Trevelgue Head Iron Age Promontory Fort

If you look at the Modern Antiquarian you will find some confusion about Trevelgue Head Promontory Fort at St. Columb Porth. Phil's fieldnotes are immaculate but a number of photographs have been posted of quite a different site, the pair of bronze age barrows on the cliff top above Fruitful Cove, more than half a mile to the north. Trevelgue headland is now split in two, its parts now joined by a small wooden footbridge. One wonders whether the gap had to be bridged when the fort was in use for around 800 years from the 3rd century BC. Consensus seems to be that sea erosion created the gap more recently. Fortifications - still impressive banks and ditches - date from iron age occupation and are on both the mainland and the island. But the site must have been occupied from long before the iron age; archaeologists have found some evidence of metal working from the bronze age and the discovery of flint chips may suggest neolithic occupation. Indeed, there is still a fairly impressive bronze age barrow, though others have been robbed out, probably by modern day farmers in search of building stone, as they did on Barrowfields not far away in Newquay. Trevelgue Head can be seen from the barrows above Fruitful Cove and from those at Barrowfields so there is more than likely a bronze age tribal connection. I sought out all three sites during a walk on the Coast Path between Watergate Bay and Newquay.

Trevelgue Head seen across Porth Beach

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