More information : SX 18817961. The remains of a BA stone circle
approximately 30.0 metres in diameter situated on open moorland.
It comprises 17 recumbent stones from 1.0 metre to 1.8 metres long and 0.3 metres to 0.5 metres wide, three small boulders
which may be stumps, and three peat mounds which may cover
more stumps.
Formerly an impressive circle.
Found during field investigation.
Surveyed at 1:2500. (1)
This stone circle, discovered by M Fletcher of the O.S.
Archaeology Division in 1973, is of typical Bodmin Moor size and
is the only known circle in this area.
It has an approximate diameter of 30.4m and consists of 20-22 stones of which one is a stump and the others are fallen. Three
stones are virtually buried by vegetation and others have been
displaced or buried by trail mineral workings. The stones are mostly
between 1.9m and 1.4m long and so would have stood approximately
1.3m to 0.9m high. One broken stone may have been standing and used as a rubbing stone until relatively recent times.
Originally the site was perhaps circular and it seems likely
that there were 31 stones, although a figure between 29 and 33 is possible. If adjacent rectangular earthworks are peat drying
stacks it would indicate that the whole area had peat cut from it
and that the site would perhaps not have been visible before then.
(2)
Stone circle on level close-cropped and boulder-free moorland
pasture at 293m O.D. but dominated on all sides by higher ground.
In fair condition.
At least 22 stones of this stone circle can be identified but
some only by probing; the contraction of peat during the 1984
drought has reveled a number of small boulders between the stones
and a little more of the surface area of many of the partially
buried stones.
It is clear that the area has been stripped of a surface layer
of peat as one or two of the slabs lie on slight platforms
of peat which represent the old land surface, and there are
numerous peat platforms (qv) in the area. The stump is 0.1m
high and none of the recumbent slabs is more than 0.5m thick.
Another circle has now been discovered (1983) some 400m to the
NW (SX 17 NE 77).
Surveyed at 1/2500 and 1/100. (3)
Published on site distribution map and catalogue of neolithic sites in Cornwall. (4) |