phil

According to John Barnatt in his book
‘Prehistoric Cornwall’ 1982
IBSN 0-85500-129-1

“This site was first noted in 1921 by Crawford, from information by Breton, as a ‘circle stone’.
It is likely to be either a group of natural boulders or the pound nearby.”

I think the Crawford that Barnatt refers to is- Osbert Guy Stanhope Crawford 1886-1957

O.G.S. Crawford was a pioneering aerial photographer and British archaeologist.

His publication Wessex from the Air (1928) was his first collection of aerial photographs of archaeological sites

Not sure if this helps much.
Barnatt also gives a slighty differrent
grid ref of SX24757755

Ther are many breaks in the monument but if you plan to try and trace the remains, it starts at SX141572 and ends roughly at SX247536

THE GIANT’S HEDGE
This Dark Ages earthwork ran at least from Looe to Lerryn, south of Lostwithiel, probably marking and defending the border of a Cornish Kingdom, often supposed to be that ruled by King Mark of the Tristram and lseult (Tristan and Isolda) story.

Dr Keith Ray, the County Archaeologist for Oxfordshire, who is making a special study of the Giant’s Hedge, is convinced that it originally continued on the west side of the River Fowey and was defended there by Castle Dore.

Remains of other such forts are dotted elsewhere along the Hedge, such as Hall Rings and the one above Yearle’s Wood, close to the site of St Nonna’s Chapel . In some places it is still twelve feet high, and where it is best preserved (for example, in Willake Wood) it is stone-faced and flanked by a ditch.

“Even 180 years ago,” writes Andrew foot in his history of St Veep, “it was sixteen feet high and ten feet broad so that fencibles in Quiller Couch’s book, ‘The Mayor of Troy Town’, could march along its entire length.

What a tremendous labour it must have been to build, 1200 years or more ago, with nothing more than basic tools. ” At the Looe end it is not well preserved, but is still recognisable in places, a bank following the contours fairly near the eastern or southern edge of the wood, although it would originally have been built out in the open, probably topped by a hedge (wall) or fence.

From Bob Acton’s
Around Looe, Polperro & Liskeard by Landfall Publications

IBSN 1 873443 22 6

Aerial photography & archaeological field work suggests that it was an iron Age hill-fort with a single rampart.

Read more at longbredy.freeserve.co.uk/index10.htm

To the west of Long Bredy is the Iron Age/Romano- British site of Pins Knoll which is a flat topped spur which juts out to the north of Litton Cheney.

An excavation of Pins Knoll found several burial sites of the 1st century ad which also contained grave goods including parts of sheep as well as the usual food vessels.

At the bottom of the spur is a spring where finds of pottery dating from the Iron Age/Roman Period

read more at....
longbredy.freeserve.co.uk/index10.htm

Thedorsetpage.com

Dudsbury Camp, an ancient site overlooking the Stour, from which the Ancient Britons guarded the ford across the river.

Although Dudsbury was named after a Saxon called Dude, it was first fortified by men 150 years before the birth of Christ. Today it is still a camp, but for a more friendly people. Girl Guides fill its vast sward each summer with giggling girls singing around camp fires.

The stone was originally found at Constitution Hill about half a mile away. The stone lies under some mature trees in what was formally the grounds of the old library. A new housing development has sprung up around it.

The address is now “Clarkes Court” just off library Road.

Dartmoor National Park Authority

The rampart on East Hill stands 3 metres high in places and has a wide, flat-bottomed, ditch on the outside. East Hill is properly termed a promontory fort, rather than a hill fort, having been built at the end of the East Hill ridge to take advantage of the natural defences provided on two sides by the steep wooded slopes above the East Okement River and the Moor Brook.

East Hill Iron Age fort lies on moorland south east of Okehampton and can be approached from a number of directions using public rights of way.

Hill forts are characteristic of the middle and later Iron Age (500BC – AD 50) and are seen to be the fortified settlements of the Celtic people. At least 12 hill forts survive on Dartmoor. East Hill fort is at grid reference SX 604 941.

