A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



The opinion appears to be held by some antiquaries that stone 

 circles are necessarily sepulchral, and they point to the majority of the 

 Scotch and Cumbrian circles as examples. On the other hand the 

 principal English circles, such as Stonehenge, Avebury, Stanton Drew, 

 and Arbor Low have never been proved to be of this character, and one 

 Cumbrian circle, Swinside, 1 must be classed with them. Duloe Circle, 

 just described, is probably sepulchral, but as regards the other Cornish 

 circles no evidence exists of burial within the ring. It is yet further 

 alleged that the barrows found near to most of the Cornish circles lead to 

 the ' presumption that they were sacred enclosures, in some way con- 

 nected with the burial of the dead.' This cannot be denied or disproved, 

 but on similar grounds a church might be described as a mortuary 

 chapel, because of the graves in the churchyard. The Dartmoor 

 Exploration Committee have found fragments of charcoal under the turf 

 at Fernworthy Circle and in the two circles called the Grey Wethers on 

 Dartmoor, and their Report says : ' This seems to favour the assumption 

 that the so-called " sacred circles " were places devoted to cremation, or 

 for funeral feasts.' '' Charcoal has, it is said, been found at Duloe, but so 

 far none has been recorded at any other Cornish circle. 



It has been a cherished theory of generations of antiquaries that 

 these monuments are ' sacred enclosures,' open air temples for worship 

 and sacrifice ; this was the view of Dr. Borlase, and it has its fascina- 

 tions, explaining as it does some of the facts and satisfying a love for 

 the picturesque with visions of white-robed Druids, golden sickles and 

 sacrificial flint knives. In a rather indirect way it has the support of 

 Diodorus Siculus, who, writing of what he has heard of the Island of the 

 Hyperboreans, says that they honour Apollo the sun-god above all others, 

 ' and there also exists upon the island a grove of Apollo, exceedingly 

 beautiful and a temple worthy of notice, of a round form \r& o-xwan 

 a-(f)cupoeiS>)'], adorned with many votive offerings. ' 3 This round temple 

 may very well be Stonehenge, as Sir Norman Lockyer suggests, and both 

 he, the astronomer, and Mr. W. Gowland, the antiquary, after very 

 thorough investigation, regard it as a sun temple and not a sepulchre. 

 A central feature of Stonehenge, its very raison d'etre, appears to be the 

 orientation to sunrise at the summer solstice, and if the same could be 

 alleged of the Cornish circles, or of any of them, it would go a long way 

 towards proof of a religious origin. The writer has taken a number of 

 compass bearings of hill tops, menhirs, etc., from various circles, with a 

 view to searching for evidence of orientation, and has chosen two Celtic 

 festivals, May Day and Midsummer Day, as probable seasons for the 

 observation of the sunrise. His thanks are due to the Astronomer Royal 

 for kindly furnishing accurate data on which to base the inquiry.* The 



1 C. W. Dymond, in the Trans. Cumb. and West. Antiq. Sac. 1902, vol. ii. new ser. 



* 'Report of Devonshire Asm. 1899, xxxi. 153. 3 Lib. ii. 47. 



* West Cornwall : sunrise I May, N. 66 24' E., correction for 5 elevation of horizon 6f ; sun- 

 rise 24 June, N. 51 38' E., correction as before yi. East Cornwall: sunrise I May, N. 65 57' E., 

 correction as before 6% ; sunrise 24 June, N. 51 9' E., correction as before 7-1. Declination of mag- 

 netic needle, June, 1902 : Wat Cornwall, 18 19' W. ; East Cornwall, 17 54' W. 



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