“In a croft adjoining the highway leading to the parish of St.Just, and near a Cott house call’d Beggar-boyes, stand two large stones in a line...there is a row of stones running from them in a straight line...”

He thought that these were all boundary stones or the “monument of some duel” and he later excavated between the two menhirs.  A pit 1.86 metres long by 0.85 metres wide by 1.40 metres deep (6ft x 2ft 9in x 4ft 6in) was uncovered and found to be filled with “black greasy earth”: Borlase remarked that no bones were to be seen.

Just over a century later Copeland Borlase* was present when the ‘grave’ was re-opened by the landowner: his ancestor’s account was fully confirmed although the black soil was considered to be “peat natural to the country”.

Both stones were then in place, but, by the time that Charles Henderson* visited the site about 1915, only a single stone was left in place: when questioned the farmer replied that “one rubbing post was quite enough”.

Some errors have been made in recent times by confusing Dr.Borlase’s record of the pair of stones at Trewern (Tremayne) with the pair of stones formerly near Trewern Round.

For the destroyed stone see MADRON 7.

MADRON 4

On a map of the parish he marked the stone in rough ground about halfway between Dakota Farm and Bosullow Schoolhouse (now the Men-an-Tol Studio). Considering the large number of visitors using this lane to visit the holed stone and Men Scryfa it is odd that it was not mentioned previously, unless, perhaps, it was then obscured by tall scrub and gorse which had been burnt off by Henderson’s time – the OS 6in map of 1906 still marks this area of land between Dakota Farm and the Men-an-Tol Studio as partially enclosed croft land (i.e. uncleared for ploughing). It is unknown when the stone was uprooted but Mr Lennox Green, a life-long resident at Bosullow since the 1920s or 30s, had no knowledge of any such menhir.*

Russell failed to locate the stone after a long search in December 1963: however she thought that the eastern gatepost of the first field on the left of the lane at 4190/3442 might be this elusive menhir although it seemed to her to be “unnecessarily tall”.* But a walk around the Bosullow area shows that there are many rough stone gateposts as tall as, or taller, than this one. She considered the menhir listed by Blight* at Kerrow might have been this stone rather than MADRON 1, since nearby fields (TA204, 206 and 207) were called Renow Hill - a possible misspelling of Kerrow Hill.

The north-east edge of fields immediately north-east of the quoit is littered with large stones that were probably dumped when the land was cleared: possibly one of these stones is the missing menhir.

Note: A 1.2 metre (3’9”) high stone at 4238/3427 placed mid-field and clearly visible from the road west of Lanyon Farm is a modern cattle rubbing post, as are several other stones in fields in the vicinity.

MADRON 6

MADRON 7

This 1.7 metre (5’6”) stone, the east-north-east one of the former pair, was excavated by Dr.Borlase in 1752 and was said to have been knocked down by a plough about 1900.*

For the extant stone of this pair see MADRON 2.