A wet and overcast day at Chun Quoit, September 1997
A very pretty chambered
tomb, Chun Quoit stands on a bleak and very atmospheric northwest facing slope
of a natural rise just over a mile from the sea and a few miles away from both
Lanyon Quoit and the Men-an-Tol
in an area rich in cairns,
standing stones and barrow.
It consists of four upright stones about a metre and a half in height, three of
which support a fairly circular 2-3 metre wide capstone.
Early antiquarians in the 18th century reported the remains of a circular cairn
of about 10-12 metres diameter around the chamber with an outer kerb of upright
stones. This remnants of this mound can be seen as cobbles poking out from the
grass with an occasional kerbstone (foreground left of picture) still in situ.
Chun Quoit can be reached by following a track from the nearby farm, which also takes you past the nearby Chun Castle, a small 3rd/2nd century BC Iron Age hillfort. When visited in early September, the fort was completely overgrown with bracken and it was almost impossible to make out any of the circular and rectangular huts that still exist despite much of the stone being removed for paving the streets of Penzance.
The name 'Chun' comes from the Cornish 'Chy-an-Woone' meaning 'the House on the Downs'.
Glossary Item: Neolithic
Chun Quoit can be reached by following a track from the nearby farm, which also takes you past the nearby Chun Castle, a small 3rd/2nd century BC Iron Age hillfort. When visited in early September, the fort was completely overgrown with bracken and it was almost impossible to make out any of the circular and rectangular huts that still exist despite much of the stone being removed for paving the streets of Penzance.
The name 'Chun' comes from the Cornish 'Chy-an-Woone' meaning 'the House on the Downs'.
Glossary Item: Neolithic
