Cathedrals of the Bronze Age
Stone Circles
Boscawen-ûn
Stone circles represent the zenith of the megalithic era. Archaeologists date them to 2300-2000 BCE though the author suspects they might be around 2500-2300, all possibly built within a few decades of each other.Penwith has four surviving circles, though once there were around ten. Tregeseal and the Merry Maidens were made up of two circles each, and the Mên an Tol was a stone circle.
On this page: The Appliance of Megalithic Science - Surviving Stone Circles - Tregeseal - Merry Maidens - Nine Maidens - Boscawen-ûn - Stone Circle Design - Stone Circle Astronomy - Subtle Energy - Disappeared Stone Circles
Boscawen-ûn
Penwith's four surviving stone circles are Tregeseal and the Nine Maidens in the north, and Boscawen-ûn and the Merry Maidens in the south. These two pairs contrast one another in character and setting.Tregeseal and the Nine Maidens are each overshadowed by a Neolithic tor hill - Carn Kenidjack and Carn Galva respectively. Boscawen-ûn and the Merry Maidens in the south are situated on flatter rolling farmlands, once upon a time mainly wooded with parkland vistas. This said, a significant hill is distantly visible from both of them - Chapel Carn Brea from Boscawen-ûn and Carn Galva and a variety of hills from the Merry Maidens.
All of the stone circles have a complex of orbital sites attached to them within a mile or so, made up of menhirs, barrows, stones and, in two cases, now-destroyed stone circles at Tregeseal and the Merry Maidens. The stone circles stand at the hubs of geomantic complexes or landscape temples, each wrapped in an enveloping landscape setting. The complexes are integral to the purpose of stone circles and should not be seen as separate. More on the next page.
Getting there
Part of the Merry Maidens
Of the four stone circles, the Merry Maidens (map ref SW 4326 2458) are most accessible, close to the B3315 from Newlyn to Porthcurno, with parking, and accessible to people with mild disabilities who can walk 200 metres and clamber over a stile.Boscawen-ûn (SW 4122 2736) is more difficult to find: there's an inconspicuous lay-by on the A30 to Land's End, followed by a 350 metre walk to the stone circle - it's secluded and a good stone circle if you want some quiet time (fewer dog-walkers and tourists).
Tregeseal (SW 3866 3237) is tricky to find, with no car park and a bit of a walk - it's worth it though. You can walk from near Hailglower Farm, up a narrow road leading from Tregeseal village, or past Carn Kenidjack from a car park on the B3318 at the Trewellard road junction. (Take a map.)
The Nine Maidens (SW 4342 3513) require a longer, rougher walk from near Dingdong mine or from Bosullow on the Penzance to Morvah road. It's a mile or so from either. From Bosullow you also pass Mên an Tol, Mên Scryfa and the Four Parishes Stone.
And when you're there...
The Nine Maidens from Mulfra Quoit
When you have examined the site and its setting and details, settle, sit or even lie down, stop talking, set aside your thoughts and just let your psyche freewheel for a while.Pay attention, listen to whatever comes up. See if you can gain impressions or visualise the people of the Bronze Age being there and doing whatever they were doing. Feel the atmosphere, character and energy of the site. Let yourself go - it's okay. You might gain impressions or information that are valuable.
When you leave the site, give thanks, and note the difference in your state of being compared with when you arrived. It will be different and you will probably be in a better mood - lightened up. At least.
The Surviving Stone Circles
Tregeseal
Tregeseal stone circle is situated on alignment 83 from Carn Brea to the Brisons rocks just off Cape Cornwall, passing through Trencrom Hill, Lanyon Quoit and the Tregeseal complex. The anchor or contact-point for this alignment is not the stone circle but Botallack Common barrow, 200 metres ENE of the circle.It is not uncommon for an outlier of the stone circle to act this way - it happens at the Nine Maidens and Merry Maidens too. The whole complex around a stone circle makes up the totality of what a stone circle is.
Prof Thom's survey of Tregeseal
Tregeseal is a Type A flattened circle with a diameter around 21m. Circles were flattened on one side to adjust the relationship between their diameter and circumference, to a mathematical proportion that reflects astronomical factors such as the ratio of the length of day and night at the two solstices, at this particular latitude. This creates a vibrational resonance in the design that locks time-related factors (length of day) into the spatial layout of the circle, thus integrating time and space into the circle's design.Tregeseal stone circle is the eastern of two original circles, the other having been destroyed (see Disappeared Stone Circles). The western circle existed until 50ish years ago, and some of its big stones survive today, laid horizontally in the hedge next to the surviving circle.
