I now had quite a way north to travel to get to one of my key sites of the day. Fortunately, I could easily stop off at two sites on the way, the first of which was the oddly named Music Water Stone (SW 906 687). This stone is very close to the road and very near to a gate, but it is very obvious that the landowner does not want you to go in and take a closer look (see fig. 8).
Conveniently situated near to a layby and accessible via a stile is The Nine Maidens stone row. Unsurprisingly there are nine stones here (see fig. 9), which are said to be dancers caught dancing on the Sabbath and turned to stone. The row is aligned north-south and a short way off to the north is a fallen standing stone known as The Piper.
Each stone has veins of quartz running through it. One of the stones has fallen and one seems to be broken off 40cm above ground level. The tallest stone is around 1.6m tall.
My final stop was Pawton Quoit (SW 966 696) a tomb with a huge capstone on the very north extreme of Bodmin Moor. I didn't get to see much more than the capstone because the fine weather in the previous weeks had provided perfect conditions for the brambles and other plants to envelop the tomb almost completely (see fig. 10). The field was also freshly planted with new crops so I didn't feel I could walk across to the tomb to take a closer look.
So my trip came to an end in a fairly unspectacular manner. I had so wanted to see Pawton firsthand, but it wasn't to be. At least I had one more excuse to return to this area sometime in the future.
