WEST PENWITH
PENWITH
*Bodrifty Village
*Bollowal Barrow
*Boscawen-un Circle + Trelew Longstone
*Caer Bran
*Carn Euny
Tregeseal Circle
Castallack Round
Chapel Carn Brea
*Chysauster
Chun Castle & Quoit
*Lamorna Area
*Lanyon Quoit
Maen Castle
Men-an-Tol
Nine Maidens
*Pendeen Vau Fogou
*Sancreed Beacon
Tregiffian Vean
Treryn Dinas
Zennor & Mulfra Quoits
You will also find quite a lot of references to West Penwith antiquities on my Penwith Round trail page
More in Antiquities
Zennor and Mulfra Quoits
Quoits
Bodrifty Iron Age Village
I know Carn Euny and Chysauster iron age villages well but had no idea that there was another with substantial remains in West Penwith. It was by pure chance, during a walk from Carn Galver car park - visiting the Nine Maidens and looking for boundary stones - that I came across Bodrifty. Within a badly degraded embanked enclosure are the remains of eight iron age roundhouses. Sadly an excavation in the 1950s did a lot of damage but the site, on a gently sloping hillside just north of Bodrifty Farm, is still well worth seeing. The location was apparently occupied in the Bronze Age but what you see now is what remains of occupation from 600BC to around 43AD. If you follow the yellow markers from the site you will find a good roundhouse reconstruction, done by Bodrifty Farm owner Fred Mustill. I believe this was done primarily for the benefit of school groups but anyone is welcome. I have passed through since on several occasions, particularly when walking the Land's End Trail. I have also learned that there are other similar iron age village remains in West Penwith, at places such as Trehyllys, Higher Porthmeor and Mulfra though these are even more degraded than Bodrifty and somewhat less accessible.
Bollowal Bronze Age Barrow
No one even knew this was there until 1878 when Cornish antiquarian W C Borlase discovered it under mining spoil. There are probably several similar barrows still hidden under the rubble elsewhere along here. The barrow was in use during both neolithic and bronze ages and includes an entrance grave, a cairn, several individual burial cists and a number of ritual pits. What you see is very striking: a central oval structure, 35 feet across with walls up to 10 feet high; all around this is a passage six feet wide with outside walls forming a 'collar' of the same height.