The Bedknobs Guide to Rough Tor

You can find out more about Rough Tor below.

Postcode: PL32 9SH

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Rough Tor

Rough Tor (pronounced ’router’) is one of the most famous landmarks on Bodmin Moor. You can get to the tor by taking the track to a car park that sits underneath the tor. This is accessible from the main road heading North out of Camelford and is on your right just as you are leaving the town. From the car park you will see three tors straight ahead of you, Showery Tor to the left, Little Rough Tor in the middle and Rough Tor to the right. The easiest approach is to aim for Little Rough Tor in the middle and then turn right and head up to Rough Tor from there.

A trip up to Rough Tor and back is about a three mile (5 km) walk and please note that it can be quite strenuous in places and good footwear is advisable.

You can climb right up to the top of Rough Tor where you will find a memorial to soldiers who died in WWII and the inscription reads.

ROUGH TOR ON WHICH THIS
MEMORIAL IS PLACED HAS
BEEN GIVEN TO THE NATION
IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO
LOST THEIR LIVES WHILE
SERVING IN THE 43RD (WESSEX)
DIVISION IN THE NORTH-WEST
EUROPEAN CAMPAIGN 1944/45

There are some fine views of Brown Willy to the South East and the Stannon china clay works to the North West. Under the tor and all around you will see signs of settlement and field systems and this must have been a well populated area in former times. In some cases you can clearly see the outlines of complete stone dwellings.

One of the rocks at the summit is a 'logan' rock which will rock quite gently if pressure is applied.

Looking North from the tor, you can see a memorial to Charlotte Dymond who was brutally murdered on Rough Tor in 1884. Her boyfriend Mathew Weeks, a simple farmhand, was tried, found guilty and executed in Bodmin Gaol for the crime, though there is some doubt as too whether the actual killer walked free. The Bodmin assize courts are now known as Shire Hall and you can visit 'The Courtroom Experience', a tableaux and film that documents the investigation into Charlotte Dymond's murder and the subsequent court case.