Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

Also known as:
Bosprennis Beehive Hut
Nearest town:
Penzance (6km ESE)
OS reference:
SW437360
OS sheet:
203
Latitude:
50° 10' 4.32 N
Longitude:
5° 35' 22.34 W
Added to TMA by

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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jun 30, 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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jun 30, 2015
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by Mr Hamhead

How did these two get here? Must have been brought all the way from the coast near Land’s End....not an easy job!

Mr Hamhead
Mr Hamhead May 17, 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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 7, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Entrance to the NW courtyard house. One of the posts has fallen and now lies half-buried.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 7, 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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 7, 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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 7, 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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 6, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Beautiful veined orange granite block in the wall of the Beehive Hut.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 6, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Reverse of the previous image, looking from the round chamber into the rectangular one.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 6, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Looking through the original low entrance into the round chamber, from the rectangular chamber.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 6, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

The Beehive Hut from the southern courtyard house field.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 6, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Inside the southern courtyard. The drystone courses in the centre of the site are the remains of a medieval shelter.

Image credit: A. Brookes (29.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 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)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 6, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Another shot of the low remains of the eastern part of the settlement, looking NW to the sea.

Image credit: A. Brookes (28.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 3, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by thesweetcheat

Two fields ENE of the beehive hut are low, overgrown remains of part of the settlement at approx SW437363.

Image credit: A. Brookes (28.6.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 3, 2012
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by goffik

A wee straw offering in the small portal within the hut.

Image credit: Hazel Orriss
goffik
goffik Sep 15, 2006
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by goffik

The angle of our approach possibly made this place easier to find...

Image credit: Graham Orriss
goffik
goffik Sep 15, 2006
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by Moth

The beehive part of the structure from the north

Image credit: Tim Clark
Moth
Moth Mar 28, 2004
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
Moth
Moth Mar 28, 2004
Image of Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut' (Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork) by Moth

Ocifant approaches the structure from the SW where it is built into fieldwalls

Image credit: Tim Clark
Moth
Moth Mar 28, 2004

Articles

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jan 23, 2009

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.

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

Jane
Jane Mar 16, 2004

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.

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

Stonefly
Stonefly Jan 19, 2003

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.

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'

Stonefly
Stonefly Nov 29, 2002

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.

Folklore

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
Mr Hamhead
Mr Hamhead May 27, 2007

...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

Miscellaneous

Bosporthennis 'Beehive Hut'
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
pure joy
pure joy Nov 2, 2003

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.”

Topics

Directions please! 19
goffik
goffik
Sep 2006
Stonefly 7
hamish
hamish
Jan 2003

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