There was a theory that a third stone circle also existed west of the western circle, but this is now agreed to have been a roundhut (hut circle) or a kerbed cairn, large and presumably used in a ceremonial-magical context. There are no remains, but a circular shape does show up in aerial photos of crop marks.
Tregeseal and Carn Kenidjack
Tregeseal is overshadowed by Carn Kenidjack (the Hooting Tor) and set in a bowl beneath it, with several chambered cairns and holed stones comprising its complex. This includes a small rock carn lying immediately southeast of the circle, plus two more distant menhirs - Boswens east-northeast and Carn Eanes northwards. The stone wall to the west of the remaining circle obscures what would otherwise be a panoramic view of the ocean, with the Isles of Scilly fully visible in good weather.
In their heyday, these two circles at Tregeseal would have formed an impressive presence. They and the wider complex would have formed a 'magical park', including the stone circles, the cairns and Boswens menhir northeast of it, the holed stones and Carn Kenidjack, as well as sightings to other hills and sites in the area and as far as Scilly. A processional way would have come down from Carn Kenidjack to the holed stones and cairns, then to the two stone circles.
The Merry Maidens
The Merry Maidens
The Merry Maidens stone circle stands on alignment 112, an exact alignment of Carn Brea, Gear Round, St Michael's Mount and Treryn Dinas. This remarkable alignment involves three aligned natural features. The Merry Maidens circle was placed exactly on it, connecting this Bronze Age site to ancient Neolithic sites. This would give this site a certain primacy and sense of heritage in Bronze Age times.The circle is in good shape and quite energetic. Close to the road, it attracts more visitors than other circles. If you're a meditator, you have to take your chances. But on the right day, or at dawn or dusk, it resonates well, and the stone circle's energy-field can be uncannily vibrant.
This stone circle is exactly circular (only some stone circles are), and 24m in diameter.
The field patterns and hedgerows surrounding it have obscured and decontextualised the sites and the original 'megalithic park' making up the Merry Maidens complex.
The Merry Maidens, Tregurnow (rightwards) and Boleigh stone circles
The second stone circle was destroyed by farmers - the last remains of Tregurnow stone circle, a few hundred metres east of the Merry Maidens, were removed only in the 1990s. There is a further possible circle, Boleigh, southwest of the Merry Maidens, but it is disputed and could have been a stone setting of some kind.The Merry Maidens are well placed in the landscape, with a view of hills northwards - Chapel Carn Brea, Bartinney Castle, Sancreed Beacon and Carn Galva. Landscape placing is an important factor with ancient sites.
Tregurnow stone circle, on a hillbrow while the Merry Maidens are on a north-facing slope of the same hill, would have looked over the Lamorna valley toward Kemyel Point (a cliff sanctuary) and the Kemyel menhirs, with a wide panorama over land and sea. A processional way is likely to have proceeded from the Gûn Rith menhir to the Merry Maidens and then to Tregurnow circle.
The Nine Maidens
The Nine Maidens or Boskednan stone circle stands at the intersection and terminus of two major alignments, 96 and 38. Alignment 38 goes from Treryn Dinas through Boscawen-ûn to Lanyon Quoit and Bosiliack Barrow, then to the Nine Maidens (specifically to a menhir, nowadays a broken stub, some 20 yards NW of the circle). Alignment 96 goes from Rame Head near Plymouth, through Roundwood Fort near Truro, to Trencrom Hill and then to the centre of the Nine Maidens circle.
This is the most damaged of the circles (this time by miners), yet its location on a high moorland saddle under Carn Galva, overlooking a broad landscape, is the most inspiring of all of them. The Nine Maidens are deemed exactly circular, with a diameter around 22m.
Carn Galva from the Nine Maidens
Seen from the Nine Maidens, Carn Galva has a pyramidal hulk shape, while from the east or west it is like a dragon's back. Its presence dominates the Nine Maidens. The building of the stone circle represented a move down from the Neolithic tor of Carn Galva to a new kind of sacred site of a different age.The original Mên an Tol stone circle down the hill formed part of the Nine Maidens' complex, together with Bosiliack Barrow and several cairns and stones, as well as the nearby hills Carn Galva and Watch Croft.
