The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Megalithic Sites of Britain and Ireland

Fighting Moorland Enclosure in Penwith

Ian McNeil Cooke, Co-ordinator, Save Penwith Moors 2008–2018

Save Penwith Moors (SPM) was set up in July 2008 by six local residents concerned about government plans to enclose – for the first time ever – large areas of heathland in the Land’s End peninsula with barbed-wire fencing, gates and cattle grids. This stockproofing of previously unfettered moorland – the iconic heartland of West Penwith – took place under “conservation grazing” agreements intended to benefit plants and wildlife.

As we feared would happen, cattlerubbing at Tregeseal circle destabilized stones a dozen times over several years. The cattle also failed to trample down the bracken as intended. At Mên-an-Tol, cattle churned up an unsightly mess of deep mud and dung. There was public uproar after SPM complaints, but the cattle are still there. Carnyorth Common, where cattle continue to graze, is almost totally a Scheduled Ancient Monument with remnants of numerous prehistoric field systems and settlements.

As well as publicizing what was going on, SPM has forced a number of gates and cattle grids to be removed as well as preventing enclosure of several areas of heathland. Our campaign to re-register areas of formerly open-access moor as common land has resulted in the protection of nearly 500ha (1,236 acres) of moorland. These include areas with important archaeological sites, such as Chûn Downs, containing Chûn Quoit and Chûn Castle, as well as Carnyorth Common, site of Tregeseal circle and other features. We continue to campaign for the removal of stockproofing at Carn Galva, Mên-an-Tol, Lanyon Quoit and parts of Watch Croft. Find out more at: www.savepenwithmoors.com

A capstone on three uprights makes for an iconic if somewhat inauthentic structure, sited conveniently close to the road. Antiquarian drawings show that it used to be possible to ride a horse beneath the capstone, but the stones collapsed during a storm in 1815 and were re-erected in 1824 at a reduced height, with three uprights instead of four. Large stones at the southern end of a mutilated barrow may indicate cists or other structures.

Nearby | At SW 4281 3437, 700m (½ mile) NNW of Lanyon Quoit, is Bosiliack Bronze Age settlement. At least 12 hut circles were found here.

Reduced to rubble by an earth tremor in 1967, Carwynnen Quoit was excavated and restored to its former glory in 2014 by the late Pip Richards and the Sustainable Trust. It is now an impressive sight, the huge capstone balanced on three uprights. Finds from the excavation included flint arrowheads and a greenstone pestle.

The Nine Maidens stand in an evenly spaced row in a field beside the busy A39, southwest of Wadebridge. The nine stones are of unworked local grey slate veined with quartz, some stones are only stumps while the tallest is 2m (6½ft). A further stone known as the Fiddler stands on a ridge to the northeast 678m (2,224ft) along the same alignment. Richard Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall (1602), noted that the stones were then known as the Sisters. The fields and hedges around here are littered with large stones, and there could once have been many more in this row.