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Summary

Courtyard House 9 at Chysauster, excavated by Hencken in 1931 and Croft Andrew in 1938.

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): 36008.04
• SMR No. (OS Quarter-sheet and SMR No.): SW43NE 150

Monument Type(s):

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

Full description

This is a fairly poorly preserved courtyard house lying within the south-west downslope side of Chysauster village 36008. Blight's survey of 1861 shows a rather odd 'tunnelled' feature roughly at this location which bears little resemblance to the feature there today (b1, h1). His interpretation was that this was a fogou and this association rested on what he did acknowledge was much disturbed and mainly fragmentary field remains (b1). In Watkins' survey at 1:1536 in 1928 a delapidated cluster of banks and hollows was shown at this location (h2, b2). Weatherhill writes that the site witnessed excavation by both Hencken in 1931 and then by Croft Andrew in 1938-39 (h3, h4, b5), although Hencken does not record this in his main site report (b3). Interestingly on Hencken's site plan, the site coded as XIV, is not shown as excavated and there are little surface features of any recognisable form (b3), although a latter MoW plan of the settlement shows structural features here and it is likely that it was first properly investigated by Croft Andrew in the late 1930s (h4). Notes on Croft Andrew's work were not available to the present compiler. This site appears as a structural feature on an OS survey at 1:2500 in 1960 (h5) and no further detail was added by a further visit in 1975 (h6). The site was Scheduled in 1958 (b4). At present it exists within the Guardianship area and is grassed over (b6). The most recent notes were taken by Weatherhill (h7, b5) who writes that this house had a different alignment to all its neighbours within the settlement. Today remains consist of the courtyard area and a small circular room and well preserved long room on the east of the site with the partial remains of a round room to the south (b5). A small stone lined hearth was found in the smaller circular room and door jambs to the main north-east facing entrance as well as some of the other rooms survive in situ. Overall the courtyard house is approximately 27m long and is 15m wide (b5). More research needs to be done to find out what and exacly when excavations took place on this site (b6). The monument is included in the Schedule.
(b6) - Nowakowski, JA, 1991, Pers Comm, ,

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Site history:
1: 1861. BLIGHT, JT
2: 1928. WATKINS, DH
5: 1960. QUINNELL, NV / OS
6: 1975. FLETCHER, MJ / OS
7: 1982. WEATHERHILL, C / CCRA
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<1> BLIGHT, JT, 1861, UNKNOWN TITLE, VOL 38, 46 (Unedited Source). SCO6136.

<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, 52 (Bibliographic reference). SCO5029.

<7> Cornwall Archaeological Unit, 198-, Drawing Archive, Hanging (GRH), GRH 68/1/27/5 (Cartographic materials). SCO5088.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

Related records

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