Records show that East Hill fort was examined by the Reverend H G Fothergill in 1840. One hundred years later John Brailsford undertook a very small-scale excavation on the central entrance which divides the rampart in two. He found that the end of the rampart was neatly faced with eleven courses of small slabs and there appeared to be a palisaded trench forming a passage into the entrance. No other finds were recorded. A nearby outcrop of rock is known locally as ‘Roman Chair’. This name possibly arises from the 19th century discovery of a horde of 200 Roman coins in the East Hill Area.

www.pastscape.org

A ring ditch at Cassington partially excavated in 1932. The site comprised two concentric circular ditches. The inner was penannular, with a narrow causeway (emphasised by an outer spur ditch) on the west. At the surface of the gravel it was 4 feet wide and up to 21 inches deep. Its outline was slightly iregular, suggesting construction in segments. It appears to have had a maximum diameter of circa 45 feet. The outer ditch was continuous and less substantial, measuring around 1 foot deep and a maximum of 3 feet wide. It was more irregular in appearance than the inner ditch. The excavator suggested that, on the basis of the asymmetric ditch fill, the inner ditch had originally been accompanied by an outer bank. The inner ditch offered insufficient evidence for the location of a bank, if there was one. Most of the topsoil had been removed prior to excavation, although in what remained were some Roman potsherds and some tile of Medieval or later date. Further probable Roman sherds were in the uppermost levels of the inner ditch. In “the deepest level” was a sherd which was described in the excavation report as being “not impossibly Bronze Age in date”. A subsequent publication (Hamlin and Case 1963) refers however to “Struck flints and sherd possibly of Peterborough ware in primary silt. Peterborough ware and Roman-British pottery in secondary silt”. While the possible presence of Peterborough Ware hints at a possible Neolithic date for the inner ditch at least, the sherds may of course represent debris from earlier activity. The published report offers insufficient information on the potsherds’ context and condition.

The following notes written some years ago come from pamphlet on the history of St. Eval Airfield by Mr Alan Bell.

“In 1955 and 1956 a Mr E. Greenfield carried out excavations on behalf of the Ministry of Works on the site currently occupied by Trevisker School and playground.

An excellent report headed “The Excavation of Bronze Age and Iron Age Settlements at Trevisker, St. Eval, Cornwall” was published by the Prehistoric Society in 1971.

This summary indicated that the site was first occupied in the Bronze Age by a small agricultural settlement, consisting of two circular timber houses; one house was eventually replaced by a stone structure. A single radio carbon determination suggests that the settlement was dated within the period 1700-1300 BC.

With the number of scattered barrows in the district it has been postulated that in the Bronze Age there would have been a population of 200-250 in 30 to 50 scattered homesteads, like Trevisker, on some 2,500 to 3,200 acres of cultivable land.

IRON AGE
The Iron Age settlement was established on the Trevisker site probably in the second century BC or earlier. An original inner enclosure, half an acre in area, housing a single defended farmstead, was later super-seded by a larger defended enclosure. This covered three acres and contained circular timber houses and occupation areas. This phase was followed at the end of the first century AD by a Romano-British period of occupation, which lasted until the middle of the second century.

Trevisker bound lay in an area densely occupied in the Iron Age – there were at least 16 known or presumed Iron Age sites within a seven miles radius. These included the cliff castles of Redcliff Castle and Park Head in the St Eval parish and the great contour hill fort of Castle-an-Dinas. Seventeen iron specimens excavated from Trevisker were analysed and these varied widely from high silica slags to samples with 50% to 60% iron. This provides proof that iron, albeit impure but typical of the period, was smelted nearby even though a furnace has not been discovered. However, it is likely that the iron ore was of local origin as Carnewas Point mine was worked in the late 19th century.

By this period the settlers were living in stone huts with slab lined drains, and it is likely that the cattle were enclosed at night or in inclement weather. Spindle whorls were found indicating that sheep were kept and their wool used for clothing. The existence of rotary grinding wheels and clay ovens suggest that cereals were cultivated.”

The museum officially opened to the public in 1980.
The Museum and Hut Circle are open to the public free of charge by kind permission of Mrs Hadley, throughout the year by appointment (contact 01326 280130/434) and every Wednesday in August, 10am-5pm.

Trevelgue Headland is a public open space owned and maintained by Restormel Borough Council. It is one of the most heavily defended headlands in Cornwall, but as a result of natural erosion and visitor pressure, it is probably also one of the most heavily eroded. Natural erosion at the narrow middle point of the promontory, where the majority of the defences are concentrated, has left part of the headland as an island, known as Porth Island.

The entire headland is protected as a Scheduled Ancient Monument and lies in designated Areas of Great Historic and Scientific Value. It contains an impressive promontory cliff-castle, dating to the Iron Age, and two Bronze Age barrows.

