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Summary

Courtyard House 5 at Chysauster, excavated by Hencken in 1931.

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument CO37: Chysauster ancient village

Other References/Statuses

• OS No. (OS Quarter-sheet and OS No.): SW43NE 69
• Primary Record No. (1985-2009): 36008.01
• SMR No. (OS Quarter-sheet and SMR No.): SW43NE 29

Monument Type(s):

• COURTYARD HOUSE (Iron Age - 800 BC to 42 AD)
• COURTYARD HOUSE (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)

Full description

Courtyard House 5 lies within the heart of the nucleated settlement of Chysauster and appears on Blight's plan of the site in 1861. It was surveyed in 1928 at a scale of 1:1536 and is coded as House 5 in Hencken's survey and detailed examination of the settlement. Partial excavation of this house by Hencken took place in 1931. Excavation showed the house to be in a relatively good state of preservation with all the basic components of a courtyard house - a fine entrance to the north, an open courtyard, a round room on the south and a long room on the north-west. A covered drain passes through the entrance and crosses the courtyard to a culvert piercing the wall on the south. The entrance to the long room on the north-west is located at the centre of the wall of the structure which measures up to 1.5m wide and 8.2m long (b3). The round room measures up to 6.4m in diameter with walls up to 1.2m high. Its paved floor is lower than the courtyard and a 'socket stone' lies in situ as well. The house shows signs of modification during its main occupation from the 1st century BC up to the 2nd century AD, with original internal doorways becoming blocked and then later re-established. Most artefacts were recovered from the round room and included pottery, and a piece of iron slag. No traces of a hearth were found.
To the east and south of the house lay artificially made terraces partly bounded by revetted stone faces. These were probably small garden enclosures and appear to be common features of the houses on this site (b6). The fragmentary remains of a small circular stone hut (D) was also partially examined to the immediate east of the courtyard house (b3). The house was surveyed by the OS in 1960 (b4) and revisited in 1975 (h5). It was included in the Schedule with the rest of the settlement in 1958 and has been consolidated and partly re-constructed (b4).

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Site history:
1: 1861. BLIGHT, JT
2: 1928. WATKINS, DH
4: 1960. QUINNELL, NV / OS
5: 1975. FLETCHER, MJ / OS
6: 1982. WEATHERHILL, C / CCRA
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<1> Blight, JT, 1861, Account of an Ancient British Village in Cornwall, 38-46 (Article in Journal). SCO2861.

<2> Hencken, HO, 1928, An Excavation at Chysauster 1928, VOL 34, 145-164 (Article in Journal). SCO3487.

<3> Hencken, HO'N, 1933, An Excavation by H.M. Office of Works at Chysauster, Cornwall, 1931 (Article in Journal). SCO7212.

<4> GORDON, MS, 1958, A M ENGLAND AND WALES, 21 (Unedited Source). SCO7674.

<5> Weatherhill, C, 1982, Courtyard Houses of West Penwith. A Survey, 50-51 (Bibliographic reference). SCO5029.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds

• FCO3004 - BASIN (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• FCO3811 - JAR (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• FCO3812 - SLAG (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• FCO3003 - UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• FCO4192 - UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)
• FCO3002 - VESSEL (Romano British - 43 AD to 409 AD)

Associated Events: none recorded

Related records

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