3 66 



NA TURE 



[February 15, 1906 



NOTES ON SOME CORNISH CIRCLES. 



The Merry Maide 



Lat. 50° 4' N. 



NE of the best preserved circles that I know of 

 is near Penzance. It is called the Merry 

 Maidens ' (Dawns-Maen), and is thus described by 

 Lukis - (p. 1) : — 



" This very perfect Circle, which is 75 feet S inches 

 in diameter, stands in a cultivated field which slopes 

 gently to the south. 



" It consists of 19 granite stones placed at tolerably 

 regular distances from each other, but there is a gap 

 on the east side, where another stone was most 

 probably once erected. 



" Many of the stones are rectangular in plan at 

 the ground level, vary from 3 feet 3 inches to 4 feet 

 in height, and are separated by a space of from 10 to 

 12 feet. There is a somewhat shorter interval between 

 four of the stones on the south side. 



" In the vicinity of this monument are two mono- 

 liths called the Pipers ; another called Goon-Rith ; a 

 holed stone (not long ago there were two others) ; and 

 several [5] Cairns." 



including the stones before mentioned and several 

 barrows, some of which have been ploughed up. 



At varying distances from the circle and in widely 

 different azimuths are other standing stones, ancient 

 crosses and holed stones, while some of the barrows 

 can still be traced. 



The descriptions of the locality given by Borlase and 

 Lukis, however, do not exhaust the points of interest. 

 Edmonds ' writes as follows : — 



" A cave still perfect ... is on an eminence in the 

 tenement of Boleit (Boleigh) in St. Burvan, and about 

 a furlong south-west of the village of Trewoofe 

 (Trove). It is called the ' Fowgow,' and consists of a 

 trench 6 feet deep and 36 long, faced on each side 

 with unhewn and uncemented stones, across which, to 

 serve as a roof, long stone posts or slabs are laid 

 covered with thick turf planted with furze. The 

 breadth of the cave is about 5 feet. On its north-west 

 side, near the south-west end, a narrow passage leads 

 into a branch cave of considerable extent, constructed 

 in the same manner. At the south-west end is an 

 entrance by a descending path ; but this, as well as 

 the cave itself, is so well concealed by the furze that 

 the whole looks like an ordinary furze break without 



-The Merry Ma 



(looking East) 



Lukis thus describes " the Pipers " : — 



" Two rude stone pillars of granite stand erect, 

 317 feet apart, and about 400 yards to the north-east 

 of the Circle of Dawns-Maen. No. 1 is 15 feet high, 

 4 feet 6 inches in breadth, and has an average thick- 

 ness of 22 inches, and is 2 feet 9 inches out of the 

 perpendicular. The stone is of a laminated nature, 

 and a thin fragment has flaked off from the upper 

 part. No. 2 is 13 feet <> inches high, and is much 

 split perpendicularly. At the ground level its plan in 

 section is nearly a square of about 3 feet." 



Goon-Rith is next described : — " No 3 is naturally 

 of a rectangular form in plan, and is 10 feet 6 inches 

 in height. The land on which it stands is called 

 Goon-Rith, or Red Downs. The upper part of the 

 stone is of irregular shape." 



Borlase, in his " History of Cornwall " (1769), only 

 mentions the circle, but W. C. Borlase in his 

 " Naenia Cornubiae " (1872) gives a very rough plan 



'Prehistoric Stone Monuments, Cornwall. 



NO. 1894, VOL. J3] 



any way into it. The direction of the line of this 

 cave is about north-east and south-west, which line, if 

 continued towards the south-west, would pass close 

 to the two ancient pillars called the Pipers, and the 

 Druidical temple of Dawns Myin, all within half of 

 a mile." 



This fougou is situated on a hill on the other side 

 of the Lamorna Valley, near the village of Castallack, 

 and the site of the Roundago shown in the i-inch 

 ordnance map. 



Borlase 2 says that many similar caves were to be 

 seen "in these parts" in his time, and others had 

 been destroyed by converting the stones to other uses. 



There is evidence that the circle conditions at the 

 Merry Maidens were once similar to those at Stenness, 

 Stanton Drew, the Hurlers, Tregaseal, and Botallack, 

 that is that there was more than one, the numbers 

 running from 2 to 7. Mr. Morton Bolitho, without 

 whose aid in local investigations this paper in all 

 probability would never have been written, in one 

 i.l his visiis came across " the oldest inhabitant," 

 who remembered a second circle. He said. "It 

 was covered with furze and never shown in anti- 

 quarians "; ultimately the field in which it stood was 



1 "The Land's End Dii 



' p. 46. 



' Antiquitit 