As a result of natural erosion and visitor pressure, the archaeological sites on Trevelgue Head have been heavily eroded. In 1999, English Heritage produced a management plan, which identified the various problems and suggested a programme of remedial works.

The cliff-castle or promontory fort is defined by a spectacular series of large earth and stone ramparts which cut off the headland and embrace the remains of an extensive Late Iron Age settlement and lies adjacent to a contemporary field system. It defended an east-west headland 700m long and protects, on its south side, the excellent natural harbour of St Columb Porth.

The Barrow
The heavily damaged Bronze Age barrow dates back to around 2,000BC.
Bronze Age barrows are burial mounds, often with a stone core covered over with earth. The barrows may contain cists (stone-lined box) which contain cremated bone or burials. Such sites traditionally date between 2000BC-1600BC.

The earliest documented archaeological explorations of Trevelgue Head took place at the beginning of the nineteenth century when the barrows on the headland were opened up by Canon Rogers in 1840. This was apparently followed by further antiquarian ventures reported in the local press in the 1870s. A more thorough examination of two barrows was undertaken by William Copeland Borlase also around this time and in 1872, a detailed account of his discoveries was presented in the book Naenia Cornubiae.

Other archaeological work
Interest in the significance of later prehistoric activity on the headland was ignited by the discovery of what was described in the 1890s as a small “prehistoric bronze foundry”.

During a visit by H.O’Neill Hencken to the cliff castle in the early 1930s a surface scatter of “numerous pieces of Iron Age pottery...and quantities of flint chips” were collected. Erosion of midden deposits, containing metallic ores and slags, which appeared, in part, to form the make-up of the extensive defensive ramparts, threatened the stability of these impressive earthworks. Provisional arrangements for an archaeological excavation were made in 1934 but did not happen.
Finally, he Cornwall Excavations Committee (on behalf of the Royal Institution of Cornwall) invited C. K. Croft Andrew to carry out some limited archaeological excavations on the island during the summer of 1939. Evidence for occupation dating from the 3rd century BC to the post-Roman period (c.5th or 6th centuries AD) was uncovered. The outbreak of war in September 1939 halted work on the site.

Andrew’s excavation took place entirely on the Island. Four trenches were excavated into the western two ramparts and two further trenches to the west where a round house was excavated.

Welcome to Restormel

The following info on Trevisker pottery I found in the Proceedings of the West Cornwall Field Club.

(Don’t bother looking up info on Trevisker pottery on the net, there is none)

The pottery from Trevisker round, St. Eval is from a site which it was possible to distinguish several stages of occupation.

This was the first Bronze Age site of this kind in the U.K. and it has given us very valuable information about the developement of Cornish Bronze Age pottery.

It has proved possible to distinguish four main classes or styles of pottery which were in use successively by occupants of the site. these syles have been numbered I to IV in order of age.

Style I
Generally thick, heavy and coursely gritted, but well fired. The pots were probably two feet tall, with out-turned internally bevelled rims and large ribboned handles or similar lugs of simpler form. Some pots had their bases stengthened on the inside with crossed raised ribs

Style Ia
Similar to style I, except that the pots have flat-topped clubbed rims, and there may be horizontal ribs on the side of the pot

Style II
This style is dark in colour, and less hard fired than style I. The pots are rather barrel shaped with rims either slightly bevelled or else flattened. The decoration is by fine plaited cord arranged in a zone on the outside of the pot imediately below the rim. Paired dimples placed the zone of decoration to represent ribbon handles are a feature of this class.

Style III
This style is generally reddish brown in colour. Cord decoration is replaced by incised decoration made by scoring the surface of the pot prior to firing, but patterns remain the same. Both small perforated lugs and finer dimple handles are found on these pots.

Style IV
This style is generally brown or dark grey, harder, grittier and better fired than the preceeding styles. These pots are barrel or flower pot shaped and the rims may be flat topped, everted, of have bevel on the inner side. The decoration includes incised, finger-nail and finger-tip techniques. The patterns are probably derived from those of I-III. Cruciform base-strenghtened ribs and perorated lugs also occur in this group. There is a considerable range of fabric and size within this style and both large , course storage jars and smaller, finer cooking pots are represented.

This little known stone is built in a hedge. It is possible that in the past that it has been moved. You can look through the hole and see the Merry Maidens stone circle.

Reports on this site can be found in the following....