Two kerbed cairns on either side of the circle would have been large and noticeable, 200m to the SE and NW, and part of the Nine Maidens' magical setting. Presumably there would be processions going from the SE cairn to the stone circle, the NW cairn and finally to Carn Galva - they run in a sinuous corridor.
Mulfra Quoit from the Nine Maidens (telephoto shot)
Although this is the bleakest of the four circles, it's lovable, especially if you relax with a flask of tea and imbibe the atmosphere when you go there. Sometimes it can be windy and cold, so dress up. It's remarkable being there when the fog is down!It has a fine panorama of many of the key hills of Penwith. You can see Mulfra Quoit eastwards, a small bump on the horizon - the Nine Maidens were therefore placed to be intervisible with Mulfra Quoit, the older site of the two.
Boscawen-ûn
Boscawen-ûn (pr: Bscaw-noon) is well known, intact, intimate, not enormous, yet impressive.It stands at the intersection of six significant alignments linking it with many major sites: Godolphin Hill, St Michael's Mount, Lesingey Round, Stannon Circle on Bodmin Moor, Gurnard's Head, the Nine Maidens, Lanyon Quoit, Cape Cornwall, Maen Castle, Carn Lês Boel, as well as, on the Isles of Scilly, White Island cairn on St Martin's and South Hill on Bryher.
That's serious, carefully-devised connectivity, of a kind you don't see much.
It is precisely positioned in the landscape so that Chapel Carn Brea with its hilltop cairns is framed between two slopes, and a gap or gateway in the stones highlights the hill. The sea is visible southwards at Boscawen Cliff, as is the case with a view of the distant Pipers menhirs and the Merry Maidens. Hedges unfortunately obscure the views around the circle.
Boscawen-ûn seen from Creeg Tol
Just above the stone circle is a carn called Creeg Tol (turn right part way along the path from the A30 road). It's an ancient granite outcrop that precedes the stone circle in antiquity. Notice the solution basins in the rocks.The visual placing of Boscawen-ûn in its immediate farm landscape at first seems unimpressive, and one would be forgiven for wondering why it is there. But the intricate alignment positioning mentioned above suggests not only intentional reasons for choosing this location but also a remarkable act of fitting it all together. How did they figure out all this without aerial photography, helicopters, theodolites and computers?
The quartz stone at Boscawen-ûn
Boscawen-ûn was classified by Prof Alexander Thom as a Type B flattened circle, though he was incorrect: unusually it is an ellipse or oval, oriented roughly NW-SE to the rising point of the newmoon at a summer solstice lunar maximum and the setting point of a winter solstice fullmoon lunar maximum. It is 24.9m by 21.9m in diameter - this proportion is astronomical too.Two special features are a quartz stone on the circle's perimeter and a tall inclined stone located off-centre in the circle. It points northeast up the main axis of the peninsula of southern Britain. The stone deliberately leans as it does, with two indistinct axe-carvings in its NE face. Stand with your head under the tip of the stone and you are standing on the stone circle's energy-centre.
Boscawen-ûn was the very first ancient site in Britain to be intentionally preserved, as a result of an initiative by a lady from Penzance in the 1860s, Miss Elizabeth Carne, who bought it when she heard it was to be demolished by a local farmer. At the time of purchase the stone circle had a wall through it - she had the wall demolished and caused the surrounding wall that you see today to be built around the circle.
Circles that Disappeared or Never Were
Many stone circles in Penwith have been destroyed. Or they didn't actually exist. Those that are known are these:
Boleigh (SW 4314 2444), over which there is some dispute. It was part of the Merry Maidens complex, west of today's stone circle by only 200-300 yards. It had seven stones and was '30 paces' across. It was still surviving when recorded by Borlase in 1740 and it was destroyed in the late 1800s. Perhaps Boleigh was a stone setting, important in itself, that played a part in the Merry Maidens complex.
Bosiliack (SW 440 320 approx). A 'Druidical circle' was noted by antiquarians but no signs of it have been found. At times, antiquarians mistook the circular stone remains of hut circles (roundhuts) for stone circles, and this might have been the case here.
