Visited 14.4.10.
Easily seen from the B3280. Park at the field gate and access is a straight 2 minute walk through 2 field gates / 2 fields. The site consists of a large mound of stones. There is no public right of way to the field in which the cairn stands so you need to either seek permission or do what I did - make a dash for it!
At Hangman's Barrow in St. Crowan, (which is really Men-an, the stone), a legend has been coined to suit the title. A man murdered a man and his wife, and tried to take the life of their little son, but the little boy took refuge in a "cundered" (culvert), and so escaped with his life. Many years afterwards, when the boy had grown to man's estate, and was driving a cart, he overtook a tired way-farer, and gave him a lift. It happened that their journey took them past the very place where the murder had been perpetrated, and the traveller, becoming garrulous, pointed to the spot, and said "Years ago, it was there I killed a buck and doe, but their young got into that cundered, where I could not get at him, and so he escaped." The feelings of the son may be well imagined when he heard his parent's murder so brutally and callously alluded to, but he said nothing until he could procure assistance, when he delivered the ruffian into the hands of justice. Soon after he was sentenced to death by the lingering mode of exposure in an iron cage. And from this very circumstance, though not even according to the above facts, the carn of stones took the name of "Hangman's Barrow."
Surely in the running for 'most useless megalithic folklore story', this is from Rev. S Rundle's Cornubiana in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall v14 (1899-1900).
[SW 6733 3665] Hangman's Barrow [L.B.] (1) Two standing stones on the hill called Hayman's Barrow. (2) Hangman's Barrow is a 3.0m high cairn. Published 1:2500 survey correct. It is not possible to identify two individual standing stones in an area such as this which is littered with granite boulders. Pevsner's information possibly incorrect or a mis-identification of the place name. (3) Hangman's Barrow is recorded by Thomas as being 95ft in diameter, the removal of many of the stones having revealed an inner wall of large stones which appeared to surround the cairn centre within 10ft of its outer edge. (4-5)
Mentioned by Craig Weatherhill, in “Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall & Scilly” (Cornwall Books - 1985, revised 1997 & 2000) – “This massive cairn occupies a prominent ridge-top position. Built entirely of stone, it is 33.0m high and 20m in diameter. Its center is mutilated and cratered due to past tomb-rifling and stone-robbing. Nothing is known of the cairn’s contents.”
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