Cornish archaeology 17/1978/141
Proceedings of the West Cornwall Field Club 2/1957-8/2:41-3
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 38/1972/302-381

Some notes from a book called “Harlyn Bay and the discoveries of its Prehistoric remains” by R. Ashington Bullen 1912

The ruins of Constantine church stand near a kitchen midden. It was built in a hollow in the sand . Underneath the ruined tower is a large boulder of Cataclew stone (plate 20) weighing apparently nearly a quater of a ton. The nearest locality for this rock is Cataclew (fig 14) about a mile and a half distant in a straight line.
This stone seems to have been a sacred object around which the tower was built, perhaps 1600 hundred years or more ago. We have a similar instance at Maplescombe Church near Faringham, Kent in which is a large mass of tertiary conglomerate at the N.E. corner. And Prof T. Rupert Jones F.R.S., considers the so-called Chair of Bede at Jarrow Church to have been a sacred stone of an early date, but known to have been chiselled by modern masons into its present rectangular shape.

If the whole surrounding mound at Constantine Church is a continous kitchen midden, as it seems likely, consisting of successive accumulations, the great boulder marked the meeting point for whatever religious or ceremonial rites were practised. the Christian Missionaries who built Constantine Church made the spot the centre for the new religion, including the stone within their edifice in a position of honour.

In answer to Hob’s question about other holed stones in Cornwall.

Yes!

The Tolven stone near Gweek, 30 kilometeres to the east of Men An Tol.

themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=704

Also there is a website of other holed stones in Britain....
lochstein.de/ho_gb.htm

Situated in a farmyard sits this strange omega shaped stone 11 feet tall and partly worked by hand. It is mentioned by Cornish historian William Borlase and is said to be very similar to another stone on St. Mary’s on the Isle of Scilly.

From the J.R.I.C.
Note on an unrecorded cromlech in North Cornwall
By Henry Dewey F.G.S. of H.M. Geological Survey

The Quoit/Cromlech lies about two and half miles s.e. of Boscastle and one and a half miles n.n.w. of Davidstow church. It is situated about half way between the farms of Treslay and Hendraburnick and stands in a field at the top of a hill which faces south. The top stone is large meusuring 16 feet by 8 feet and in places is 4 feet thick. A smaller stone not more than a quater this size supports at its western end, with some others nearly hidden by earth and shrubs beside it; while on the east the capstone rests on the ground, after the manner of the so called demi-dolmen at St. Breock Downs Beacon

Apparently these rock markings are best reached from the River Gannel by boat. There are not far from a place known as the Fern pit. This place is easy to find as there is a small ferry that operates from this point across to Crantock beach.

ps
The Gannel is tidal and a dangerous place to swim or wade, in order to walk right around the estuary you will need to avoid high tide.

circle of stones at the Kistvaen?

Borlase reported that the site had a small cairn around the site. John Barnatt reported in his book “Prehistoric Cornwall” that the nearby MenGurta also had a small cairn of quartz stones in a 2 metre radius around it. The Magi stone also close by, is reported by Borlase to have had “a small circle of stones on edge”

Only recently re-discovered near the Men gurta this “kistvaen” or entrance grave. It consists of two huge slabs of stone of a similar type to the nearby menhirs and the quoit at Pawton. I had seen it marked on some old maps but two separate books on local sites said it no longer existed!

First record by William Borlase in 1872 in his work Naenia Cornubiae.

He writes.....

“About 150 yards of the taller stone (Men Gurta) and upon equally high ground lies a flat stone of spar 9 feet 6 inches long by sis feet broad at its greatest breath resting on the ground at its northern edge and at its southern, diagonally upon a second stone 7 feet 6 inches long by 2 feet 6 inchesin breadth, and about the same in hieght above the ground. It has the appearance of an imperfectly form Kist-Vaen and therefore should pehaps have been inserted at a previous page.
A barrow of small stones from 30 to 40 feet in diameter lies around it, and a farmer mentioned the fact that an old man digging among them had once discovered something curious, but of what nature he could not remember. A small cairn also surrounded the adjacent monumentwhile barrows are scattered in abundance over the neighbouring downs.”

A footnote on the page
This species of monument is sometimes called an “earth-fast Cromlech” sometimes a “demi-dolmen” – Examples are not uncommon in Brittany and at Kerland bears a strong resemblance to the above.

The site is almost unchanged compare with the sketch in Borlase’s book although the area is slighty grown over. There is a trig point nearby, the site can be found slighty off the track that leads from the trig point if you walk to Men Gurta.

An exciting find and no Cornish guide book mentions it!

