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Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
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| Visited in June 2002 on the way down from Carn Galva in the direction of Gurnard's Head. The settlement consists of both courtyard houses and also scattered hut circles. We weren't looking for this site, but came across two of the hut circles as we crossed the fields. |
Posted by thesweetcheat23rd January 2009ce Edited 21st June 2022ce |
| What a reet bugger to find! With two maps, a diagram AND ocifant's GPS, we still spent over 40 minutes scouring about eight fields before we spotted it. But it was worth the hunt to see its ancient construction. There was other evidence of quite a large settlement here. |
Posted by Jane16th March 2004ce |
| I'm confident that the remains I photographed in November aren't those of the Bodrifty settlement, as I'm familiar with that site. The pictures I took are all of remains which lie within about 200 yards or so of the Beehive Hut - the Bodrifty village is the better part of a mile to the south-east. |
Posted by Stonefly19th January 2003ce |
| What you found is the Bodrifty settlement and also the reconstruction of the "Beehive Hut" at Bodrifty Farm. You can find my posts on the sites attached to the Wheal Buller Menhir site. |
Posted by hamish12th January 2003ce Edited 12th January 2003ce |
| Whilst looking for the remains of Bosporthennis Quoit (in completely the wrong place, it turned out!), I came across the Beehive Hut, and some scattered remains which I took to be remnants of the courtyard houses which are distributed around the area, although I wouldn't want to put money on this. It was a bright late November day, after several days of heavy rainfall, and I was running out of time, so a few digital pictures were just about all I could manage. Any light that can be cast on the pictures I took is most welcome; hopefully I'll be able to add some more meaningful ones in the near future. |
Posted by Stonefly 29th November 2002ce |
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...in half an hour we were hopelessly lost in an impenetrable jungle. Vainly we scanned the hillside for those beehive huts. In the end I rebelled, and declaimed, with some warmth that, if we wished to see eight prehistoric things before nightfall we must be humble and seek a guide. At a farmhouse half a mile away on the hill we explained our needs to the farmer. Turning to his wife, whose face was sunburnt the colour of a nut, he said 'You take them to the huts' As we tramped over the moor I solicited her opinion of Cornish antiquities. 'Bless you, my dear' she said 'people talk a lot about em, but they aint nothing at all, just old stones and things' from C Lewis Hind 'Days in Cornwall' 1907 |
Posted by Mr Hamhead27th May 2007ce |
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| In addition to the late Iron Age courtyard house settlement scattered around the Beehive Hut, there is a single, earlier hut circle of simple circular plan lying to the SE at approx SW438359 within a field system. |
Posted by thesweetcheat 6th August 2012ce |
| Craig Weatherhill believes that this is actually an aboveground fogou. In "Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall & Scilly" (Cornwall Books - 1985, revised 1997 & 2000) he writes of "a scattered settlement of at least three Iron Age/Romano-British courtyard houses and several round houses in a sheltered spot at the eastern base of Hannibal’s carn. In a central position within the settlement is the intriguing 'beehive hut', now regarded as an aboveground fogou from its strong resemblance to the Phase 1 structure at Carn Euny. It had a round, corbelled chamber 4.0m across (the lintelled entrance from the south-west is modern), connect by way of a low, heavily built portal to a small, oblong chamber 3.3m by 2.1m, which was its original entrance passage (the wall blocking the south-east end is also modern). Both chambers are now roofless. The best preserved of the courtyard houses, with an adjoining paddock and walls up to 1.5m high, lies 180m to the west of the fogou; another, 60m south of the fogou, has a medieval cowshouse built inside its courtyard." |
Posted by pure joy2nd November 2003ce |
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West Penwith ResourcesThe info on this webpage comes from "Two days in Cornwall with the Cambrian Archæological Association - 1862" there are five diagrams of the beehive hut and some nearby sites....... Fallen Cromlech, Bosphrennis Plan of Hut, Bosullow Plan of Chûn Castle Chûn Cromlech Mên-an-tol, Madron Plan of St. Madron’s Well This webpage is the work of Rick Parsons. |
Posted by phil 13th January 2003ce Edited 13th January 2003ce |
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