Boswarva Carn

You'll find yourself climbing a rough track across moorland to reach this Bronze Age cairn, which sits stubborn and weathered on the Cornish uplands near Porthmeor. It's not dramatic or towering - just a heap of stones really, maybe 30 feet across, with the kind of quiet gravity that Bronze Age monuments possess when you actually stand beside them.

What makes Boswarva worth the short trek is the walk itself. The landscape around it opens up properly - you get proper views across moorland that feels genuinely wild, especially on a grey day when the mist rolls in. It takes about twenty minutes from the nearest parking to reach the carn itself, which sorts the curious from the casual.

History types will appreciate this for what it represents - a burial monument from around 1500 BC, which is the sort of thing that makes you recalibrate how long humans have actually been walking these particular hills. Kids aged ten upwards might find the adventure rewarding, though younger ones will get bored quickly since there's not much interactive about a pile of rocks.

It's free, obviously. Allow an hour total including the walk. Spring or early autumn works best - summer moorland can be boggy, winter bleak beyond the point of pleasure.

If you're staying at Roselands or Polmanter, this makes a decent morning out before heading to the beach. It won't take your whole day, but it won't feel wasted either. The kind of thing that stays with you more than you'd expect from what amounts to stone archaeology.