Botallack (SW 3669 3311). There is no sign nowadays of this rather unique multiple-circled site. It might not have been a classic stone circle, and too little is known of it to judge. Borlase wrote: “Fronting the gate of Botalac town place there is a most remarkable miz maze, if I may so term it, of stones set on end, which if Ducaleon himself had thrown behind his back could not sufficiently stood up in greater disorder than they at present appear, but viewing them diligently this March 6th, 1737, I find the largest circle monument there of any I yet have met with, with several subordinate circles, some touching the circumferences, some breaking within it; together with two large erected stones, not many paces from the principal ring.” The stones were used in tin-mining construction in the 1800s. While this might not have been a classic stone circle, it was certainly an interesting structure. Very few ancient site alignments go to it, suggesting that it was not a megalithic site, possibly built in later times.Higher Trevorian (SW 4168 2626). Marked on old OS maps and identified by some antiquarians such as Borlase as a stone circle, while little is known about it, it is now generally accepted to be either an Iron Age round or a Bronze Age stone circle. Alignments going to it are quite many and strong (see the Penwith alignments map) which tilts the debate toward its being a stone circle.
Mên an Tol (SW 4264 3493). This iconic site, with its unique holed stone, is not what it was in ancient times. The two stones and much-loved holed stone were so erected in the late 19th Century, using stones from the preceding stone circle. The site currently has three standing and six recumbent stones, plus one possible extra stone, a cairn and the famous holed stone.Formerly it was a stone circle of probably 19 stones, around 18m in diameter. This was a twin circle to the nearby Nine Maidens, overlooked by Carn Galva and Watch Croft, with Bosiliack Barrow and other local features nearby - all forming a local system.
Redhouse (SW 4481 2622). This circle was described by the antiquarian Halliwell and there is no trace or memory of it, except some stones in a nearby hedge that might have been taken from it. The site has two major alignments passing through it, one being the Michael Line crossing southern England, and the other passing from Boscawen-ûn to the cliff sanctuary at Lankidden in the Lizard peninsula. These two alignments add interest to this site, but there is nevertheless no trace nor tradition of its existence. (See on the map.)
Rosemergy (SW 4178 3647). Nothing remains of this presumed stone circle near Morvah, below Carn Galva and close to Bosigran Castle, except some stones removed to the hedge. The site was visited by Meyn Mamvro in 2015 and the exact position found by dowsing. It's viable as a stone circle, though some doubt it - indeed it was something. It lies precisely aligned with Gurnard's Head and Chûn Quoit, and with Bosigran Castle and Watch Croft. (See it on the map.)
Treen Common Circle (SW 4445 3665), on Gear Hill, uphill from Morvah. This has everyone flummoxed. It could be a Late Neolithic henge, an unusual Bronze Age stone circle or an Iron Age or even Medieval enclosure, though it doesn't fit easily into any of these categories and it has never been excavated. It has a few alignments to it, and one from Gurnard's Head to Mulfra Quoit suggests it might have an older, Neolithic or Bronze Age origin. The stones do not have the presence and menhir shape of other stone circles. So it is not a classic. It's another something. (See on the map.)
Carn Kenidjack busy hovering over Tregeseal
Tregeseal (SW 3866 3237). Tregeseal originally had two stone circles, lying below the characterful hulk of Carn Kenidjack. The surviving one, the east circle, has 19 stones and is in reasonable health, though the stones on its western side might have been moved slightly following tin-mining explorations.The western circle has been obliterated - the final remains were built into the nearby wall after being removed by a farmer in 1961. Borlase in the 1700s noted ten upright and four fallen stones in the western circle. It is likely that this was bigger than the surviving eastern circle.
The western circle at Tregeseal - Cotton, 1826.
A third stone circle was claimed at Tregeseal, This was marked on old maps but evidence is scanty except for crop marks in aerial photos. It's now accepted as a big platform cairn, like those a mile away at Botrea Barrows, or the remains of a large roundhut used in a ceremonial context.The presence of the Neolithic tor enclosure, Carn Kenidjack, overlooking the complex, suggests that the ceremonial centre of gravity on the tor in the Neolithic shifted downhill, first to the cairns a few hundred yards from the stone circle and then to Tregeseal stone circle.
Tregurnow (SW 4375 2455). Part of the Merry Maidens complex, a few hundred yards from the Merry Maidens. Its last two stones were broken up only in 2006. Presumably it had 19 stones like the Merry Maidens. It might have been more important or older than the Merry Maidens, if its position on the brow of the hill overlooking Lamorna is anything to go by, but it certainly was a twin circle to the Merry Maidens. We know little more than this.
