History
Neolithic History
Portal dolmens are funerary and ceremonial monuments of the Early and Middle Neolithic period, the dated examples showing construction in the period 3500- 2600 BC.
As burial monuments of Britain’s early farming communities, they are among the oldest visible field monuments to survive in the present landscape. A massive capstone covers the chamber, and some examples show traces of a low cairn or platform around it. Some sites have traces of a kerb around the cairn and certain sites show a forecourt area often edged by a facade of upright stones.
Little is yet known about the form of the primary burial rites. At the few excavated sites, pits and postholes have been recorded within and in front of the chamber, containing charcoal and cremated bone; some chamber contents of soil and stones may be original blocking deposits.
Victorian History
A Historical Tale
“The Cromlech fell down about the year 1842, the late EWW Pendarves re-erected it. They levered up the top stone with some batons and blocked it up with blocks of wood until it was high enough to slide it in place.
The tomb beneath the cromlech does not seem to have been excavated, perhaps due to the dangerous state of the capstone, which must weigh at least 10-15 tons. The late Mr. Tripp, a farmhand, discovered a long narrow pit sunk by the cromlech in the early hours of the morning. It was supposed that someone had a dream or vision of buried treasure.”
Johnny Arthur (1860-1940)
Its collapse came in 1842 and the monument was re-erected “by workers on the Pendarves Estate and local people, galvanised by Mrs Pendarves”. The monument features in plans, photographs and drawings made in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but in 1966 it fell down again, allegedly during or just after an earth tremor.
Recorded History
Carwynnen Quoit was first noted in 1700 by the Welsh antiquarian Edward Lhuyd on his travels around Cornwall. It was first illustrated in 1750 by William Borlase. An engraving by John Grieg made from a drawing by William Couling shows it to be an impressive monument.
During a recent visit to the Society of Antiquaries Library in London, Jacky Nowakowski found some new and unpublished sketches of Carwynnen Quoit. These were drawn by nineteenth century Cornish artist and antiquary John Thomas Blight. Two inked sketches show elevations of the monument which are rather cartoon-like in character. But another is a pencil sketch of a plan of the monument with measurements! There is also a pencil sketch of one of the uprights which shows some strange decorative markings on the stone. The drawings are unfortunately undated, but, they must have been produced during visit by Blight to the site some years after the quoit had been restored by Lady Pendarves in 1834. Cornish writers Selina Bates and Keith Spurgin, who researched JT Blight’s fascinating and tragic life for their wonderful book The Dust of Heroes (2006), suggest that the drawings may well have been drawn early in the 1850s at a time when Blight’s artistic output was prolific as he visited many of the county’s ancient sites and antiquities.
In 1856 an engraving of Caerwynnen Quoit (sic) was published alongside one of Lanyon Quoit in Blight’s book, Ancient Crosses and other Antiquities in the West of Cornwall. This very stylised representation of Carwynnen would have been based on these ink and pencil sketches which are now the earliest free-hand images we currently have of the monument.
A mid-18th century sketch by William Borlase shows a Lanyon Quoit-style, table-like monument, its flat granite top supported by three uprights. The 19th century reconstruction was along similar lines, although a section of the capstone had broken off when the monument fell, one of the supporting stones was reduced in height and the arrangement of all the uprights changed. Portal dolmens are usually distinguished by massive capstones upheld by slender uprights creating the impression of a “floating” roof (cf Lanyon Quoit, Madron or Pentre-Ifan in south-west Wales) over an open chamber, but the question of whether these apparently “open” chambers were originally embedded within a mound remains unresolved.
There are numerous references in local guidebooks to the mystery that is Krommlegh Garwinnon, or, as it is otherwise locally known, the Giant’s Quoit. We know from photographs we have collected that in the twentieth century, local groups visited this local landmark: the Camborne Old Cornwall Society in 1925 and the Cornish Gorsedd in 1948.
Oral History
We are working on an Oral History project. Some recordings have been made to use as ‘voice overs’ for the film about the project. If you, like Paul and Freda, have any memories of the Cromlech or its surrounding landscape, and would like to share them, please get in touch.
Paul & Freda
Lesley
Lesley Oates, when her daughter was young, regularly visited the site whilst waiting for her then husband to come up from underground – he was part of the mining team at Pendarves Mine. Since interviewed, Lesley (left) took part in an Oral History Quoit training day with CAVA (Cornwall Audio Visual Archive). Inspired, she is now helping us to gather stories.
Charles
Our patron Professor Charles Thomas CBE DL Dlitt FBA FSA (on the right) has been interviewed and opened with this “As a little Camborne boy, I and my younger brother and baby sister (in pram) used to be taken for long walks to Treslothan; past Killivose, then Wesley’s Oak, The Rocks, along Hound Field past Stennack Woods and down Leafy Lane to our goal, Frying Pan Field.”
