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Summary

The fogou at Chysauster, partially excavated by WC Borlase in 1873.

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): 36008.11
• SMR No. (OS Quarter-sheet and SMR No.): SW43NE 30

Monument Type(s):

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

Full description

Some 150m downslope from the courtyard house village of Chysauster (36008) lies the poorly presented and mainly buried remains of a fogou. It appears that it was first noted by Crozier in 1847 (h1, b2) and entered by Edmonds in 1857 (h2, b1) who noted that it was very disturbed and was originally at least fifty feet long (b16). There is some confusion about this particular site which appears in Blight's records of this area (b4, b5, b7). Blight's first visit and report in 1858 noted an underground passage about twenty feet long (6.1m) (b3), although this particular feature was shown on Blight's plan of the settlement in 1861 (h3, b4) and its position appears to be confused with the remains of a similar subterranean feature closer to the settlement site (36008.13). In fact Blight concluded that there were two fogous at Chysauster despite contrary views from antiquarians like WC Borlase who is said to have partially excavated this particular site in 1873 (b6, h4). Pool has suggested that this site is the only real claim to being a fogou, whilst the other was dismissed by Hencken in 1932 as being part of the remains of a sunken way to the village leading upslope from the south (h5, b10, b16). Indeed this is the only fogou which appears in later standard surveys of the site (h6, h8, h9, b10, b11, b13, b14, b15). Weatherhill's notes made in 1982 from the bulk of the available detail (h8, b13) which note that only 4.6m of an undergorund passage now remains which has just a few roof lintels in position. He gives its alignment as SSW to NNE and suggests that ground disturbance all around the feature may be the remains of a courtyard house which he suggests once stood here (b13). The site now lies in Guardianship protection and is Scheduled. Most of the feature is blocked up and buried so no further details of its exact character are accessible without some controlled excavation. This may well be a good candidate for excavation as part of the long term access, display and management of the site (b17).
(b17) - Nowakowski, JA, 1991, Pers Comm, ,

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Site history:
1: 1847. CROZIER, H
2: 1857. EDMONDS, R
3: 1861. BLIGHT, JT
5: 1931. HENCKEN, HO'N / MOW
6: 1960. QUINNELL, NV / OS
7: 1975. FLETCHER, MJ / OS
8: 1982. WEATHERHILL, C / CCRA
9: 1983. SMITH, G AND ROSE, P / CEU AND CAU
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<1> EDMONDS, R, 1857, REMARKABLE ANCIENT BRITISH CAVES NEAR PENZANCE, 30-31 (Unedited Source). SCO6105.

<2> CROZIER, JT, 1---, MDEP US NO 1, NOTES AND MISC (Unedited Source). SCO5217.

<3> Blight, JT, 1858, Ancient Crosses and Other Antiquities in the East of Cornwall, 134 (Bibliographic reference). SCO2862.

<4> BLIGHT, JT, 1861, UNKNOWN TITLE, VOL 18, 39-44 (Unedited Source). SCO6137.

<5> Blight, JT, 1862, List of Antiquities in the Hundreds of Kerrier and Penwith (Bibliographic reference). SCO2868.

<6> BORLASE, WC, 1873, UNKNOWN TITLE, VOL 30, 325-348 (Unedited Source). SCO6305.

<7> Blight, JT, 1885, Churches of West Cornwall: with Notes of Antiquities of the Distrct, 210 (Bibliographic reference). SCO2866.

<8> Henderson, C, 1914, Notebooks of Parochial Antiquities, VOL II, 56-58 (Unpublished document). SCO3503.

<9> UNKNOWN, 1---, MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, DRAWINGS AND PRINTS, 88 (2) (Unedited Source). SCO5308.

<10> Hencken, H O'N, 1932, The Archaeology of Cornwall and Scilly, 137 (Bibliographic reference). SCO3489.

<11> Clark, EV, 1961, Cornish Fogous, 36, 64-66 (Bibliographic reference). SCO3076.

<12> Russell, V, 1971, West Penwith Survey, 61 (Bibliographic reference). SCO4314.

<13> Weatherhill, C, 1982, Courtyard Houses of West Penwith. A Survey, 53 (Bibliographic reference). SCO5029.

<14> Cornwall Archaeological Unit, 198-, Drawing Archive, Hanging (GRH), GRH 68/1/27/5 (Cartographic materials). SCO5088.

<15> Cornwall Archaeological Unit, 198-, Drawing Archive, Hanging (GRH), GRH 68/4/SW4734 (Cartographic materials). SCO5088.

<16> Pool, PAS, 1990, Henry Crozier and the Discovery of Chysauster, VOL 29, 99-105 (Article in Journal). SCO4143.

<18> 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

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