Field Names | Gulval and Madron - Standing Stones of the Land's End Peninsula

TA511 Long Stone at c.4598/3505 is about 500 metres east-northeast of Try Menhir. There is no standing stone in this field and “no memory of one having been removed from it”.*  The SMR notes that there are no traces of any menhir at this location: the name may refer to the existing menhir at Try although it is doubtful if it would have been in sight even before intervening hedges were built.

TA171 Lower Long Stone at c.4465/3440, farmed by William Lawry, lies three fields north of Carfury hamlet and abuts the east side of a footpath to Tredineck; it is about 900 metres north-east of Carfury Menhir (GULVAL 1) which is not visible from this field that was named as Long Stone Field (i22) in an earlier survey of 1831 when it was farmed by Andrew Stephens.*

The Lanhydrock Atlas of 1696 shows an elongated field, Gwelamennar (LA80) well to the east of a great stone shown as one of the estate boundary marks.*  A survey map of the Manor of Trezela and Mulfra made in 1788 lists a field Gweal an Mennor which might relate to the name above:*  these are probably the same enclosures as GULVAL F1. The Atlas also marks A Great Stone due west of Gwelamennar that, unless the map is very inaccurate, cannot refer to Carfury Menhir which is to the south; however it could refer to a recently discovered possible standing stone MADRON 11) – the location is about right. Mene Croose refers to the Four Parish Stone where the older name infers there was once a cross.

The extant menhir at Try (GULVAL 2) stands in Long Stone Field at c.4597/3498.

TA959 Long Stone Field at c.4498/3334 is about 1200 metres from Carfury Menhir on the other side of the valley, to which the name might refer when it was once in view. There is no record of any remains found in this field. [TA754 see Madron F1]

TA191 of ‘turf and pasture’ is named as Dor an Mean and, although the name relates to stones, there is no record of any menhir.

TA754 Long Stone Field at c.4462/3304 site of a queried menhir (MADRON 9); the field was also listed with the same name in the 1866 Trengwainton Estate Sale Catalogue under The Boswarthen Estate occupied by Nicholas White.*

TA 947 Long Stone Field at c.4248/3188 located east of the stream at Newbridge and about 800 metres west of the menhirs at Tremayne and Trewern (MADRON 2 & 3). No remains found.

TA1 The Pillar at c.4030/3345, an enclosure of ‘furze’ in the extreme western corner of the parish where it abuts St.Just and Sancreed, might be a corruption of pillas (naked oats) – a common field name – although this rock and scrub-covered ground seems an unlikely area for such cultivation. The menhir at Boswens (SANCREED 1) stands clearly silhouetted on the skyline about 700 metres to the southwest and it is this ancient monument to which the name most likely refers. The Pillar is also the name given at this location to two enclosures recorded at Bosullow Veor in an 1838 survey of The Manor of Trengwainton: Further Pillar (No.1 in croft) and The Pillar (No.24 undivided commons occupied by tenants):*  they are probably identical to TA1 & 2. [TA2 see Madron F8]

Two other names probably also relating to the above-mentioned menhir occur nearby: Higher Pillars Croft (269) and Pillars Croft (270) both farmed by Nicholas Bottrell as ‘furze’.

The Lanhydrock Atlas of 1696 marks a one acre ‘plus’ field name in the Manor of Mulfra and Trezela named as Menhere (2) at c.4508/3423.*  No remains have been found but the name must refer to a ‘lost’ menhir (MADRON 6).

TA2733 Further Long Stone Field at c.4567/3455 on the slopes of a steep hill about 700 metres south-east of Mulfra Quoit. In 1841 it was farmed by Jane Rowe but an earlier survey of 1831* lists the same field as Higher Long Stone Field (d54) farmed by Thomas Glasson. The name might relate to a missing menhir close to the quoit (see MADRON 10) or, more likely, to the menhir at Try (GULVAL 2) in sight across the valley some 600 metres away.

TA 1023 Long Stone Common (rough pasture), Long Stone Downs (1024 arable & 1025 furze) were farmed in 1841 by Thomas Coulson: three years earlier these fields had been farmed by Susanna Warne and named as Long Stone Field (67), and Long Stone Downs (70 & 79) in the tenement of Part of Truren.*  A map about 1740* marks Long Stone Downs (r) in the tenement of South Trewran in the location of TA1025 where the extant menhir MADRON 2 (Tremayne) still stands – now a cultivated field with new hedges.

A field named in 1841 as Further Villar Croft is probably a misspelling of Pillar referring to Boswens Menhir clear in sight halfway up the hill.