Also known as “The Dancers” or “Kiss-In-The-Ring”.
The circle is 16.5m across, with 26 stones

According to Paul Pettit in “Prehistoric Dartmoor” IBSN 0-9515274-6-0

Seventeen stones stand today, the two tallest about 4 and a half feet above the ground, one pillar and one slab. the stones are predominantly broad, but there are three distinct pillars and facing each of them on the opposite side of the circle is a broad slab. This appears to be comparable to the pairing of stones in many double rows. A cairn lies close to the circle , and about 170 yd to the south-east is the standing stone known as White Moor stone. No site on Dartmoor is moor mysterious and evocative.

According to Paul Pettit in “Prehistoric Dartmoor” IBSN 0-9515274-6-0

During World War II this monument was wrecked by troops traing on the moor. Today ONLY six stones stand to their full height . Four are fallen and broken; six are sad looking stumps, their tops deliberately knocked off and lying on the ground nearby. One substantial stone outside the circle remains a mystery. The magnificent site 1,450ft up can still be appreciated.

This is a large one (110ft diameter), but many stones are fallen.

wdi.co.uk/air/coney.html

Coney’s Castle lies south-east of Lamberth’s Castle on the western edge of Dorset and has never been excavated.

Both hillforts lie on the boundary between the ancient tribes of the Durotriges, in Dorset, and the Dumnonii in Somerset.

This isolated and not widely known, well-preserved hillfort is situated on the summit of Dungeon Hill, north of Buckland Newton. It is surrounded by a single rampart and a ditch now overgrown with trees.
wdi.co.uk/air/a5.html

The defences of this hillfort consists of a single rampart and ditch on the northern end of a spur overlooking the river Stour.

The construction of the railway in 1857 uncovered a mass-grave of about 120 skeletons, probably the victims of the Roman invasion; part of a Roman shield was also found.

roman-britain.org/places/celtic/chalbury.htm
This pear-shaped fort is positioned atop a very steep hill dominating Weymouth Bay. Defenses consist of a single, 6m thick bank of rubble encased in drystone, and a flat-bottomed ditch with a simple entrance gap on the south-east. The hillfort defences were started sometime during the 5th century BC. Over 70 hut circles and numerous storage pits have been traced in the interior, and excavations at the site revealed a scatter of disarticulated human remains, which indicates exposure of the dead. The fort was very-likely the scene of – ultimately futile – resistance to the Roman advance through the area; this was presumably when occupation of the fort ended. There are many barrows and tumuli in the neighbourhood, including 2 Bronze Age round barrows at the centre of the fort itself, one of which contained a cremation burial.

geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/6322/History/binluldor.htm

Bindon Hill is on the coast near West Lulworth, Dorset, England. It is in the section marked “Danger Area” in the bottom left hand corner of the map.

Lulworth Cove is just to the left of the “DangerArea” This danger area is part of the Army – Tank Fireing Range on Bindon Range.

You can take the Bindon Road – which is a private road but also a public path to Bindon Hill and beyond. The earthworks that can be seen are the ditch and formerly palisaded rampart of the Bindon Hill. Bindon Hill is about 380 feet high and has a beach-head which had one of the first waves of Iron Age immigrants from the continent, in about 500 BC.

Weatherby Castle as it is called locally, has an obelisk at its summit ( 101m above sea level ), It is very well hidden, on top of a hill near Milbourne St Andrew. The area was originally a hill fort as can be seen by the ditches that still surround the summit.

Slightly more info and a picture of the obelisk can be seen at....
follytowers.com/weatherby.html

Mount Pleasant henge is one of the large Wessex henges and lies about a mile east of Dorchester. The bank was originally about four metres high surrounding an egg-shaped enclosure about 370 metres along its longer axis and about 320 metres along the shorter one. Originally the 4.8 hectare area could be accessed by four entrances. The bank is outside the ditch which had a diameter of about 43 metres with a single entrance.

more info at....
btinternet.com/~ron.wilcox/onlinetexts/onlinetexts-chap6.htm

Not far from the Boskawen-Un circle

Considered by some to be a natural outcrop but ‘Creeg’ in Cornish means ‘Barrow’ and ‘Tol’ means ‘hole’.........

hence barrow with a hole

Stonehenge lyrics by Spinal Tap

(Were they the inspiration for Julian’s interest in the stones? )

[SPOKEN]
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived a strange race of people – the druids. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy remains, hewn into the living rock – of Stonehenge.