The Appliance of Megalithic Science
The positioning of stone circles offers clues about their purpose and role. Stone circles are located where they are because of complex megalithic considerations. Nowadays we understand only snippets of Bronze Age science, and while this is not accepted by archaeologists, it's important. It gives clues about why stone circles exist, why they are located where they are, how they're designed and what their purpose was - questions that archaeology cannot answer.
Tregeseal
Megalith builders utilised advanced mathematics, astronomy, geometry and proportion. They understood the size of the Earth, the periodicity of the planets, the eclipse cycle, the precession of the equinoxes, the Golden Mean, Euclidean and Pythagorean geometry, embodying these principles in the design, size and shape of stone circles.They planned their megalithic works to reflect their perception of the cosmos - this is visible in what they left behind. Understanding these is far more challenging.
Positioning contains important clues. The location of the stone circles in West Penwith is determined by backbone alignments. These alignments were established in the Neolithic 3000s BCE, long before the stone circles were built, and they are based on the locations of natural sites such a Neolithic tors and cliff sanctuaries.
The circles are aligned with Neolithic tor enclosures and cliff sanctuaries, the most important sites of the Neolithic. The stone circles, established in the Bronze Age, are positioned in calculated relation to older Neolithic sites.
Thus:
- the Tregeseal stone circle is located in alignment with Carn Brea, Trencrom Hill and Lanyon Quoit - two Neolithic tor enclosures and one Neolithic quoit;
- the Merry Maidens are on an alignment between Carn Brea, St Michael's Mount and Treryn Dinas - two Neolithic tors and a cliff sanctuary;
- Boscawen-ûn is located at the node of six backbone alignments, every one of them connected with a cliff sanctuary - this is remarkable;
- the Nine Maidens are aligned on Mulfra Quoit, Trencrom Hill and Roundwood Fort, on Bonfire Carn and Knackyboy Cairn in the Scillies and Cape Cornwall, as well as to Bosiliack Barrow, Lanyon Quoit, Boscawen-ûn and Treryn Dinas.
The people of the Bronze Age plugged their technological inventions into a natural network and an ancient heritage, staked out by tor hills and cliff castles, first identified by the people of the Neolithic 3000s, fifty generations before.
Tregeseal
Stone circles became key nodes in a wider system of Bronze Age sites spread out across the landscape.There are astronomical considerations, together with underground water and subtle earth energy considerations. The stone circles were built using a variety of interlocking factors, affecting their location and design.
Sometimes these interlocking factors are impressive, making one wonder how the ancients figured all this out. Even just the landscape position of the stone circles has intervisibility with large numbers of other sites, or it can fit into a landscape setting that has a certain beauty or coherence to it.
Map showing the role of backbone alignments in locating stone circles in West Penwith
Stone Circle Astronomy
The Nine Maidens or Boskednan stone circle
The ancients had a vital interest in understanding nature's cycles, for practical purposes such as planting and harvesting, for the timing of festivals and rites, and because they saw themselves as active participants in spinning the wheels of time and season. This was their way of harmonising with the earth and cosmos.Time has character, quality, meaning and potency. Working with change, time and season to capture and entrain this time power lay at the core of the megalith builders' worldview. To them, astronomy (observation) and astrology (interpretation) were the same thing. They captured time by representing it in mathematical and geometric form in the design of stone circles.
Boscawen-ûn, well located, now decontextualised by farm fields
The placing, design, mathematics and orientation of ancient sites were all carefully calculated to embody the eclipse cycle, the anomalistic year, the solstices and cross-quarters of the year, lunar phases and probably longer-term cycles such as the sidereal and synodic cycles of the planets.The ancients sought to play their part in the fluxings of the universe and the intelligence or the heart of nature - and if they failed in this, they felt things could go wrong. They emulated the patterns and cycles of the universe in their sites and rituals. They weren't solely seeking to calibrate their calendars, as many archaeologists would believe. Their calendars were living, breathing, religious, scientific things, not just statistical day-counters.
The Merry Maidens
Solar and Lunar CalendarsThe ancients had a double calendar - solar and lunar. The solar calendar was anchored in the solstices and equinoxes. The lunar calendar was anchored in the lunar phases, of which there are around 12.5 cycles per solar year. The lunar and solar cycles synchronise once every 19 years. This synchronisation is called the Metonic Cycle.
