Boscawen-un Circle, Summer 1999
The quartz-rich stone at the West of the circle
Boscawen-un
rewards the persistent circle seeker who manages to find this, my favourite
of the Cornish stone
circles. After finding a suitable place to park the car, the visitor
has to wade chest deep through bracken and gorse and ever present airborne
stinging beasties down the hillside to the clearing that is the home to
this fine fairy ring of 19 granite blocks and its titled centre spire,
looking like some kind of prehistoric sundial. Aubrey Burl speculates
that this two metre proto-gnomen could have stood here before the circle
itself, as this whole area near the tip of Cornwall is heavily populated
with Bronze
Age standing stones that must have been sacred places and often have
circles built close-by. It would be nice to think that this stone was
meant to stand at 45 degrees as some kind of pointer, in fact its present
angle was caused by treasure seekers in the past digging under the stone
in search of the pot of gold said to be buried there. The circle itself
has a diametre of around 24 metres, the stones standing between 1 and
1.4 metres tall. These are fairly regularly spaced and dressed and appear
uniform until a stone in the Western arc is examined more closely, and
reveals itself to be a clearly special block beautifully rich in quartz.
During Medieval times this circle was recorded as being one of the three major Druidic meeting places, and even today it continues to be the place of worship of the modern Cornish Gorsedd.
During Medieval times this circle was recorded as being one of the three major Druidic meeting places, and even today it continues to be the place of worship of the modern Cornish Gorsedd.
