Next up we reach Salakee Down. The tombs here are much harder to see, being covered in deep bracken. I bumble about on top of one, finding a very long capstone still roughly in place, together with a decent kerb. G/F doesn't share my enthusiasm and carries on along the coast path – very wise. What I do get from here is a great view of Giant's Castle, with its concentric lines of ramparts. We head there next.
Along the southern end of St Mary's, Salakee Downs is peppered with chambered cairns, but the gorse and bramble was impenetrable at times. Fortunately for us, there had been a bit of fire which revealed some of the cairns marked on the map. We found one about 7ms in diameter with a virtually complete kerb, with maybe only two of the stones now fallen.
Vivien and Robert Seaney, writing in Meyn Mamvro 84 (Summer 2014), refer to a book they found in the Archives at St Mary's library: "Antiquities Historical and Monumental of the County of Cornwall" (1754) by William Borlase and its reference to a lost stone circle on Salakee Down, together with a plan of the site.
Part of the circle is formed by a "Great Stone" with "13 basons" on its top. Borlase depicts the stone in an engraving and describes it as over 7 feet tall, with a girth of 40 feet. The Seaneys located this stone and next to it found a flat area of exposed rock, which they believe is the location of the lost stone circle. They commented that the smaller stones shown in Borlase's plan have disappeared, leaving only larger earthfast stones.
Full details of their findings are set out in Meyn Mamvro 84. Meyn Mamvro