Megalithic Lamorna - a dilettantish discourse

Submitted by enkidu41 on Thursday, 02 September 2004 Page Views: 1932

**Swingate E** submitted by enkidu41 : This 5' high stone stands in the middle of a field overlooking the sea. (Vote or comment on this photo)

One is struck by the relatively large number of stones on the Lamorna plateau situated between the villages of Lamorna and Mousehole in the far south-west of Cornwall.

Most of these have been unrecorded in the past with antiquarians concentrating mainly on the Penwith moors but today we know of 12 stones (Castallack, Castallack Carn, Lamorna, Kemyel A, B and C, Swingate A, B, C, D, E and F) and have evidence of a further two in the Tithe Awards of 1840 which recorded 2 field names of Park Menheer and Long Stone Field. There may be further stones yet to be discovered in overgrown hedges and the like.

This plateau of less than 4 square kilometres slopes gently towards the southern cliffs of and provides extensive views over the sea with St. Michaels’ Mount prominent in the north-east and the long peninsula of the Lizard in the east. It is now divided up into relatively small similar-sized fields devoted primarily to pasture with the majority of stones standing in the middle of a field, one to a field. This seems very odd unless these stones are rubbing stones for cattle. Well, they are almost certainly treated by the farmers as rubbing stones but was it always so? To put it another way, did the farmers erect the stones or simply utilise a stone already there? I would suggest in all probability the latter and that the stones are prehistoric. The stones are either too big for it to be likely that farmers would have expended the considerable effort necessary to erect them (Swingate A is over 6’) or too low to the ground for them to be much use to cattle (the Castallack stone is not much more than 3’ high).

Undoubtedly, there were many more stones at the time of land enclosure and the oddity of the stones being located centrally in a field can be attributed to the practice of farmers removing stones already there leaving just one for rubbing post purposes. If this is so then we have to accept that there were considerably more stones than the 14 of which we have evidence. Clearly, this number of stones would not have been erected randomly but would have formed coherent structures. We are therefore looking at a total number likely to have been well into three figures.

What were all these stones for? I cannot help but reflect that the close ties between the Cornish and the Bretons is considerably more than historic and linguistic but would also have been spiritual. The ceremonial stones rows of Carnac come inevitably to mind. Was there a mini-Carnac in Cornwall?

enkidu41

Contributor Bio for enkidu41: Based in London, contributing since 2004. Favourite site: Mulfra Quoit/Dyn Dryfol. Occupation: Retired.

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