The walk to Cornwall’s highest ground tops this week’s favourites

Climb to the cairn on Rough Tor on a clear day and Cornwall opens up beneath you, fields running away to a thin line of sea on both coasts. It’s the reward for reaching the second-highest ground in the county, on the way to the highest point of all at neighbouring Brown Willy. This week the walk up both is the most popular route on iWalk Cornwall, leading a list of five that also takes in a mysterious Neolithic enclosure, a mining valley stained orange with arsenic, and the cliff a condemned man supposedly leapt from to escape execution.

iWalk Cornwall has shared its most-walked routes for the week. Between them, the five walks take in the high ground of Bodmin Moor, a reclaimed mining valley, a wooded river walk on the moor’s eastern edge, a still-unexplained ancient monument near St Breward, and a stretch of the coast path between two fishing villages.

Every route below comes from the iWalk Cornwall app, which we rate highly. This is not a paid partnership, we just think it is a genuinely useful way to explore the county. Each walk comes with hand-written directions, GPS guidance that keeps you on track, and a bit of local history along the way. Distances and difficulty grades below are iWalk Cornwall’s own, and the practical detail on dogs, pubs and cafés comes from their route pages too. Parking isn’t listed on iWalk’s summary pages for any of the five, so check the app or website before you set off.

1. Rough Tor and Brown Willy

• Location: Bodmin Moor, near Camelford, North Cornwall
• Parking: (not listed on iWalk’s route page, confirm before travelling)
• Dog-Friendly: Two stiles on the ascent to Brown Willy, the higher one wired-over and needing a lift for dogs. Sheep, cattle and ponies graze the open moor, and leads no longer than 2m are required between 1 March and 31 July
• Café: None directly on the route
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Rough Tor and Brown Willy
• Distance: 5.2 miles / 8.4 km
• Difficulty: Moderate-strenuous (walking boots recommended, ground marshy even in summer)
• Highlights: Rough Tor, Brown Willy (Cornwall’s highest point), Showery Tor, Bronze Age hut circles and field systems, prehistoric cairns and stone circles, Roughtor’s holy well

Walk Description: Rough Tor and Brown Willy sit side by side on the northern edge of Bodmin Moor, the two highest points in Cornwall. The route climbs across open moorland studded with granite boulders and the remains of Bronze Age hut circles and field systems, passing a holy well and several stone circles before the scramble to Rough Tor’s cairn and on to Brown Willy itself. iWalk Cornwall flags granite boulders to negotiate near the summit and in the valley between the two tors, so sturdy boots earn their keep. With the summer holidays still in full swing, it’s easy to see why this one leads the list this week.

2. Wheal Maid and Poldice Valley

• Location: Poldice Valley, between St Day and Redruth, mid Cornwall
• Parking: (not listed on iWalk’s route page, confirm before travelling)
• Dog-Friendly: No stiles and the route avoids fields, so livestock is unlikely. The water in the Wheal Maid lagoons carries high arsenic levels, so keep dogs close by when passing them
• Café: A café is on the route (not named on iWalk’s summary page)
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Wheal Maid and Poldice Valley
• Distance: 3.4 miles / 5.4 km
• Difficulty: Easy-moderate
• Highlights: Taylor’s Engine House, the ruins of Poldice Mine, the Clock Tower, the mineral-stained Wheal Maid lagoons

Walk Description: Poldice Valley was once described as the richest square mile of mining ground anywhere on Earth, and the walk around Wheal Maid still carries the scars. Taylor’s Engine House, one of the largest surviving pumping engine houses in Cornwall, stands over lagoons stained orange and green by the minerals still leaching from the old workings below. It’s the shortest and gentlest route on this list, and a reminder of how much of the county’s wild-looking landscape was shaped by industry rather than nature.

