Chysauster Iron Age Village- Cornwall

Hi,

Coming from Cornwall in the UK this site has always interested me.

Situated in Cornwall near Penzance and close to Lands End Chysauster represents a traditional Cornish village, with a street of neat stone cottages with terraced gardens and a fogou (Cornish for cave) which is an underground structure found in many Iron Age defended settlements throughout northern Europe and thought by many Cornish people to have been used for underground storage acting like a fridge. SOURCE

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Chysauster was an Iron Age village inhabited from about 100 BC to sometime in the 3rd century AD. It was probably built by members of the Dumnonii tribe of Cornish Britons. The village is composed of eight courtyard houses, laid out in two rows of four. Outside the main grouping of houses is another stone house, and there are the remains of several outlying buildings in the surrounding fields.

SOURCE

its incredibly well preserved and you can visit and walk round the houses and go into the rooms through doorways still intact.

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Stone basins and water troughs remain intact as do all the individual rooms!

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The village consisted of stone-walled homesteads known as 'courtyard houses', found only on the Land's End peninsula and the Isles of Scilly. The houses line a 'village street', and each had an open central courtyard surrounded by a number of thatched rooms.

SOURCE

Well worth a visit if you ever happen to be in Cornwall!

reply to post by Versa


God I love Cornwall (it's my spiritual home)

Thanks for sharing this I'd never heard about this place before ... great pics and links

Woody

reply to post by woodwytch


its a lovely place to visit if you get a chance, very well preserved and in a lovely location

Beautiful pictures!

I'm unfamiliar with ancient Britain ( Dumnonii tribe is a new one for me... the name almost sounds as though it comes from Roman sources rather than Briton.) How different is Cornwall from the rest or Britain? Can you educate this poor Colonial here?

reply to post by Versa


Star & Flag

Really great picts. I wish I had had a chance to see it when I was in England, but I barely got a chance to see Stone Henge before getting drug underground ~ Wookey Hole, Rhino Rift among others.

reply to post by crimvelvet


lol I went to Wooky Hole 2 days ago for the first time in years Im lucky were I live im in striking distance of quite a few 'places of interest' but I prefer to visit the lesser known spots

Originally posted by Byrd
Beautiful pictures!

I'm unfamiliar with ancient Britain ( Dumnonii tribe is a new one for me... the name almost sounds as though it comes from Roman sources rather than Briton.)

Yes, it's the Roman name (I think all the British tribal names we have are of Roman origin - as indeed is the name Britain itself ) - the Dumnonii gave their name to the county of Devon. Looks like the name could be a Romanised form of an earlier welsh (p celtic) or gaelic q celtic) name though.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Byrd


Cornwall is quite different to most of the UK, its the far south west tip of the UK. The Cornish themselves (me being one) don't even accept that we are English we actually refer to ourselves as Cornish, We have a flag (the flag of St Piran) and a language that was still in use 100yrs ago (actually my mum can remember an old lady that spoke only Cornish). The Cornish language is Brythonic Celtic and very close to Welsh and Breton (across the channel in France).

Traditionally tin was mined in Cornwall (the last tin mines closed down in the 1980's) and was prized in Roman times as being of very high quality but as far as I'm aware the Romans didn't actually get as far as 'conquering' Cornwall and there are very few Roman buildings to be found there so Cornwall retained much of its Celtic heritage and 'flavour'. I don't know whether that was because it simply wasn't worth conquering or whether the Cornish put up a good fight (I like to think it was the latter ). Cornwall was until recently virtually cut off from the rest of England by the river Tamar.

Of course Cornwall is also home to the tales of Tristan and Isolde and King Arthur was 'supposed' to of been born there (Tintagel). There are hundreds of interesting sites around Cornwall from standing stones to ancient villages (the stone in Cornwall is predominately Granite so it lasts well).

