I also asked the lady in the garage who looked at me like you do to to the slightly bewildered. I followed her instructions to take the next right and to look for it in the large gorse infested moorland behind the garage. I walked to the end of the road and then found my way into the gorseland. After much searching I found the stones at the high gorse just to the left of the garage. I then saw the mechanics watching me with much amusment, after shaking my fist at them I had a look at the site, I can't add any more than the other two postees except that if you park just where you turn right then walk carefully scanning the hedge on the right, about twenty metres down you will see a vague path which leads straight to the stones about twenty five metres away, saving you a very painful trip.
It took me while to round asking the woman at the garage whether the inconspicuous clump of gorse in the field behind her whole filling station was where the 3 brothers were residing. She said that they were out on the moor, which apparantly meant yes. And then I had gorse and heather to wade through for about 200 yards in sandals. Ouch!
The stones lie looking a little like a dolmen/quoite, in that one of them caps the other two, but I suspect that this is not their original state. It kind of looks like they've been dumped unceremoniously in a field, though that may be to fool such fools as me. Going on the name I think of the 3 brothers N of Lancaster and so imagine them standing seperatly. The surrounding land and sea is not dissimilar to Morecambe Bay either. There is a ruined chapel nearby in the NE of the field.
This is a wierd site. Concealed behind a garage in a patch of very gorsey scrubland that must have the prickliest gorse ever is this unusual monument, if that's what it is. The Three Brothers is basicall a dolmen, with a superb shapely capstone sitting on 2 smaller stones. The whole thing is only about 4-5 feet high, but surrounded by tall, dense gorse that give it an in-yer-face, even oppressive air. It was first recorded in 1872, and when John Barnatt surveyed it he thought it natural. This may be so, but there are no similar structures for miles, the nearest being Catshole Tor on Bodmin and that was used by the Neolithic as a burial chamber. As far as I know no excavation has ever been attempted, but surely burials would be found. I just can't believe that a site with such atmosphere, presence and downright strangeness could not be man-made or at least used as a sacred tomb. There are possible cupmarks on the top of the capstone, thought these could be weathering. Legends go that the stones return if removed, as so many other sites in the Lizard and Cornwall. Well worth a visit.
St. Just, from the Land's End district, once paid a visit to St. Keverne, who entertained him for several days to the best of his power. After his departure his host missed some valuable relics, and determined to go in pursuit of his late guest, and try, if possible, to get them from him.
As he was passing over Crousa-down, about two miles from St. Keverne church, he pocketed three large stones, each weighing about a-quarter of a ton, to use if St. Just should offer any resistance. He overtook him at a short distance from Breage and taxed him with the theft, which was indignantly denied.
From words the saints came to blows, and St. Keverne flung his stones with such effect that St. Just ran off, throwing down the relics as he ran. The stones still lie where they fell, about four hundred yards from Pengersick Lane.
Violence and theft? From Saints? And they say things are worse these days.
p22 in
Cornish Folk-Lore
M. A. Courtney
The Folk-Lore Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1. (1887), pp. 14-61.
These stones may be the stones the giant St Keverne threw at St Just for stealing from his drinking cup, there is debate as to whether these are the stones or the two stones on Crousa Common.
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