The solar calendar relates to the seasons of the year and the lunar calendar to cycles of tides, water levels, rainfall, light at night and natural fertility. The coming of spring or autumn is determined by the sun's cycle, yet the visible changes, when flowers come out or the leaves fall, birds migrate or the weather turns, are timed by the moon - particularly at new and full moons. A 19-stone circle thus embodies the integration of solar and lunar calendars, also indicating an interest in eclipse cycles.
The quartz stone at Boscawen-ûn
Observing these cycles was incorporated into the design of stone circles. Other sites in the surrounding complex would serve a similar purpose. Well-placed distant cairns or menhirs provide a very accurate sightline for getting an exact calendrical reading.We don't understand the full extent of the design principles involved in stone circles. But there are clues provided by archaeoastronomers and mathematicians. The megalith builders utilised a complex geometry, involving advanced astronomical knowledge which included the size of the Earth and the difference between the polar and tropical circumference of the Earth.
Nine Maidens
The stone circles were conceptually much more sophisticated than first meets the eye. In them the ancients left a tangible record of their knowledge and science, for posterity. The stone circles represented microcosmic embodiments of cosmic law, in geometry, measure and proportion.In clarifying the principles of these cosmic laws, the ancients sought to bring heaven, earth and the human world into harmony. This was the underlying message of John Michell, the man who unearthed the importance of ancient geometries and metrology, who also established the first principles of the alignments system of West Penwith in his 1972 book The Old Stones of Land's End.
Stone Circle Design
All four surviving stone circles contained 19 stones. This indicates an astronomically-related purpose, since 19 stones represent the Metonic Cycle which unites the varying cycles of the Sun and Moon. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines this as:
...in chronology, a period of 19 years in which there are 235 lunations or synodic months, after which the Moon's phases recur on the same days of the solar year. The cycle was discovered by Meton (floriat 432 BC), an Athenian astronomer.
The Merry Maidens
Meton gained the credit, but the megalith builders knew it two millennia earlier.The Metonic period of 6,939.6 days, almost exactly 19 years, is equivalent to:
- 19 solar years,
- 20 eclipse years (cycles of eclipse positions),
- 235 synodic months (cycles of lunar phases),
- 254 sidereal months (lunar orbits),
- and 255 draconic months (lunar conjunctions with its north node - eclipse-related).
The Metonic Cycle is accurate to the extent that it needs just one day's adjustment every 219 years.
Merry Maidens
There was a calendrical and time-counting function to stone circles, whereby different objects could be moved from stone to stone as the years and moons went by, or it was done by memory.The aim was to act in harmony with the cycles of the universe. Regular rites and ceremonies would be carried out to mark time, encouraging the seasons to move and the conditions of life to be favourable. Reverence was scientific to Bronze Age people, and technological as well as spiritual.
While they had advanced cosmological teachings giving shape to their beliefs, they had practical aims too, aimed at raising the fertility of the land, improving the condition of humans, encouraging fair weather and warding off ill-fortune.
Boscawen-ûn
This 19-year time period was a human generation in length. Most ancient calendars had no start-point: instead they were counted in terms of generations or planetary cycles, such as the 60-year Great Mutation, a cycle of three Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions. This fed into a larger cycle of 40 conjunctions lasting 800 years, in which successive conjunctions would return to exactly the same zodiac degree as 800 years before. This provided the basis of a longterm calendar. There were other longterm cycles too.Stone Circles
Existing or destroyed and verified stone circles, Bronze Age.
BOSCAWEN-ÛN Stone circle, well preserved, centrally placed in the peninsula and of national significance. Inclined off-centre stone. Quartz stone. Oval in shape. Overlooked by Chapel Carn Brea. SW 4122 2736. 50.089857 -5.619272.
MÊN AN TOL Formerly a stone circle. Includes one unique and iconic holed stone, three standing stones, six recumbent, one possible stone and a possible cairn. The holed stone might have been located off-centre inside the stone circle, or as part of its perimeter. SW 4264 3493. 50.158134 -5.605106.
MERRY MAIDENS Stone circle, intact, aka Dawns Mên. Accessible from the road. See also Tregurnow. Its local landscape is obscured by the newer agricultural landscape surrounding it. SW 4326 2458. 50.065789 -5.588945.
NINE MAIDENS Boskednan or Nine Maidens stone circle. Damaged, most stones remaining, with inspiring upland location. Overlooked by Carn Galva. SW 4342 3513. 50.160582 -5.593765.
