The Celtic And Other Antiquities Of The Lands End District Of Cornwall. By Richard Edmonds, Junior, Esq., Secretary for Cornwall to the Cambrian Archeological Association.

CHAPTER IV. Cromlechs — Derivation of the Name —Sepulchral Monuments — originally buried — Cromlechs of Lanyon, West Lanyon, Ch'ûn, Mulfra, and Bosprennis — Singular Barrow — Zennor Cromlech, the finest in Britain.

Nor less ancient than the "Giants’ Graves" is the cromlech — a single slab resting either horizontally or obliquely on others set upright, so as to form a kistvaen, or *stone-chest." The common altar tomb seen in almost every church-yard is, as Borlase remarks, but a "diminutive.and regular cromlech," the capstone and supporters being now all finely chiselled and squared, and adjusted with mathematical precision, to suit the taste of the present age.

Crobm-lech (as it-was formerly written) signifies a crooked flat: stone. Had it been crobn-lech (which in pronunciation differs little or nothing from crobm-leck) it would have signified a round flat stone, and have been synonymous with quoit, the name by which these erections are here, and in some parts of Wales, most commonly known¹. That in France, near Poitiers, is termed simply pierre levée, "the raised stone." Thus in each country the entire monument derives its name from the form or position of ‘the incumbent slab.

Cromlechs are decidedly sepulchral structures, and all in this neighbourhood seem.to have been once buried within:barrows, the inclined planes of which (as observed by Borlase) might have been instrumental in the placing of the huge dlabs on their supporters.

Note 1. Nicholson’s Cambrian Guide, Third Edition, pp. 90, 356. Crobm and crobn are probably mere different spellings of the same word, signifying "round" as well as "crooked;" indeed, the word "round," in some instances, is synonymous with "crooked."

Chûn Quoit [Map], Lanyon Quoit [Map] and Zennor Quoit [Map].

Borlase notices a small one found near the Land’s End, in 1716, containing "an urn full of black earth, and round the urn very large human bones, not placed in their natural order, but irregularly mixed." "A farmer," says he, "of the village of Mên, having removed a flat stone 7 feet long and 6 wide, discovered a cavity underneath, at each end of which was a stone 2 feet long, and, on each side a stone 4 feetlong."²

The cromlechs still remaining in this district are six, of which the last I shall notice is, probably, the finest in Britain.

Note 2. Antiq. p. 222.

I.— Lanyon (Lanine) Quoit [Map], nearly 3½ miles north-west-by-west from the centre of Penzance, stands conspicuously close on the east side of the road from Madron Church to Morvah. It is correctly represented by fig. 2 of plate II. "The cap-stone has no broad slabs for its supporters, as our other cromlechs, but rests on three unshapen pillars, two supporting one end, and the opposite end resting on the third. These, with other similar pillars, which Borlase observed lying very near it, might have formed the kist-vaen. "This cromlêh stands on a low bank of earth, not two feet higher than the adjacent soil³." The horizontal slab is 18½ feet long, a little more than 9 wide, 44¾ in circumference,⁴ with an average thickness of about 1½, its elevation being about 5 feet. It was dismounted during a thunderstorm in 1815, and replaced in 1824.

Note 3. Antiq. p. 218.

Note 4. This circumference exceeds by about 5 feet that of Llech-y-Dribedd, "the most perfect cromlech" in Pembrokeshire; and it exceeds in a still greater degree that of Plas Newydd [Map], the completest cromlech in Anglesey," the former being supported by three short upright stones, the latter having stood on seven such supporters.—(Nicholson’s Cambrian Guide, pp. 166, 207.) These Welsh monuments resemble Lanyon cromlech in the incumbent stones being supported by rude pillars instead of broad slabs.

Il.—Two or three furlongs west of Lanyon Quoit, in the middle of a hilly field on the same estate, West Lanyon Quoit was discovered in 1790, within a large tumulus of earth and stones, after "near one hundred cart loads" had been removed. The covering stone, which had slipped off, is about 13½ feet long by 10½ broad. The south supporter, against which it still leans, is 6 feet ‘high and 5 feet wide. That on the west was nearly of the same height, and about 9 feet wide. The east supporter was 10½ feet wide, and, with the other two, formed almost a triangular kist-vaen, with a space of about a foot at the north end unenclosed. The east and west supporters have since been cleft and carried away. In digging under it was found a broken urn with ashes, half a scull, the thigh bones and most of the other bones of a human body." These, it is added, were "lying in such a manner as fully proved that the grave had been opened before⁵;" but if they were merely "irregularly mixed," as in the cromlech of Mên, which I have first noticed, this would be no proof of the grave having been opened before.

Note 5. Archælogia, xiv. Cotton’s Celtic Remains, p. 37. In 1805 a monument of this kind was discovered by Mr. Fenton in Flintshire, also buried within a tumulus, and near a small field containing many kist-vaens; the incumbent slab was nearly 9 feet long, odvering a kist-vaen 4½ feet long, 2⅓ broad, and 2 deep, which enclosed a fine dry mould. A small stone hatchet was also found.—Nicholson’s Cambrian Guide, p. 265.

III.—The most perfect of all our cromlechs is that of Ch'ûn [Map], very nearly 5 miles west-north-west of Penzance, and 500 yards west of Ch’ûn Castle; the castle being partly in Madron, and partly in Morvah; the cromlech partly in St. Just, and partly in Morvah. The top stone is 12¾ feet long, 11½ wide, and 35¾ in circumference. The two side supporters are each about 8 feet in length, and, with the two end stones, form "a pretty regular kist-vaen,"" which, in Borlase’s time, had a "low barrow, or heap of stones round it," much of which still remains; so that the supporters, although between 5 and 6 feet high, rise only four feet above the barrow. A correct sketch of this is fig. 1 of plate II.

Lanyon Quoit, West Lanyon Quoit, Ch'un Castle, and Ch'ûn Quoit, are all in the same straight line, due east and west.

IV. — The cromlech [Mulfra Quoit [Map]] on the top of Mulfra Hill, in Madron⁶, is 3½ miles north-north-west of Penzance. The cover-stone, according to Borlase, was 9⅔ feet by 14¼, including a piece evidently broken off, and lying near it. Its present circumference scarcely exceeds that of Ch'ûn. The kist-vaen is 6⅔ feet long, and 4 wide; the three slabs forming the two ends, and one of the sides, are about 5 feet high; the south supporter is gone, and on that side the cover stone has fallen, so as to rest on the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees. In this state, with the fragment close by, it was described by Borlase in 1754; the displacement must, therefore, have occurred prior to his description, and I am informed that it took place during the terrific thunderstorm there in 1752. At that period a barrow surrounded it, about 2 feet high, and 37 in diameter, of which at present little or nothing remains. On the same hill, a little to the north of the cromlech, are the remains of four or five barrows.

Note 6. Although Mulfra Hill is part of Madron, it is detached from the rest of that parish by an intervening portion of Gulval.

V. There is a small dismounted cromlech 4½ miles north-west-by-north of Penzance, in the parish of Zennor, nearly two furlongs from the village of Bosprennis, and near the west side of the path leading from that village to Bosigran. The kist-vaen is about 4 feet high, 3 wide, and 5 long. The capstone is nearly circular, 5 feet in diameter, and about 6 inches thick. The slab which forms its south-western side is 6 feet long; the supporter on the opposite side is gone, and on that side the cover stone lies on the ground. The north-west end consists of a single stone, the south-east end of two. Around it is a heap of earth and stones, the remains, doubtless, of a barrow which once covered it.

Between this small quoit and the large one next to be described was another of considerable size, in the estate of Trewey, but not a vestige of it now remains. It stood about a furlong south-east of Gundry Cave, a remarkable barrow, 100 feet in circumference, raised on a small natural carn, or heap of rocks, on an eminence nearly 5 furlongs south-east-by-south of Zennor Church, and about 2 furlongs from the east side of the road to Penzance. This barrow (like that in Wales, presently to be mentioned) "is depressed at the centre in the form of a bowl." At the bottom of this hollow (as I was informed by the late aged tenant of Trewey) was a cromlech, or horizontal slab 6 or 8 feet square, supported by others set upright, all which have since been removed. This singular barrow, therefore, (like the large one at Plas Newydd, described in Nicholson’s Cambrian Guide, p. 155, with a cromlech at the bottom of its hollow) was orginally, I imagine, merely a heap covering a cromlech, and the depression in the centre a modern excavation to ascertain the contents of the barrow.

~~ VIL.—The great and celebrated cromlech of Zennor [Map] (plate II. fig. 3) lies in a croft on a very elevated plain, and nearly half a mile east of Zennor Church. Although its distance from Penzance is scarcely more than 5 miles (north-by-west), its locality is so unfrequented that few persons seem aware of its existence. Mr. Cotton, in his Celtic Remains, printed in 1827, actually states (p. 36) that it was "totally destroyed;" but the destroyed cromlech which he heard of was probably that in Trewey, already noticed. The kist-vaen is about 6½ feet long, 4½ wide, and from 8 to 9 feet high; the supporters on the north and south sides, and at the east end, being 9 feet, that at the west end only 8 feet high. The single slab, which forms the south supporter, is 11½ feet long. This, and the two slabs on the north side, run on beyond that of the east end, until they come almost into contact with two other large slabs, (each nearly 11 feet long,) placed at right angles with them, thus forming a second kist- vaen, 5 feet long from north to south, 2 from east to west, and 9 feet high. Into this second kist-vaen is an entrance, 2 feet wide, between its two eastern slabs. The cover-stone of the two kist-vaens measures 18 feet in length, 11 in breadth, and 48 in circumference; its average thickness being about 1 foot. At present, however, the cap-stone rests with its west end on the ground, the supporter at that end having been broken into two parts, neither of which bears any mark of a tool. In Borlase’s time the heap of stones, 14 yards in diameter, beneath which this cromlech was buried, "almost reached the edge of the quoit," or horizontal slab, when resting on its supporters.

Note 7. Antiq. p. 218.