Neolithic Tor Enclosures - Ancient Penwith | Cornwall

Ancient Penwith
The prehistoric landscape of West Penwith, the Land's End peninsula, Cornwall
Ancient Penwith
Ancient Penwith
The prehistoric landscape of the Land's End Peninsula
Ancient Penwith
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Neolithic Tor Enclosures

The Neolithic Tor Enclosures of Penwith


Two neolithic tor enclosures: Trencrom Hill with Carn Brea behind
Neolithic Tors - Trencrom Hill with Carn Brea behindHere the story of the megalithic era in West Penwith begins.

When Penwithians started to move earth and rocks around, roughly 5,700 years ago in the Neolithic, they worked with a wild natural landscape canvas as yet unchanged by humans.

Much of the land was dense woodland. The climate was warmer and more agreeable than today. West Penwith's population numbered probably a few hundred people, most of them related to each other.

Dominating this landscape were the granite tors and hills, carns (outcrops) and headlands, the most noticeable features. They served as the natural framework, the canvas, on which the locations of future megalithic constructions in West Penwith were based.

The granite tors of the peninsula were the centres of activity in Penwith, from the time when humans were first here. Around 3700 BCE Neolithic Penwithians started modifying them, building 'tor enclosures'.

Together with cliff sanctuaries, quoits and placed stones, these were the first vestiges of the megalithic era - the monuments of the Neolithic period.
St Michael's Mount, from Trencrom Hill (telephoto shot)
St Michael's Mount from Trencrom HillOver time, onto this landscape canvas was laid a geomantic system of ancient sites that made use of prominent markers such as hills and cliff castles as its basis.

Hills, Tors and Carns

Prominent hills and carns were important in Neolithic people's thoughts in the  3000s BCE. Together with cliff sanctuaries, special trees and woodland glades that now are gone, plus springs, these were the special places toward which people would gravitate.

Everyone knew the tors, basing their sense of local geography on them. People felt they were special - where the spirit of place, or genuis loci, was strong.

Serving as important landmarks and viewpoints, the granite tors were key central places in people's mental maps. They weren't occupied as living places, except for nights during the height of summer, or on fullmoons, or for periodic overnight stays.

In a forested environment human life was swamped by nature, so such special places were important, giving a sense of place. People could get above the forest to gain a sense of perspective. These were like city squares and landmarks - everyone knew them and went there.
Aligned hills in Penwith


A number of prominent hills in Penwith are naturally aligned. This is strange. Logically, such hill alignments shouldn't happen at all.

  • Carn Lês Boel, Chapel Carn Brea and Bartinney Castle line up with each other (in a 7km alignment they are just 80m inexact).
  • Treryn Dinas, St Michael’s Mount and Carn Brea (near Camborne) are aligned.
  • Cape Cornwall, Zennor Hill and St Ives Head.
  • St Michael's Mount, Trencrom Hill and St Ives Head.

The last three alignments are more exact than the first - and they are natural, not man-made.

Is this mere chance, or does it suggest a level of beauty and magic, even intelligent design, that somehow affects the way that the land's topography has evolved?

If indeed it is pure chance, it’s a very elegant, remarkable kind of chance - a wonder in itself that needs explaining.
Penwith's Tor Enclosures
Carn Kenidjack from Chûn Castle
Carn Kenidjack from Chun CastleThe four tor enclosures in Penwith are Carn Galva, Trencrom Hill, Carn Kenidjack and St Michael's Mount.

Also, outside West Penwith and within sight of it is Carn Brea near Camborne, a tor enclosure dated to around 3900-3600 BCE. Carn Brea was the first identified tor enclosure. They are unique to the granitic highlands of the southwest.

Other hills that were also significant in the Neolithic period: Chûn Castle, Chapel Carn Brea, Sancreed Beacon, Zennor Hill, Lesingey Round, Bartinney Castle and, outside Penwith but visible from it, Godolphin Hill.

All four tor enclosures have a rather mythic visual profile.
Trencrom Hill and, in the distance, Carn Brea
Trencrom Hill and Carn BreaRound the Tors

Carn Brea. It is commonly thought that Carn Brea, occupied for 300 years, came to a violent end with fighting and burning, but this is inconclusive since its walls and water sources were inadequate for defence. It might instead have burned accidentally or in a ritual burning for cleansing or closedown (rather like a demolition).

It's a prominent hill and focal node in the west of Cornwall (you pass it on the A30). It's on the Michael Line, a long-distance alignment crossing southern Britain from Carn Lês Boel to Norfolk, through Carn Brea, Helman Tor and the Hurlers to Glastonbury Tor and Avebury, the world's biggest stone circle.

Trencrom Hill would be a lovely summer residence for a small tribe, with a flattish top for dwellings and human activity, a hilltop spring and fine views encompassing Godrevy Head, Carn Brea, Godolphin Hill, Castle-an-Dinas and St Michael's Mount.

Later it was reoccupied as an Iron Age hillfort, when most Neolithic remains would have been recycled. A day's walk from Carn Brea, trackways will have branched from Trencrom toward the Zennor uplands, Castle an Dinas and southern Penwith.

On the eastern edge of the peninsula, it has spectacular views over both the north and south coast, with a fine view east to Carn Brea. Trencrom looks imposing from the east, acting as a guardian or gateway hill for Penwith, with St Michael's Mount. St Michael's Mount, Trencrom Hill and St Ives Head mysteriously align with each other, forming the eastern energy-threshold of the Penwith peninsula.

Trencrom is worth a climb on a nice day. Try finding the old spring near the summit.

It was not, or hardly ever, a defensive site, but it was indeed a stronghold, giving a sense of territoriality and identification with the landscape. People had a feeling for their land and its place under the heavens when on top of the hill - not so much in the sense of owning it, but more in the sense of identification with it as their homeland.

