroded rock on a hill, which happens to look like an old fashioned cheesewring or press. It may look like a stack of stones but it is definitely just the one which has eroded naturally to look like it does!

Over the years the tor has become weakended and damaged by the weather and human interaction such as pushing it, climbing it and even just walking nearby. Please don’t make ‘fairy stacks’ (piles of rocks) near the Cheesewring. Removing these rocks has caused its erosion to increase and increased the chance it will fall.

How to walk to The Cheesewring Tor

The Cheesewring is perched on a cliff over looking the aptly named Cheesewring Quarry and can be accessed multiple ways. The easiest way is as follows…

First park up in the car park outside the village of Minions on the St Cleer side of the village. Here you will find information boards on The Hurlers stone circles. To find out more about The Hurlers check out my other post here.

Take the steps up on to the moor and within a few minutes walk you should be able to see or potentially be in the Hurlers stone circle. As you look directly through all 3 of them you will see the Cheesewring on the cliff ahead.

Simply walk across the Moor in that direction and you will come to the Cheesewring.

The walk takes around 40mins to an hour round trip to the car, depending on personal speed and view admiration time!

Difficulty increases in bad weather or if you climb up the hill. Without climbing it is a pretty easy walk bar mud.

Another route to the Tor

The Heritage Centre is based on the Moorland in the village of Minions accessible via the car park on the Upton Cross/Henwood side of the village. This mini museum/information centre is a wealth of knowledge and is based in a converted engine house. This is the other place you can park and access the Cheesewring from, Simply follow the old train route around the moorland. This can be found on your right as you look at the Heritage Centre from the Carpark.

The Heritage centre can also be seen from the Hurlers Stone Circles and is a great place to begin exploring the area from with large information boards and maps to be found inside.

Other walks in the area

Another great walk which has a wonderful view of The Cheesewring is to walk up to Caradon Hill. If you follow the, recently re-tarmacked, private road by foot that heads up past the side of Minions Shop and Tearoom you will arrive at the top of Caradon Hill.

It takes about 15 minutes to walk to the top, near the mast, which gives glorious views of the surrounding countryside including The Hurlers Stone Circle and The Cheesewring. Also be sure to stop and turn around on the way to see the changing view.

Towards the top of the hill you will pass a spring. This is the start of the river Seaton. There is also an active quarry to the right with views towards the sea.

From here you can either walk over the top of the hill and down towards Pensilva or back down to the village centre, or numerous pathways which go around the hillside.

Always remember to be careful around the animals who live on the moor and keep dogs under control (on leads between March and the end of July at least). The Moor is privately owned not public land. Remember to clean any mess you or you dog makes as the animals can get very sick eating plastic rubbish.