Stonehenge, where the demons dwell,
Where the banshees live and they do live well.
Stonehenge,
When a man is a man and the children dance
To the pipes of pan.

Stonehenge,
‘Tis a magic place where the moon doth rise
With a dragon’s face,
Stonehenge,
Where the virgin’s lie
And the prayers of devils fill the midnight sky.

And you my love, won’t you take my hand.
We’ll go back in time to that mystic land
Where the dew-drops cry and the cats meow,
I will take you there,
I will show you how.

[SPOKEN]
And oh how they danced, the little children of Stonehenge, beneath the haunted moon, for fear that the daybreak might come too soon...

...And where are they now, the little people of Stonehenge? And what would they say to us, if we were here... tonight.

I visited this site especially for the “I’m only 5000 years old exhibition:

I’d seen a sketch of the site in a book. A couple of things have changed since the sketch was made, the bus stop is now a little further away and a litter bin has been added in the last couple years!

The area arond this site is known as Longstone.
There is an estate map dated 1820 which is believed to be the earlieat recorded mention of this site.
Charles Henderson the Cornish Historian noted the site in the early Twentieth century and saw that the stone had been cut down in size.

Looks rather sad and forgotten.

A massive triple rampart and ditch system protected an area of 2.5ha at the tip of the headland. Several hut circles lie within the defended enclosure.

A group of rare examples of slate menhirs.

They are sited in a field, just above the village of Polruan.

Essa Stone 1, is the most impressive at 1 .6 metres high.

Also 80 feet in diameter

80 feet in diameter!

A semi circle of recumbent stones lies on the edge of the clitter.

ref: Parish of Northhill checklist
the grid ref given here is 24537730

Apparently it was originally an Iron Age/Romano-British enclosed farmstead it was converted in the medieval period to a Playing Place where miracle plays were performed. The depression in the middle (The Devil’s Spoon) was the place where the Devil sprang from during the performances.

There are several “Playing places” in Cornwall.
In Cornish they are called “plen-an-gwarry”

The site is very near Carne barrow a.k.a. Veryan barrow.

Veryan is a pretty little village also worth a visit .
It has several unusual Round houses. It is said the houses were built round so that the Devil couldn’t hide in the corners.

This site is largely overgrown and little visited.

Has 12 kerb stones. the inner chamber consists of 4 side slabs per side and 2 capstones.

Pronounced bos-PREN-is

Comes from Cornish “bos-porth-enys”
roughly translates as
“dwelling at the entrance to an isolated place”

This site was once part of an Iron age village. The passage of this one is about 8 metres long.

It can be found about half a mile north of Constantine on the B3291 in a field opposite Trewardreva House.

This site is also known locally as the Piskey hall

Hurling is an ancient Cornish game played by 2 teams with a silver ball. The practise once took place all over Cornwall but now it is only continued at St. Columb Major and St. Ives. Don’t confuse Cornish Hurling with Irish Hurling. The Cornish versions are played without the use of sticks.

At St. Columb the game is always played on Shrove Tuesday and 11 days later on a Saturday.

People say the sport originates from some kind of pagan sun worship, the ball is said to represent the rising sun in the early spring and it is a well known as a fertility/ good luck symbol.

The site of a fogou at Boden Vean, Cornwall, has been known for some time and was rediscovered in 1991 following the digging of a water pipe trench by the landowner (Mr Christopher Hosken).

The site was then planned and drawn by the Cornwall Archaeology Unit who concluded that it was the remains of a partially collapsed fogou.

Below is the info from rlaha.ox.ac.uk/archy/abst401.html
(this link now dead) but from a cache search on google it is possible to read the following....

Archaeometry 40, 1 (1998), 187-216
A geophysical survey was conducted at Boden Vean, St. Anthony Meneage, Cornwall, over the site of a buried chamber thought to be the remains of a souterrain or fogou. A combination of geophysical techniques was successfully applied including an experimental microgravity survey over the location of the buried chamber itself. Magnetometer survey revealed a complex palimpsest of archaeological activity extending throughout the surrounding landscape, centred on a rectangular ditched enclosure containing the fogou. A series of gravity anomalies were recorded in the vicinity of the latter which were consistent with the collapsed section of the feature recorded by the Cornish Archaeological Unit. Further gravity anomalies suggested the presence of additional void features, possibly related to the extended passages of the fogou.

This mother Stone Row is 3.4km long!

Must be the longest Stone Row in the Country.
The southern end terminates at Stall moor Circle.
themodernantiquarian.com/browse.php?site_id=1420