Ertach Kernow - An archaeological tour around West Penwith
Cornwall with its incredible land and seascapes and temperate climate is a wonderful place to live. Travelling around and talking to people and groups it continues to amaze me how little people know about Cornwall and how little they have seen. There is a wealth of knowledge available and nowhere is so distant that a group of people couldn’t visit some of our iconic sites for an interesting and lovely daytrip. West Penwith has some fantastic sites and a tour around some of them with a picnic can be a cheap, interesting and enjoyable day out.
A group who have been carrying out work in the Penwith area for decades is the Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) a Charitable Trust and a local partnership organisation. Working with numerous other groups they work to protect and preserve ancient sites and monuments in west Cornwall. Visitors will often see signage, such as that on the path to Madron holy well promoting the work of CASPN.
The variety of sites and monuments within the comparatively small area creates an opportunity to see a lot of places within a short period of time. How ancient Cornish people lived can be seen from visiting a number of sites labelled under an encompassing title ‘courtyard settlements’ and fairly unique to this area. Perhaps the best known is Chysauster managed by English Heritage, but there is also Carn Euny overseen by Cornwall Heritage Trust. To access Chysauster there is a charge, but Carn Euny is free. A small carpark with a choice of two walks to Carn Euny makes a very pleasant hour or so spent exploring and something for families with children to enjoy. including the fogue, an underground room and tunnel These date from towards the end of the Iron Age 500 BCE until abandoned about the 6th century CE along with other courtyard settlements at Mulfra Vean, Bosporthennis and Nanjulian.
As always click the images for larger view
There are four stone circles to visit in Penwith. The best known and long-standing source of interest to early visitors travelling in Cornwall is Boscawen-un north of St Buryan. One of the people who visited and recorded it was Daniel Defoe during the early 18th century. Just a few miles from Penzance is the Merry Maidens Stone Circle which consists of nineteen standing stones. The name gives a clue to the legend that a group of maidens were turned to stone for their impiousness of dancing on the Sabbath, the pipers were also punished in the same way and now stand as two standing stones in a nearby field. Creating these stories was no doubt a way of simple farming folk trying to explain the existence of stone circles and a method by which church clerics could perhaps frighten wayward parishioners into attending church services
Something almost unique to Cornwall are fourteen fogous of which the best preserved in Penwith is previously mentioned at Carn Euny dating from the Iron Age. There are none of these enigmatic structures in England, only found in Cornwall and other Celtic nations in various forms. There is one at Chysauster first excavated in 19th century with a tunnel which stretched for some 50 feet. This fogou has been blocked up from the late 20th century as deemed unsafe. Close to the Merry Maidens is the Boleigh Fogou which was featured on televisions Time Team in 1996. This is in good condition and well worth a visit and which needs to be arranged in advance as it’s on private land. The area around the Fogou was once an ancient settlement, sadly this was mostly destroyed in 1912 when the house at Rosemerryn was built.
Penwith has a number of quoits or as often termed dolmen or cromlechs in varying states of ruination. Perhaps the best known and most photographed is Lanyon Quoit with the Ding Dong Mine engine house often seen in the background. Originally drawn by Sr William Borlase with four uprights it fell during a storm in 1815 and was a little later reconstructed with just three supports. Chun Quoit is the best preserved of these western quoits with four uprights and an intact capstone. These monuments were built during the late Neolithic Stone Age and upwards of 5,500 years old. Similar to Chun Quoit is Mulfra Quoit but in a more ruinous condition with just three uprights and the capstone slipped off. This is close by the Mulfra Courtyard House Settlement which has had clearance work carried out to preserve it and make it more inviting for visitors to appreciate. There are four identifiable courtyard houses, but further work on the site needs to be done. Other ruined quoits include those at Bosporthennis Quoit, Zennor Quoit, West Lanyon Quoit, Sperris Quoit and Bosporthennis Quoit.
Hill forts also feature within Penwith, the oldest being on Trencrom Hill dating back to Neolithic times. The Hayle Estuary and river, Mount's Bay with St Michael's Mount can be seen from it illustrating its advantageous position. The site was later reused by Iron Age peoples with hut circles and cairns within the earth and stone embankments. Not far from Chun Quoit is Chun Castle a much later construction, dating from the Iron Age. Of interest from the 17th century the Celtic linguist Edward Lhuyd visited Chun Castle and drew a plan, commenting that ‘military knowledge superior to that of any other works of this kind which I have seen in Cornwall.’ Four excavations were carried out between 1895 and 1930 with pottery from the 4th century BCE discovered. I can personally vouch for the panoramic views available from this site and as with many other hill forts in Cornwall the scenes make them terrific places to visit.
As with many other places in Cornwall holy wells abound in Penwith. Madron Holy Well has been written about before in Ertach Kernow articles along with the nearby baptistry and its cloutie tree. Next is what may be an interesting place to visit, the holy well at Sancreed. This lies within a few hundred yards of the village church where the artist Stanhope Forbes a founding member of the famed Newlyn school of painters is buried. Once this was a popular place of pilgrimage and lies within a small, wooded grove with steps leading down into a corbelled chamber with its cold clear well water. Often described as having a grotto like magical feel there are the ruins of a small chapel close by, with a 15th century carved stone. Mentioned by Dr William Borlase in 1758 it then became overgrown and almost lost until rediscovered by the Reverend Reginald Bassett Rogers vicar of Sancreed in 1879. The path from the church leads to the well, chapel and then on to the ancient Carn Euny settlement. There are a number of other holy well’s including those at Higher and Lower Boscaswell, Bosporthennis Well, Fenton Bebibell and St. Levan’s at Porthchapel.
Standing stones proliferate Cornish countrysides as ancient markers with the somewhat rarer holed stones having some medicinal properties attributed to them. The ‘Mên Scryfa’ standing stone is nearly 10 feet long with some six feet now above ground level. Believed to originally date from the Bronze Age and repurposed during the late Iron Age with an inscription carved in it reading RIALOBRANI CVNOVALI FILI. Both Professor Charles Thomas and historian Craig Wetherhill have contributed to interpreting this inscription, using early Cornish, as Rigalobranos son of Cunoualos. The translation given for these names being kingly raven and valiant hound. When William Borlase saw it in 1769 it was lying flat on the ground later erected in 1825 but again toppled in 1849 by treasure hunters and as was seen by J T Blight in 1861. It was again re-erected the following year hiding the last word FILI. In June 2023 CASPN and the police were informed that Mên Scryfa had been vandalised by petrol being poured over it and set alight. How very sad is that, fortunately no major damage was done.
Close by on route to Mên Scryfa there is one of Cornwall’s more famous monuments, the Men an Tol holed stone. This it seems from archaeological research are the remains of a stone circle estimated to have been of up to twenty standing stones. The wheel shaped slab is fifty-one inches high with a hole about twenty inches in diameter. Legend has it having supposed healing properties for those passing through the hole. Hmm, too much of a tight squeeze and no chance of me trying to sort out my knee’s then, and I didn’t try on my last visit for fear of getting stuck. It's well worth the pleasant scenic walk to see these two monuments with a small parking area off the road at the start of the path towards them.
As usual with so many interesting sites just within the Penwith area there is too little space here to share more of them. A revisit to this area will be on the cards later this year. I hope readers will take the opportunity to go and enjoy some of Cornwall’s well-known and lesser-known sites which we are blessed to have here in abundance.
Heritage Column
