Botrea Barrows

Nearest town:
Penzance (7km E)
OS reference:
SW403312
OS sheet:
203
Latitude:
50° 7' 23.88 N
Longitude:
5° 38' 1.63 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by Rhiannon

'Barrows on Botrea Hill' by William Cotton, from "Illustrations of stone circles, cromlehs and other remains of the aboriginal Britons, in the West of Cornwall : from drawings made on the spot, in 1826."

Rhiannon
Rhiannon Aug 18, 2024
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Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by Chris Bond

The South Central Disc Cairn on Botrea Downs at SW 40305 31207, photographed from the north-north-west on 15 May 2004. © Chris Bond

Image credit: Chris Bond
Chris Bond
Chris Bond Jan 14, 2024
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Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by Chris Bond

One of the Round Barrows or Cairns on Botrea Downs at SW 40193 31192, photographed from the east-north-east on 15 May 2004. © Chris Bond

Image credit: Chris Bond
Chris Bond
Chris Bond Jan 14, 2024
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Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by Chris Bond

A few of the kerb stones of the South Disc Cairn on Botrea Downs at SW 40326 31065, photographed from the south-west on 15 May 2004. © Chris Bond

Image credit: Chris Bond
Chris Bond
Chris Bond Jan 14, 2024
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Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by thesweetcheat

The kerbed cairns on the summit of the hill. Southern cairn in the left foreground, northern cairn (with little fake dolmen) in the right background.

Image credit: A. Brookes (20.6.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat May 8, 2022
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Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by thesweetcheat

Granite blocks on the edge of the southern of the four disc/platform barrows. The two kerbed cairns are on the extreme left of shot.

Image credit: A. Brookes (20.6.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat May 8, 2022
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Image of Botrea Barrows (Barrow) by thesweetcheat

Looking north from the edge of the northernmost barrow. The light grey stone just visible in the centre of the shot is Wheal Butler menhir.

Image credit: A. Brookes (20.6.2021)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat May 8, 2022
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Articles

Miscellaneous

Botrea Barrows
Barrow / Cairn Cemetery
pure joy
pure joy Feb 15, 2003
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Marked on the Explorer map 102 as ‘Tumuli’. On a hilltop just south of the junction of the A3071 and the B3318.

Craig Weatherhill describes them slightly differently in his two books ‘Belerion: Ancient Sites of Land’s End’ (Cornwall Books, 1981) and Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall’ (Cornwall Books, 1985, revised 1997 & 2000), but the gist of it is this; four unusual and large disc / platform barrows, from 16 to 38m across, lie in a north-south line on the flat summit of Botrea Hill. All are low, flat topped mounds, none more than 1.2m high with remains of raised rims. Three of them were explored in the nineteenth century. Finds including ashes, a cist containing an urn and another cist in which were two fine barbed arrowheads. A couple of small bowl barrows lie just to the west. To the south-east there are three kerbed barrows, two of which are very large, with the third almost ploughed out. One of these also yielded an urn.

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Sites within 20km of Botrea Barrows

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