Images

Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Looking through the inner doorway to the outer. The interior is filled with bluebells and must have looked spectacular a few weeks ago.

Image credit: A. Brookes (15.6.2015)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

The doorway between the beehive chamber and the rectangular chamber. The corbelling can be seen above the doorway, as can the little alcove to the right.

Image credit: A. Brookes (15.6.2015)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Looking into the NW courtyard house. There are remains of a cobbled path very like those found at nearby Chysauster. The inner entrance with the fallen post (see previous image) can be seen beyond.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

NW courtyard houses. Looking southeast, with the Beehive Hut just visible, built into field walls on the far left. The Beacon is the hill beyond.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

The best preserved of the courtyard houses are at the NW of the settlement. Although rather overgrown, the walls survive to a good height. Looking northeast.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Another view of the earlier hut circle, looking NW towards the Beehive Hut and courtyard settlement. Slopes of Hannibal’s Carn on the left.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Fine courtyard house in the field immediately south of the Beehive Hut. A medieval structure (beyond the upright gate/door post) has been built inside the Iron Age remains.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by Moth

The original entrance into the ‘beehive’ (left of centre), looking into the original passage (where the ‘new’ SW entrance is). The so-called ‘cupboard’ recess (right of centre) is a modern addition

Image credit: Tim Clark

Articles

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

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.

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Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

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.

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Folklore

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork

...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

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Miscellaneous

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork

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.”

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Link

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
West Penwith Resources

The 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.

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Sites within 20km of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'