The Modern Antiquarian. Stone Circles, Ancient Sites, Neolithic Monuments, Ancient Monuments, Prehistoric Sites, Megalithic MysteriesThe Modern Antiquarian

Tolmen Stone (Constantine)

Natural Rock Feature (Destroyed)

Miscellaneous

But the most astonishing Monument of this kind, is in the Tenement of Men, in the Parish of Constantine, Cornwall (Plate XIII.) It is one vast egg-like stone, placed on the points of two natural Rocks, so that a man may creep under the great one, and between its supporters, through a passage about three feet wide, and as much high.

The longest diameter of this Stone is 33 foot from C to D, pointing due North and South; from A to B, is 14 feet 6 deep; and the breadth in the middle of the surface, where widest, was 18 feet 6 wide from East to West. I measured one half of the circumference, and found it, according to my computation, 48 feet and half, so that this Stone is 97 feet in circumference, about 60 feet cross the middle, and, by the best informations I can get, contains at least 750 tons of Stone.

Getting up by a ladder to view the top of it, we found the whole surface worked, like an imperfect, or mutilated Honey-comb, into Basons; one much larger than the rest (bb), was at the South-end, about seven foot long; another at the North (cc), about five; the rest smaller, seldom more than one foot, oftentimes not so much, the sides and shape irregular.

Most of these Basons discharge into the two principal ones (which lie in the middle of the surface), those only excepted which are near the brim of the Stone, and they have little lips or chanels (marked in Plate XIII, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) which discharge the Water they collect over the sides of the Tolmen, adn the flat Rocks which lie underneath receive the droppings in Basons cut into their surfaces.

This Stone is no less wonderful for its position, than for its size; for although the underpart is nearly semi-circular, yet it rests on the two large Rocks E, F; and so light, and detached, does it stand, that it touches the two under stones but as it were on their points, and all the Sky appears at G.
Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall, by William Borlase (1769).
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
7th June 2013ce
Edited 7th June 2013ce

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