The high temperature thermal contact resistance (TCR) is one of the vital parameters for system thermal management since the interfacial contact heat transfer process under high temperature conditions is widely existed in the fields of aerospace, energy, thermonuclear reaction, etc. The characterization method and experimental investigation of the TCR at a high temperature (~1200°C) are not systematically established so far and the pertinent researches are scarce. This paper carries out a research on high temperature TCR measuring system design and presents a steady-state bi-directional loading heat flow method with symmetrical test columns. A measurement instrument is developed and its performance (e.g., measuring accuracy, uncertainty and influence factors) is tested under high temperature condition. Furthermore, the high temperature TCR and conductivity experiments are conducted through the instrument. The results show that the high temperature TCR can be precisely measured and the measurement uncertainty is within 10%, which verifies the feasibility and reliability of the homemade instrument and the presented measuring method at high temperature.