PAUL 1

This 1.8 metre (6ft) tapering stone stands in overgrown scrubland about twenty metres from a public footpath and, almost totally covered by ivy, is very difficult to locate in summer when the area is full of vegetation.

When I visited the site in November 1996 I only found the stone by locating a tall green column of ivy rising above the browns and blacks of dead bracken, bramble and blackthorn bushes.

In a paper read by Blight on 28th April 1865 to the Royal Institution of Cornwall*  he refers to notes made by Crozier about 1850. These notes mentioned “a stone, 5 feet high, which stood within a hundred yards of the Castallack Round, and from which the Pipers at Bolleit could be seen”.

Copeland Borlase visited the stone on 15th May 1871*  but does not appear to have made any excavation. Henderson described*  the menhir as a “fine well-chosen stone which although smaller than most of its kind is at once recognisable as a menhir”; he noted that, although the Pipers were visible, it was uncertain whether this was mere coincidence or intentional: two drawings he made show the stone standing in open ground with none of today’s tangled mass of vegetation.

Michell thought* it an insignificant stone “hard to find and scarcely worth the trouble”. The SMR records* that a pit 1 metre (3ft 4in) in diameter and 0.3 metre (1ft 1in) in depth had been dug on the eastern side of the stone. When this was done is not known although Russell wrote* that she explored the area around the base of the stone during 1951 but recorded no finds.

PAUL 2

A 2.6 metre (8ft 6in) triangular-sectioned stone stands close to the hedge of a cultivated field overlooking nearby farm buildings with extensive views towards the north and west – two other stones were formerly in the next field [see PAUL 6].

Blight recorded*  an eight foot high menhir which was later noted by Halliwell* as being an irregularly shaped block of unhewn granite tapering towards the top in a wedge-like form: “It now answers the ignoble purpose of a rubbing post for the cattle” and he was informed by a very old man at the farm that it had been there all his days “and had always been spoken of as a stone erected by the ancient people”.

Henderson remarked* on the smoothness of the stone’s surface suggestive of having been “roughly dressed with very rude and rough implements”: his map of the parish shows only this stone, not the two in the next field.  Michell thought* it an “unremarkable stone” and wrote how the farmer was unable to throw any light on the two stones formerly in the next field.  Russell saw the menhir in February 1959 and noted* that, since it was unsteady, it could not be deeply embedded; she later quoted a 19th century source*  that the stone was “replaced” in an erect position by Sir Rose Price – hence implying that it had fallen down.

PAUL 3

A 2.35 metre (7ft 9in) triangular-shaped block of granite, having a base 2.9 metres (9ft 6in) broad, stands in a cultivated field close to the public footpath from Tresvennack to Kerris in an area where three ancient stones of differing shape form a straight line over a distance of about 800 metres (half a mile).

Although not listed by Blight in his publication of 1856* he did note this stone as a menhir in an article published in 1865*  and remarked that in medieval times a cross stood very near this stone “its socket base having been destroyed within the last year; the cross itself had previously disappeared”.

PAUL 4

At 4 metres (13’3”) tall this menhir rivals the Pipers in height and stands close to the field hedge; it is square-sectioned, with an ancient vertical split running from the top to about half way down the stone that, nonetheless, remains solid. The site is in a sheltered fertile area of the peninsula from which several other contemporary standing stones are in view including The Blind Fiddler and the pair of stones at Higher Drift.

Blight recorded the stone as being 12 feet tall and drew it together with an urn found close by. Copeland Borlase also drew the stone  on the same day that he had excavated at Trelew and visited the Blind Fiddler at Trenuggo; he noted it as being 11’6” above the ground and that the farmer informed him of an urn discovered on the eastern side, although he had found nothing more after digging four feet (1.2m) all around the base of the menhir. The interesting discovery of the urn was fully described by Borlase: