A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



NINE MAIDENS, ST. COLUMB MAJOR 



It seems as though the Tamar were an insurmountable barrier to 

 certain habits and ceremonies of the primitive inhabitants, for ' stone 

 rows,' so plentiful on Dartmoor, are almost absent from Cornwall. As 

 they are often associated with stone circles and barrows and apparently 

 played an important part in ceremonial observances, their absence suggests 

 a difference in cult across the border. Reasons have been given for the 

 suggestion that the boundary line at Nine Stones, Altarnun, may have 

 been a stone row originally, and another and less doubtful Cornish 

 example may well be included in an article on stone circles. In the 

 parish of St. Columb Major, nearly 4 miles on the road to Wadebridge, 

 is a line of stones known as the Nine Maidens. There are, as the name 

 implies, nine stones, eight erect and standing in line in the plane of their 



US.. 



Sw 



faces and one fallen ; the line is north-east (N. 35E.) and south-west ; 

 all the stones are of quartz. The north-eastern stone (i) is prostrate and 

 broken, it measures 1 5 feet in length ; the tallest of those still standing 

 (7) is 6 feet 7 inches high ; another (4) is broken off ; No. 3 leans out- 

 wards and is almost down. The accompanying sketch will give an idea 

 of the appearance of the stones. These nine monoliths cover a distance 

 of about 345 feet, with rather irregular intervals, and in line with them, 

 800 yards up the hill, there once stood a menhir of quartz, 7 ft. 6 in. 

 high, known as the ' Old Man ' or ' Grey Man.' This menhir was some 

 years ago thrown down by two men charged with the repair of the road, 

 and it was broken up for road metal, but its shape and size can be seen 

 from Lukis and Borlase's drawing. 



The earliest historical reference is by Richard Carew, who thus 

 describes the stones : 



Wade bridge deliuereth you into a waste ground, where 9 long and great stones, 

 called The sisters, stand in a ranke together, and seeme to have been so pitched, for 

 continuing the memory of somewhat, whose notice is yet enuied vs by time. 1 

 1 Survey of Cornwall (1605), p. 144. 

 402 



