12 The Rising Sun

Walking to the top of Cornwall

The passing of a year from my expedition along the Tamara Way with Big Cuz, the forecast of unseasonal sunshine and a few clear days in my diary could only mean one thing.

It was time to pack some clean pants in the van, head west and stalk some dead relatives.

I was up and out of London early on Monday and parked up in the camping field at the Rising Sun Inn, north of Altarnun by noon.

By the time the school bells were liberating the youngest generation of Tamarans, Big Cuz and I were at the top of Cornwall. In a route march the Royal Marines would have been proud of we set out from Bowithick, stepped across the boundary of the Tamar River catchment and soaked up the all-you-can-feast-your-eyes-on buffet laid out at the top of Bronn Wennili. Or Brown Willy, the anglicised, smirk-inducing name of the highest point on Bodmin Moor, and indeed the whole of Cornwall, 420 metres above the sea which bordered our view, bright, blue and serene today.

We paused a moment and gazed across the landscape we had crossed on foot a year before, reversing the view of the distant moorland we’d admired through the gate posts on the Tamara Way.

Gazing South East from the top of Brown Willy - Monday 28th April 2025

This year I was following the maternal trail of our grandfathers. Will, Hedley and Stanley’s grandmother Emma and her parents Mary Ann and William.

Mary Ann and William married at Altarnun church in March 1838 and raised their family in that area, on the fringes of Bodmin Moor. I’ve spent many hours with them through their digital records recently and I was keen to walk in the places where they left their traces.

Big Cuz and I were back to the Rising Sun in time for a cuppa before he headed off and I plotted my route for the next day, through Trenilk, Tregenna, Trevague, Tresmaine. No need to check which county I was in with a list of waypoints like that.

Read about Emma’s father-in-law William Kite here.