Oct 2006 - King Arthur's Hall

or was it someone’s horse corral?

King Arthur’s Hall is something of an enigma. It stands - or rather is dug out of the turf – a few kms east of St Breward in the heart of Bodmin Moor. The size of an elongated tennis court (now there’s an idea) it is lined with upright stone slabs, many the size of small menhirs.

The sunken nature of this feature protected us from the autumn wind, whipping across the exposed countryside, but also provided a convenient collection point for much of the recent rainfall – which put off all but the most intrepid TDs from examining the centre of the site in detail.

When we last came here in 2002, we were a brand new group, examining strange places for the first time as dowsers. Four years on, the TDs still approach the unfathomable with enthusiasm, but also with greater intuition and more experience.

Come 2006, each of the 15 TDs had their own different methods of approaching and understanding the overtly incomprehensible.

In historical terms, it appears that KAH may originally have been a natural depression or dewpond, where animals came to graze. Some three millennia or so ago the then local inhabitants decided to use the underlying energies of the place to form a ceremonial site, of which the stone stockades and earthen banks remain. It does not appear to have been a religious site for long and it was later used as a convenient sheltered residential location for some while. However, a sheltered site and a good outlook are often mutually exclusive and the site changed from human to animal habitation. It seems to have remained that way for many centuries, with horses featuring strongly in the action. Later still, the sheltered, if damp, location became the temporary home of significant people working on the moor – either as herdsmen or miners. For the past two or three centuries it has lain deserted and dormant, but - as we shall see - not totally inactive.

From an entirely different, but probably subtly connected, standpoint the energy lines in and around this site are unusual, to say the least. There are at least three layers of earth energy. One is a coarse ‘grey’ net of lines that pass through the site at various points and doubtless interact in the usual way (to be clarified on a drier day). There are also two other networks - one ‘green’ and one ‘mauve’- which form much tighter grids within the sunken structure and seem to bounce around between the stones. Each of these energy lattices is at a different ‘wavelength’ and consequently they do not seem to interact with one another. Whatever wavelength the animals were operating on, they could have picked up on one or more of these, apparently beneficial, energy sources.

We had found multiple, differently-coloured, lines at Merrivale and elsewhere, but never in quite such a compact location, and never overlaid in time and space in such an intricate manner.

I wanted to go back to other multi-menhir places immediately, to test this revelation more closely.

There were plenty of water lines - and plenty of water - but this did not seem to be the primary reason for the location of KAH. Both stock holding and habitation seemed to be something of an afterthought – making use of a rare shelter in this beautifully bleak and frequently windswept part of the Cornish landscape. It is a place whose origins and purpose were already ancient and forgotten when the Saxons first made their way out west.

Gordon asked me if I had found the spirit of the place – and I was surprised to discover that I was standing in (?!) her. She seemed quite comfortable with this transient co-existence - after all our intent was investigative, rather than intrusive and at least we were taking an interest in her world.

As ever, just when we felt we had exhausted both dowsing and dowsers, and were making our way back, some chanced upon another unlikely source of interest. A seemingly innocuous and apparently quite modern (well, within the last millennium) boundary stone is sited nearby. True, it’s a bit odd that it, and a couple of others, are raised in the track they mark, rather than beside it, but to be honest, it looked like a common or garden cattle-rubbing post - the sort of thing you see every day and ignore as you pass it by.

Closer examination, however, found it to be both a way and a ley marker, with earth energies present too. It had a considerable aura of its own, which rose as we dowsed around it - and was further boosted by Jen, in a manner that would have had even the most sceptically scientific scratching in their notepads. We spent quite a while dowsing the difference between the earth energy spiral and the animated aura. More concatenated levels of energy in one place – more complexities to comprehend.

The end of the TDs outdoor season of events was ceremonially marked by finishing the day by moving indoors – to the bar of the Old Inn at St Breward – with a chance to discuss our findings and mull over dowsing discoveries and dilemmas - and naturally to sample a glass of Sharps excellent Eden Ale. I am sure the builders of KAH would have approved.

Many thanks to all those who have helped to organise our field trips this season and, of course, to all those who have travelled, often quite a distance, to attend them.

Nigel Twinn

Tamar Dowsers

October 2006