The Cornwall Archaeological Unit’s Review of 1995-6 reported that the Iron Age hillfort of Caer Bran was the most prominent feature within an 18 hectare area surveyed for Penwith District Council to provide information for a Countryside Stewardship Scheme. The new survey is said to have “produced some exciting and unexpected results . What had always been tentatively described as a central roundhouse, cut by a later post-medieval track, is now interpreted as one of three probably Bronze Age ring cairns, possibly within their own contemporary, banked enclosure”
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Yes, this is fascinating. The inner enclosure, with the three ring cairns (one always known about, another found by me from the air in low sunlight in the late 80s, and the third found by the CAU) seem to be a Bronze Age cairn enclosure exactly like the one on Bartinney Hill next door (Bartinney Castle), and both sites have a legend stating that no evil spirits can enter them, perfect for ritual sacred sites. At Caer Bran, during the Iron Age, a hill fort was built around the Bronze Age enclosure, but never finished and, therefore, never used. The inner enclosure, with its ring cairns, was, therefore, never adapted and never disturbed except by much later mining activity. Castle-an-Dinas above Ludgvan was also never completed, and its very weak inner enclosure also contains 3 circular features. Chun Castle is also on the site of an earlier enclosure but not on its exact site. Part of the early site can seen outside the fort, on its SW side, the rest destroyed by the hill fort construction. The slightly different siting of Chun Castle from the earlier site was, I think, chosen to be intervisible with Caer Bran.