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Watch Croft

Cairn(s)

<b>Watch Croft</b>Posted by thesweetcheatImage © A. Brookes (23.6.2021)
Nearest Town:Penzance (7km ESE)
OS Ref (GB):   SW421357 / Sheet: 203
Latitude:50° 9' 52.13" N
Longitude:   5° 36' 42.11" W

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Fieldnotes

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25/09/2012 - We were going to park west of Men-An-Tol but found ourselves in the middle of a hunt. Dogs, big horses and people wearing a lot of red. All a bit odd but each to their own, I suppose. Instead we drove north to park at Carn Galver. A shortish climb found us at the top of Watch Croft. What a place for a cairn. Amazing 360 view and for the first time I felt a long way from home. We stood on the nearby summit rock and watched the rain pass through creating a rainbow above the cairn. Magical. Carried on to Men-An-Tol and the Nine Maidens. A great walk in a great area. thelonious Posted by thelonious
2nd October 2012ce

10 April 2011
Fantastic sunny day with little wind. Decided to do a circular walk taking in Watch Croft, Carn Glava, and Bosigran. Approcahed Watch Croft from the west, parking the car beside the fork in the road with the 'modern' quoit above Morvah. A Bridleway leads up the hill to the old mine and the adjacent houses. At the entrance to the houses we turned right and followed a vague path up to the summit and trig point. BE CAREFUL..plenty of pits in the area...they may not be very deep but you never know!
Even in early April the amount of undergrowth makes going off path difficult but we made the summit easily and took in the views. The standing stone is just south of the summit and a little bit of a disappointment after the others we had seen in the previous 24 hours...but nevermind.
From here we headed east on a well used path to Carn Galva...always the highlight of any trip to the far west.
Mr Hamhead Posted by Mr Hamhead
11th April 2011ce

Visited 16.6.09, walking from St Just and Tregeseal. This is the first time we've actually been up to Watch Croft for seven years. Late last year a decision was made to introduce a new grazing scheme affecting the croft (and Tregeseal, Men an Tol and Lanyon), which has been deeply unpopular, so I was worried that access to the croft would be restricted. We came up the bridleway from the SW and passed an odd square galvanised object lying next to the path - it turns out that this was a cattle grid that had been installed and then removed again due to various problems. The introduction of the scheme is clearly not going smoothly.

Anyway, the access appears to be largely unaffected on the south side of the croft (I think it may be a different story on the north side) so we managed to get up to this terrific spot without any trouble. It's a great place to come on a sunny day, with an ever present breeze to keep you cool. As the highest point in the peninsula, the views are excellent, especially to the south to Ding Dong.

One thing I noticed that I didn't spot last time is that the eastern barrow (with the trig point) has been subjected to the building of one of those annoying walker's windbreaks that are made from the stones of cairn itself (this is a problem on the North York Moors, but I haven't seen it here before). Even so, the cairn is impressive and well worth a visit, with the added bonus of a nicely tapering standing stone just down the slope.
thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
20th July 2009ce
Edited 20th July 2009ce

Visited in June 2002. Watch Croft is the highest point in Penwith (252 metres). Approached from the road to the west and then along the bridleway leading from the Dakota turning. There's a bit of a cross-heather scramble to reach the summit (and there are some mine-shafts to avoid!) but it's worth it for the views across West Penwith, particularly to the south, where the ever-present landmark of Ding Dong and the surrounding moors are laid out. Gurnards Head cliff castle is visible to the NE.

At the summit, there is a natural rock outcrop, against the south side of which the remains a circular structure are clearly visible. According to Craig Weatherhill ("Belerion" 1981), this is suspected to have been the site of a barrow. W.C. Borlase excavated and found nothing.

The other summit is surmounted by a fine, large (66ft diameter, 8ft high) cairn topped with an OS trig point. Again according to Weatherhill, some pottery was turned up when the OS erected the pillar.

Just down the slope to the south is a 6ft standing stone of an unusual (for this area) irregular shape.

Another barrow lies 275 metres or so to the SW of the summit, but we didn't see this. A revisit is obviously called for.
thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
23rd January 2009ce
Edited 23rd January 2009ce

Miscellaneous

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Details of the two cairns to the SW and south of the summit, excerpts from the Cornwall & Scilly HER:
SW cairn (SW 4191 3545)

WC Borlase recorded two cairns at Watch Croft. The south west barrow, 8.8m in diameter and enclosed by a ring of twenty stones set on edge, was excavated by him in 1863. Inside he found a cist containing an urn. On top of a cist, below its covering stone he found several Roman coins. The OS surveyed the cairn at 1:2500 in 1960. It is 1.7m high and 13.0m in diameter, and consists of a circular dry stone wall of large granite blocks with loose granite rubble piled within and around it. The top is slightly inclined towards the centre and a large outcropping rock is built into the south side of the wall. The cairn is very spread and mutilated by two excavations within the walling. The natural rock and shallow depression mentioned by Borlase is just inside the north circumference of the wall. The depression may be natural as two other large rocks near the cairn here have well formed rock basins. No trace remains of the cist which Borlase discovered.

Southern cairn (SW 4205 3524)

Pool in 1960 noted a barrow at Trevean. The OS who surveyed the remains at 1:2500 in 1961 record a cairn with a maximum height of 1.2m. The perimeter is retained by a drystone wall of large stones with a pronounced inward batter. The wall is mostly of large stones on edge but in places there are two courses visible. An excavation trench has been driven through the mound from east to west with a large circular hollow a little east of the centre. Spoil from this excavation is scattered on the outside of the cairn, particularly to the north east. Russell in 1971 lists the extant remains of a mound with retaining wall.
thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
2nd May 2022ce