Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement

Nearest town:
Penzance (7km E)
OS reference:
SW409342
OS sheet:
203
Latitude:
50° 9' 1.77 N
Longitude:
5° 37' 38.81 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement by thesweetcheat

Some of the courtyard houses are pretty overgrown, but the layout and surviving walls can still be readily seen.

Image credit: A. Brookes (17.6.2014)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jul 31, 2014
Image of Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement by thesweetcheat

Looking down into one of the well-preserved courtyard houses.

Image credit: A. Brookes (10.11.10)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 27, 2010
Image of Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement by thesweetcheat

The settlement seen from Carn Downs, to the east. The courtyard houses are visible in the third field up in the centre of the picture, with the simpler round houses scattered in the field above that.

Image credit: A. Brookes (15.6.2010)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Jul 16, 2010

Articles

Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement

Jcalderbank
Jcalderbank Oct 15, 2025

Visiting this site October 2025, the site is quite overgrown and maps within the book ‘journey to the stones’, and via Google maps were quite unhelpful in navigating the walls and fencing of local farmers. Though much of this fencing is in disrepair, and the farmers structures and equipment in the area appears abandoned with minor farming activity in the area. When we visited there were other explorers there, so myself and my partner weren’t the only ones to venture off the path to find this site.

Worth a visit despite the challenge as the area is littered with stone ruins of interest, the higher field give away very little with a few sparse round houses whilst the field below is full, with entrance ways clearly visible and quite intact walls and structure outlines reminiscent of Carn Euny settlement minus the Fogou.

This site is a short distance from Chûn Quoit and Chûn castle so all could be tackled in an afternoon, parking up by Men-an-Tol Studio. Follow the signs to Chûn castle at a crossroads to make your way to the castle and farm that these sites reside by.

Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement

thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Aug 25, 2010

From the Castle, after a bit of bracken-exploration, we find a vague path heading northeast, which clears a bit as it finds a route between two hedges. Some lumps and bumps appear in the field on the south side of the path, telling us we’ve found Bosullow Trehyllys, one of the best preserved courtyard house settlements in the area. Much less visited than Chysauster or Carn Euny, this settlement has been dogged by restricted access and impenetrable vegetation, so we’ve never tried to visit before. But the barbed wire has rusted away and the little gate is open to us, so we go and have a mooch round. Thanks again to Chrisbird for pointing out that the site had been cleared. The vegetation is actually already pretty high again, but we easily found simple round-houses in the south-western field and the impressive courtyard houses in the field next door. We’re joined by a fellow enthusiast, who tells me this is his first visit to the site for over a decade.

Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement

C
chrisbird May 5, 2010

This site used to be difficult to access and there was little to see as it was so overgrown. However, visiting it today (5 May 2010), access was easier (ie no longer was it surrounded by inpenetrable fencing and wire) but a lot of the vegetation that had previously obscured it had been cut back.

Folklore

Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Dec 13, 2006

Numerous hut-circles also occur near Clun Castle [sic], Cornwall, of a rude circular form, varying from eight to forty feet in diameter; the “walls” or hedges composed of unhewn stones placed without cement.
The hearth-stone was met with beneath the centre of one circle covered up with about twelve inches of mould. These are locally known as the “huts of the old people.” They have been briefly described by Miss Millett in the Report of the Penzance Nat. Hist. and Antiquarian Society for 1849..

p lxii in:
Some Further Notes upon Pre-Historic Hut-Circles
George E. Roberts
Journal of the Anthropological Society of London, Vol. 3. (1865), pp. lx-lxv.

Miscellaneous

Bosullow Trehyllys Courtyard House Settlement
Ancient Village / Settlement / Misc. Earthwork
pure joy
pure joy Jul 6, 2003

Mentioned by Craig Weatherhill, in “Cornovia: Ancient Sites of Cornwall & Scilly” (Cornwall Books – 1985, revised 1997 & 2000) – “This superb, unexcavated Iron Age/Romano-British village consist of three detached courtyard houses, a number of detached round houses, and an interlocking complex of round houses incorporating a fourth courtyard house and possibly the remains of a small above ground fogou. Walls still reach a height of 1.8m in places and the buildings are surrounded by a bewildering array of tiny contemporary fields and garden plots. The settlement is situated immediately beside a preserved stretch of the main prehistoric trackway of the peninsula, and is known to have extended to the northern side of the track. The only remains there are a stone-lined well and a stone hump which preserves part of a fifth courtyard house.”

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