3. Blisland and Pendrift Downs

• Location: Blisland, on the eastern edge of Bodmin Moor, near Bodmin
• Parking: (not listed on iWalk’s route page, confirm before travelling)
• Dog-Friendly: A few of the stiles are wired-over, so dogs will need lifting over
• Café: The Blisland Inn, a CAMRA National Pub of the Year winner, sits on the route
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Blisland and Pendrift Downs
• Distance: 4.3 miles / 6.9 km
• Difficulty: Moderate-strenuous (waterproof footwear recommended, the De Lank valley floor stays marshy even in summer)
• Highlights: De Lank granite quarry (source of stone for the Royal Opera House), Jubilee Rock, Blisland’s ornate 15th-century church, the Blisland Inn

Walk Description: Blisland is one of the few villages in Cornwall built around a proper green, and this route swaps that quiet centre for the De Lank granite quarry, whose stone has gone into buildings as grand as the Royal Opera House, before crossing moss-covered boulders and twisted oaks on Pendrift Downs to the carved insignia of Jubilee Rock. It’s a walk of two halves, sheltered river valley on one side and open moorland on the other, which tends to make it a popular choice when the weather can’t decide what it’s doing.

4. St Breward to King Arthur’s Hall

• Location: St Breward, Bodmin Moor, near Camelford
• Parking: (not listed on iWalk’s route page, confirm before travelling)
• Dog-Friendly: The ladder stile is reported difficult for large dogs, and some stone stiles need a helping hand. Leads no longer than 2m are required on the moor between 1 March and 31 July
• Café: The Old Inn, a mediaeval pub, sits at the end of the route
• iWalk Cornwall Route: St Breward to King Arthur’s Hall
• Distance: 5.1 miles / 8.2 km
• Difficulty: Easy-moderate (waterproof boots recommended)
• Highlights: King Arthur’s Hall, panoramic views from Casehill across King Arthur’s Downs, St Breward church (said to be the highest in Cornwall), the Old Inn

Walk Description: Nobody is entirely sure what King Arthur’s Hall actually is. The rectangular earthwork enclosure on the downs above St Breward has carried the name since at least Tudor times, and historians are doubtful about the Arthurian connection but no more certain about what it was actually for. Some think its standing stones point to a ceremonial site, others a more mundane cattle compound. Excavations in 2024 dated the structure to around 5,000 to 5,500 years old, firmly Neolithic. The walk out to it from St Breward crosses open moorland with little to interrupt the view, which is most of the appeal, before finishing at the mediaeval Old Inn.

5. Gorran Haven to Portmellon

• Location: Gorran Haven, near Mevagissey, South Cornwall
• Parking: (not listed on iWalk’s route page, confirm before travelling)
• Dog-Friendly: Gorran Haven and Colona Beach allow dogs year-round, Portmellon has seasonal restrictions. Some stone stiles are awkward for dogs and a couple of wooden ones may need a lift for larger breeds
• Café: A café is on the route (not named on iWalk’s summary page), plus two pubs, the Barley Sheaf and the Rising Sun Inn
• iWalk Cornwall Route: Gorran Haven to Portmellon
• Distance: 5.9 miles / 9.6 km
• Difficulty: Moderate (walking shoes or trainers fine in summer)
• Highlights: Bodrugan’s Leap, West Bodrugan Woods nature reserve, Gorran Haven’s medieval streets, Gorran Church, Colona Beach

Walk Description: The only coastal walk on this week’s list takes its name from two villages, but its best story belongs to the cliffs in between. Bodrugan’s Leap is where, according to local history, Henry Bodrugan is said to have jumped from the cliff top to a waiting boat below to escape his pursuers. The route follows those same cliffs from Gorran Haven’s medieval streets through the West Bodrugan Woods nature reserve to the boat-building village of Portmellon, passing Gorran Church and the sandy stretch of Colona Beach along the way. iWalk Cornwall notes the path runs close to unfenced cliff edges in places. With the sea this calm through August, it’s easy to see why it’s pulled in more walkers than usual this week.

Plan your walk

iWalk Cornwall’s real strength is in the detail you don’t notice until you need it. Hand-written directions call out the stile you might miss, GPS guidance flags it the moment you stray off route, and the app works with no signal at all, which matters on the moor as much as it does anywhere else. It’s still not a paid partnership, we just use it ourselves. The app is free to download from the App Store and Google Play, and you buy the individual walks you want to do. The full library runs to more than 300 routes across the county, so this week’s five are only the start.