Carn GalvaCarn Galva. This twin-peaked dragon-tor, also with fine views, acted as an axis mundi for Penwith - the centre of the Penwith world.

This tor (the Lookout Carn) is like a dragon with two humps, with an imposing presence over much of the landscape - visible from many places across the peninsula. It presents a different shape from different directions.

Neighbouring Watch Croft is higher, but Carn Galva looks higher - one's eye is drawn to it. It is a hub, a centre of gravity or omphalos (Greek for 'navel') for the whole of Penwith, lying at the centre of the originally populated upland area in the north of Penwith.
The menhir Mên Scryfa with Carn Galva behind
Carn Galva and Zennor Hill lay at the centre of Neolithic life in early Penwith, in the highlands which were the place to be in the warm climate of the time.

Carn Galva looks and feels prominent - a true 'magic mountain'. The southern peak has a double hump, seen side-on. Seen end-on from the south, Galva looks more like a rounded pyramid in shape. Quite a few propped and placed stones have been found on the tor, from a similar time to the building of the enclosure. In its heyday it did not look as stark as today, and it would rise majestically out of the trees and scrub below, hovering above the treescape.

Kenidjack CastleCarn Kenidjack is daunting and characterful, though not very high. It is nevertheless very visible from many points in West Penwith and from the Scillies, presenting a broody, mysterious character. Its rocky granitic outline, which includes two simulacra (or zoomorphic-shaped rocks) is very noticeable, rather archetypal in form.

It hovers atmospherically over the Tregeseal stone circle. Originally the tor would have loomed out of the trees, standing out as a definite landmark.

Known as the Hooting Tor, owing to occasional wind effects during gales on dark, forbidding nights, it later became the overlighting landscape setting for the stone circle at Tregeseal just below, as did Carn Galva for the Nine Maidens. These stone circles were built later in the Bronze Age when the centre of gravity and attention moved down from the tors to the stone circles.

St Michael's MountSt Michael's Mount. While hardly any signs of a tor enclosure remain here, the Mount is seen by archaeologists as a tor site and a cliff castle rolled into one.

Clearly it is one of the most charismatic sites of Penwith, stuffed with mythic symbolism, today with its castle on top, built from the 1100s CE onwards. It is visible from many places, including the Lizard peninsula.

The Mount has had a long and varied history, not only as a Neolithic tor enclosure and cliff sanctuary but also a famous ancient and medieval trading place, a monastery, fortress, stately home and now a National Trust property.

In neolithic times it was not an island. The coast was a mile or so out to sea, and the Mount was surrounded by wooded flatlands. The remains of a submerged forest on the beach near Marazion are sometimes revealed during storms (such as 2014). It became an island during the Bronze Age - perhaps by a tsunami from Portugal or the Azores. Nowadays an island at high tide, it is linked to the mainland by a causeway at low tide.

Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathaea and Jesus visited here. Before that it was visited by a Greek explorer, Pytheas, in the 330s BCE, in Alexander the Great's time.

In the Neolithic it was a rocky upstanding tor that was special to the locals. People might have lived there in summer months. If not, they certainly visited there at special times.

The Mount is an important alignment centre for the whole of West Penwith. Throughout ancient times, it was a significant trading place, particularly for tin, and a meeting point for people visiting Cornwall by sea from the European mainland.

Zennor HillZennor Hill is a granitic massif with two upstanding tors, one looking over the north coast and the other looking more south, east and west. It is not a Neolithic tor enclosure, but it was a significant place in the Neolithic.

It once had its own rocking logan stone, and it has quite a few propped stones. Zennor Hill was the centre of human activity in Penwith in early Neolithic times, if there was one.

While it was warm and equable in Cornwall at that time, nowadays Zennor Hill has a bleak and shadowy atmosphere. It is easy to get lost and pisky-led. It was more friendly and hospitable in Neolithic timesy, a refuge from the steamy, dank forests. Zennor and Sperris Quoits are on Zennor Hill - possibly the two earliest quoits in Penwith. This was then a centre of Penwithian life.

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In 3700-3200 BCE the tors, with their enclosures, were pretty much the most important places in Penwith. Cliff sanctuaries were very important too, as were other hills and locations such as Chapel Carn Brea, Lesingey Round, Castle an Dinas, Bartinney Castle and Sancreed Beacon.

This led the early megalith builders to base the geomantic system of Penwith upon the tors and cliff sanctuaries, creating backbone alignments which themselves determined where many other ancient sites were later to be located.

This backbone system was established by around 3700 BCE, long before the first menhirs and stone circles. The evidence is that Lanyon Quoit, built around that time, is located exactly on the intersection of three of these backbone alignments. Its location was determined by alignments between tors and cliff sanctuaries, and that alignment intersection will have been identified before its building.
Tor Enclosures
Neolithic hilltop tor enclosures built around 3700-3500 BCE.
CARN GALVA Prominent two-peaked granite outcrop and Neolithic hilltop enclosure (c3700 BCE), aka Carn Galver. With rock platforms and placed and propped stones. SW 4256 3639. 50.171456 -5.6067374.
CARN KENIDJACK Carn Kenidjack, aka the Hooting Tor. Neolithic tor enclosure and the oldest site in the Tregeseal complex. SW 3879 3297. 50.139141 -5.6569923.
TRENCROM HILL Neolithic tor enclosure and Iron Age hill camp, with holy well. SW 5172 3625. 50.174144 -5.478555.
ST MICHAEL'S MOUNT An island since around 1700 BCE – before that it was a mile or so inland from the coast. Major node on the Michael and Apollo lines, and a remarkable place. Neolithic tor and cliff sanctuary, with multiple historic layers. Managed by the National Trust. SW 5143 2984. 50.117048 -5.477489.
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