Boundary Stones
I first learned about boundary stones when walking the Copper Trail in winter 2006. Thanks to Mark Camp, I was able to find an Altarnun parish boundary stone when walking between Five Lanes and Trebartha. In the summer I read about a project by Peter Davies and Blisland village to restore boundary stones on their part of Bodmin Moor, a project largely concerned with private property boundaries. They succeeded in finding and restoring 101 of 146 stones believed to exist in the parish. When walking on Manor Common I was able to find quite a number of these and keep comimg across many more on my Bodmin Moor walks. Here are two Manor Common examples.
M stone in Trippet stone circle
Treswigga boundary stone
Photographs
More in Miscellanea
Bridges - Prehistoric, Medieval and Modern
We have a remarkable variety of bridges in Cornwall, everything from the prehistoric age through to the modern era, though we do lack the kind of 21st century 'millennium' project bridges that places like Newcastle, London and Manchester like to boast about.
Christmas Lights at Mousehole and Newlyn
Lights at Mousehole and Newlyn
Cliff Castles
Where other parts have their iron age hill forts - and indeed Cornwall has a number of these, most notably Castle an Dinas and Warbstowbury - Cornwall is unusual in having a vast number of cliff castles. These appear to be exactly what the name suggests, iron age fortifications on clifftop sites. But there is a puzzle. Mostly all you find is a curving rampart, perhaps quarter of a circle, from clifftop to clifftop. What useful purpose, you may well ask, did a fort like this serve. It only encloses a tiny area which surely no one would want to live in or even defend. There is a simple answer. When constructed, as hill forts with a view of the coast, they were as much as quarter of a mile inland. In 2000 and more years the coastline has eroded that much. Some of the smaller ones may not have been forts at all, merely fortified farmsteads. Be that as it may, they are now in stunning locations thanks to coastal erosion. Amongst my favourites are Treryn Dinas near Treen in West Penwith, the Rumps near Polzeath, Griffin Point near Bedruthan Steps and Trevelgue Head near Newquay. But take a look at the Ordnance Survey Explorer maps and you will find dozens, especially on Cornwall's north coast. When you walk the coast path it can be difficult to identify some for growth of scrub and bracken but it's worth trying.