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Summary

The site of a possible chambered tomb destroyed c1845.

Protected Status: None recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Primary Record No. (1985-2009): 33537
• SHINE Candidate (Yes)
• SMR No. (OS Quarter-sheet and SMR No.): SW43NE 72

Monument Type(s):

• BARROW? (Early Neolithic to Late Bronze Age - 4000 BC to 801 BC)
• CHAMBERED TOMB? (Neolithic - 4000 BC to 2501 BC)
• CIST? (Bronze Age - 2500 BC to 801 BC)

Full description

A 1862 reprint of Richard Edmonds' 'The Land's End District' states that a quoit in Trewey of "considerable size" had been destroyed and that "not a vestige of it now remains". It stood approximately 1 furlong (200m) south-east of Gundry Cave (31498) ie at approx SW 4597 3754 and has a hollowed out centre. Edmonds was informed by the late aged tenant of Trewey that at the bottom of the hollow was a "cromlech, or horizontal slab, six or eight feet square, supported by others set upright, all of which have since been removed". Edmonds saw a parallel at Plas Newydd in Wales (b1). Russell visited the area in 1971 and assumed that a shaft with retaining wall 150m south-east of Gundry Cave was the site. Her grid reference (SW 4592 3756) is to a shaft approx 15m south-west of one shown on the OS map (b3). She writes "much of the barrow destroyed c1845, now part of retaining wall of large stones" but gives no source other than Edmonds (b2). The inference must be that she found a mound approx 50m north-west of where Edmonds placed his barrow and misinterpreted it as his site (b3). The OS correctly identified Russell's mound as a mine shaft with the retaining wall probably that around the shaft shown on OS maps at SW 4594 3757 (h1). The possibility remains that a neolithic cromlech or chambered tomb did exist, that it was destroyed, and that Gerrard's account is the only one to survive. The tenant, Edmonds' source, ought to have been able to distinguish between a shaft and something else (b3). Richard Edmonds recorded in the 1850s "a cromlech, or horizontal slab, six or eight feet square, supported by others set upright, all of which have since been removed at the bottom of a hollow in a barrow circa one furlong south-east of Green Cave barrow. His source was the tenant at Trewey. No vestige survived when he wrote (b1). The description is possibly of a quoit or portal dolmen, or possibly a cist (33537.2). Russell in 1971 miscalculated the distance and confused Edmonds' site with a mine shaft (b2) with the consequence that this possible chambered tomb has received very little attention (b3).
(b3) - Herring, PC, 1991, Pers Comm, ,

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Site history:
1: 1975. QUINNELL, NV / OS
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<1> Edmonds, R, 1862, The Land's End District, 27-28 (Bibliographic reference). SCO3302.

<2> Russell, V, 1971, West Penwith Survey, 26 (Bibliographic reference). SCO4314.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

Related records: none recorded

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