TREGESEAL Tregeseal East stone circle. Intact, originally one of two (see Tregeseal West). Enclosing wall obscures an important view of Scilly. Overlooked by Carn Kenidjack, the earliest site of this complex. SW 3866 3237. 50.133703 -5.658415.
Tregeseal West Tregeseal W stone circle, destroyed. Originally the larger of the two. A third possible circle, visible as crop marks, is reckoned to be a large kerbed cairn or a ceremonial hut circle. Many stones from this circle now lie recumbent in the field hedge. SW 3860 3237. 50.13369 -5.65911.
Tregurnow Destroyed stone circle - last remnants removed in 2006. Might have been large. Located on brow of hill overlooking Lamorna valley. Part of Merry Maidens complex. SW 4375 2455. 50.065732 -5.5820923.
See also Higher Trevorian, Redhouse, Rosemergy and Treen Common in Queried Sites below.
Queried Stone Circles
Documented or alleged sites no longer in existence.
Boleigh Possible stone circle (disappeared). More likely a stone setting. Seven stones reported by antiquarians, removed in late 19th C. SW 4320 2445. 50.064597 -5.5896948.
Botallack Rings Triple stone rings, destroyed. Not a classic stone circle. Unlikely also to be hut circles. Reported by Borlase. SW 3669 3311. 50.139474 -5.6864331.
Higher Trevorian Possible stone circle (marked on old OS maps and mentioned by Borlase). Also identified as an Iron Age round or a Bronze Age stone enclosure. | SW 4169 2627. 50.080331 -5.6119757.
Redhouse Alleged Bronze Age stone circle, described by Halliwell. No trace, though possible stones are built into a nearby hedge. Significant alignment centre. SW 4481 2622. 50.081178 -5.5684245.
Rosemergy Possible stone circle, destroyed. No sign at its location (which was found by dowsing), though some suspect stones are in neighbouring stone hedges. Ask for permission to enter. SW 4179 3646. 50.171785 -5.6174528.
Treen Common Circle Incomplete circle of stones, not a classic stone circle. Aka Porthmeor Circle. Could be Neolithic or Bronze Age. Likely a ritual site because of proximity of Beacon Barrows cairnfield. SW 4445 3665. 50.17464254 -5.580433538.
Subtle Energy
Stones at Tregeseal flattened on the inside face
In Penwith, in most cases stones in a stone circle are flattened on the inside and rounded on the outside, acting as reflectors focusing energy inwards into the circle. You can feel this if you stand outside the circle then mindfully enter it, while noting your feelings - and then step outside the circle again and you'll notice the difference.A stone circle is a resonator and amplifier. Inside a stone circle is a concentrated energy-field which is at times strong and vibrant, and at other times quiet and refined. By choosing the right times and working up the energy meditatiely and ceremonially, the ancients built up the energy-field over many generations. Esoteric activities could be carried out - connecting with higher powers, empowering the community and landscape, working with issues or even communicating psychically with distant people. The sophistication of the stone circles demonstrates that the proto-Druids of the Bronze Age knew what they were doing - professionals of their time.
Boscawen-ûn
Some dowsers have noted a spinning element to the energy field in a stone circle. If this spinning is amplified by visualisation, rhythmic dancing, music and chanting, it would create a strong field within which to work. Crowds of people stood around the circle during ceremonies, raising energy for the people inside who carried out a healing, rite or energy-work.Stone circles are placed on top of blind-springs, up-flows of water from deep down, creating an energy-vortex and radial pattern of springs and seepages underground. This was contained, fixed and amplified by the stones of the circle.
Mên an Tol
The capacity at stone circles for consciousness-shift interested the ancients, and the energy-fields of underground water, enhanced at a stone circle, stimulate that shift. For evidence, simply spend some hours quietly at a stone circle, letting the atmosphere of the place take you over. Then note the result, especially when you leave the stone circle to go home. Et voila.There is a vertically-oriented containing element to a stone circle. The vertically-alternating energy-flow emitted by a blind spring under the centre of a stone circle is concentrated and funnelled up and down according to the cycles of the moon, season and larger cycles. It is entrained through the space inside the circle and through the upright stones, which act as conductors between earth and sky. This is an engineered resonance field. It has a certain presence and intelligence of its own.
The atmosphere at a stone circle is distinct, strong and captivating, changing at different times. The motions of the sun through the year and the phases of the moon are observably important.
Choose your moment for visiting, pause before entering, enjoy your time there and give thanks when it's time to go.
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