Sacred Places, Holy Landscape
The Ancient Sites of Belerion
Boscawen-ûn stone circle
West Penwith is dense with ancient sites. They're lovable and today much loved, and they're set in a landscape that is still alive with a magic atmosphere.
In this Ancient Sites section of the website, we shall go through the different kinds of prehistoric sites that exist in Penwith, starting with the oldest first.
This is not a systematic, site-by-site guide. The most comprehensive site-by-site guides are:
+ Cornovia - the ancient sites of Cornwall and Scilly, Craig Weatherhill, Halsgrove, 2009.
+ Belerion - the ancient sites of Land's End, Craig Weatherhill, Alison Hodge, 1981-89, out of print.
+ Journey to the Stones, Ian McNeil Cooke, Men-an-Tol Studio, 1996, out of print.
+ The Romance of the Stones, Robin Payne & Rosemarie Lewsey, Alexander Associates, 1999, ISBN 899526-66-8. Out of print.
Many local sites are cared for by CASPN, the Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network, a local volunteer-run group. In 2018 the Lottery-funded Penwith Landscape Partnership also joined this work.
Below is a map of the known ancient sites in West Penwith.
For a key to map symbols, click here.
Penwith's Location
Penwith is a distinctive cliff-bound area, island-like, with a magical atmosphere and a Cornish ruggedness to the land and its residents. Trencrom Hill and St Michael's Mount act as gateposts to the peninsula.
In ancient times it was a marine node on the Atlantic seaboard. Long-distance travel and goods transport were mostly by sea and river, since much of Britain was forested. People walked or, for longer journeys and goods, they went by boat.
Penwith was then more centrally-placed than now. It stood at a marine junction for boats travelling to and from Brittany and Iberia, the English Channel and Bristol Channel, and from what are now Wales, Ireland and Scotland. Its main harbours were St Michael's Mount (not then an island), St Ives and Carnsew (near Hayle).
Its rich deposits of tin, gold and copper made Penwith prosperous, extending its reach through chains of traders as far as Ireland, Germany and the East Mediterranean.
The Age of the Megalith Builders
Archaeologically the prehistoric periods that interest us are:
- the Neolithic (roughly 4500-2500ish BCE),
- the Bronze Age (2500-800 BCE) and
- the Iron Age (800 BCE to CE 200).
These periods are based on artefacts and metals used in them. They do not reflect changes in society or the ideas or spiritual-cultural impulses of the time.
Instead, the megalithic era went through two key periods:
- the first, in the Neolithic, of 500ish years, between 3700 and 3200 BCE
- the second for a millennium in the Bronze Age, between 2500 and 1500BCE.
These two megalithic periods are more relevant to this study of ancient sites. The Iron Age wasn't exactly megalithic - when stone monuments were built - but Iron Age culture did emulate and reproduce many principles established earlier. There was also a degree of continuity stretching into medieval times, up to the 1300s - in Penwith this is reflected in early Christian churches and crosses.
St Euny's Well near Carn Euny
Treen entrance mound - bronze age - near Morvah
Types of Ancient Sites in Penwith
- Hills and headlands
- Great trees, groves and dells (now long gone)
- Tor enclosures and carns (outcrops)
- Quoits (cromlechs or dolmens)
- Mounds, cairns, barrows and tumuli
- Chambered cairns
- Springs and wells
- Stone circles, menhirs and placed stones
- Hill camps and enclosures (hillforts)
- Cliff sanctuaries (cliff castles)
- Rounds
- Fogous
- Inscribed stones (Roman period and Celtic)
- Early Christian crosses, oratories, chapels and churches
To these should be added various kinds of settlements, roundhuts and courtyard houses, with ancient trackways, fords, bridges, farms and field systems.
Some Considerations
1. Ancient sites don't exist in isolation. They are part of a larger system. They are positioned according to a variety of factors, including alignments, intervisibility, underground water, energy-lines, geology, the rising and setting points of sun and moon and the site's visual setting in the landscape.
2. If a site is dated to a certain period, this might not have been its first use. A proportion of West Penwith sites are incorrectly dated because their use can have started before construction was started there.
3. West Penwith is more of an integrated system of ancient sites than has previously been known.
Overview of the Megalithic Era
The megalithic era in West Penwith had two main phases.
It started around 3700 BCE with the building of the first constructed sacred sites - the Neolithic tor enclosures and quoits.
After a lull around 3200-2900, an upturn around 2600-2200 gave rise to the five-century Bronze Age zenith around 2200-1800 BCE.
Stone circles, menhirs and all sorts of other sites were built, forming a complete megalithic landscape across West Penwith. Britain became a prominent centre of ancient culture, particularly in the the west and north along the Atlantic coast, and Penwith was a key node.
The Bronze Age zenith in Cornwall occurred at the same time as Dynastic Egypt and Minoan Crete.
Then came a slow decline around 1500 BCE, after which there was little building of new sacred sites, leading to the end of the megalithic period around 1200 BCE.
There followed a more chaotic and warlord-driven Late Bronze Age culture from about 1200-800 BCE, with more capital-intensive farming, village life, the emergence of weaponry, increased social stratification and loosening of clan relationships.
Things morphed into the Iron Age or Celtic culture, lifting off around 800-600 BCE. Iron age culture had stronger leaders and aristocracies, and Britain's confederate tribes moved toward statehood. But they still held beliefs that had roots in former times.
The Late Bronze and the Iron Ages formed a continuity, in Cornwall rising to a zenith in the Iron Age from around 400 BCE up to around CE 100.
In the Ancient Sites section:
Central Places in a Wildscape
Peering over the Rolling Seas
Capping Energy Wells
A Variety of Holy Bumps
Dawn of the Megaliths
Landscape Inoculation Technology
Cathedrals of the Bronze Age
Megalithic Constellations
Gathering Places of the Iron Age
Desirable Residences BC
The Mystery of the Fogous
In the pages that follow we shall be looking into the different kinds of ancient site in West Penwith, roughly in order of their age - oldest first.
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