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Giant's Hedge

Dyke

Fieldnotes

I have been intrigued by the Giants Hedge for many years...Living in Looe at it's supposed eastern end I could never understand why it was called giant..it is just like any other hedge...more like a bank as it runs through Kilminorth Woods beside the West Looe river.
It is only when you see it towards its western end at Lerryn that you realise it is no ordinary field boundary.
But when does it date from?...the general consensus is that it is post Roman...so it really should not be on here, but...
There are several Iron Age and older settlements inside the hedge (between it and the sea), but then again there are a good dozen or so barrows just to the north of it....but none as grand inside.
Walking along the top of a short section of it this morning i noticed how good the view was across the Cornish countryside. It does in many places run along the side of a steep escarpment..and if topped off with a wooden fence would have been quite impenetrable.
Whatever it's history, I'm sure no giants were involved in its building.......just some very hard working Cornishmen of old.

...and I would love to know where the bit is that's 8 yards across !
Mr Hamhead Posted by Mr Hamhead
28th April 2006ce

Comments (1)

The Person who is looking for a section 8 yards across should go to SX179574 but to put the cat amongst the pigeons walk along it imagining you are driving a line of 50 heavily laden donkeys in heavy rain, avoiding marshy areas before modern field drains were introduced. Result heavy erosion. I think the "hedge" resulted because farmers enclosed fields respecting an ancient track way. With the range of prehistoric sites surviving the track way could date from the Bronze Age going out of use in 12C or 13C because civil disturbance discouraged long distance travel. If it had been a defended boundary it would have been highest where the natural slope was less. The hedges are consistent with farmers joining up with their neighbours see 169573 and 158571 on the 1:25000 pathfinders map SX05/15 Posted by Jack Major
31st July 2015ce
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