The home of pirates, wreckers, tin miners and fishermen most of Cornwall's place names are from the Cornish language or named after Saints, Cornwall was a strong hold for the old pagan religions so in an attempt to Christianise Cornwall people were given Sainthoods for virtually walking down the road! One of the Cornish Saints was canonised for throwing stones at another Cornish Saint who was stealing an item from a church! I've got an old book about Cornish Saints which is a very funny read.

I'll do some digging about later and find some more old Cornish sites of interest.

Men-an-Tol (a much earlier site than Chysauster) is another interesting site in Cornwall, its an unusual megalithic monument also close to Penzance.

Men-an-Tol

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Picture of my mum at Men-an-Tol for a size comparison

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reply to post by Versa


I have been to Devon but much to my shame I have never actually visited Cornwall.

I am intending to go to Beautiful Days festival this year and hope to spend a few days either side of it doing a bit of sightseeing etc so hopefully I'll be able to visit Chysauster and some other sites like Men-an-tol.

ETA.
I see you have posted some info on Men-al-tol, a fascinating place.

reply to post by Versa


Great thread, really interesting

I went to Cornwall to see an Oasis gig, at the Eden Project (what a place ), and I thought it was lovely.

Unfortunately we didn't get to have a good look round the place, not even the Eden Project, which was a shame, but my stay made me want to go back some time.

And the cider you guys have down there! Best I've ever sampled

Thanks for posting this, this reminds me how much I love this forum.

Cornwall isn't far from where I live, I'll be adding this to my summer "things to do list".

Starred and flagged my friend, Kiwi

reply to post by Freeborn


Is the Beautiful Days festival in Ottery St Mary? I went to a weird thing there once (or near there) where men run through the crowded village with burning barrels of tar on their backs very scary and quite mental!

I'll be going down to Cornwall camping as soon as the weather picks up so I'll grab a few pics of some more interesting areas for people

There's the Cheese Wring (natural formation) and the Hurlers on Bodmin Moor along with a few other prehistoric sites on the moor which is closer to Devon.

ETA link The Hurlers

reply to post by LiveForever8


Cornwall is packed full of interesting little places but so many people just go there for the beaches (which are lovely) and other touristy things they miss all the less promoted sites like Chysauster etc.

There are several sites in Cornwall that I cant find anything about on the internet so I'll just have to grab some pics myself as and when i can and pop them on here.

reply to post by Byrd


Here is a link to a map of the tribes of Ancient Britain. www.bbc.co.uk...

But sites like Stonehenge and Men-an-tol far outdate the arrival of the Celtic tribes.
Quite surprisingly relatively little is known of the people who populated Britain before The Celts.
The pre-Celtic people were regarded with awe and their whole culture and society is shrouded in mystery.

Originally posted by kiwifoot
Thanks for posting this, this reminds me how much I love this forum.

Cornwall isn't far from where I live, I'll be adding this to my summer "things to do list".

Starred and flagged my friend, Kiwi

thanks if you can grab some pic's and post them I'd love to see them I'm in Somerset living at the moment but I go home camping in the summer as much as I can!

reply to post by Versa


Beautiful Days is a fesrival organised and ran by The Levellers and their organisation in Ottery St Mary.
It tries to recapture the spirit of the old free festivals and is largely free of corporate involvement.

www.beautifuldays.org...

reply to post by Freeborn


Penzance is a fair drive from there but on a good day its a nice drive and Chysauster is really lovely with no barriers etc so your free to wander round the village plus there's a great view from there too

Near Chysauster is a natural spring in woods that people have been leaving offerings at for 1000's of years and people still tie ribbons to the trees above it, its near Ding Dong Mine but I cant find anything about it on the internet at the moment, I'll keep looking.

I went to a Levellers concert a couple of years ago and it was grand

reply to post by Versa


Ding Dong mines.
en.wikipedia.org...

I've seen The Levellers on numerous occassions and I'm going to see them twice on their current tour and at Beautiful Days.

Hopefully I'll be spending about two weeks down there if the weathers ok so I should have plenty of time to have a good look about etc.

Originally posted by Freeborn
reply to post by Versa

 

Ding Dong mines.
en.wikipedia.org...

I've seen The Levellers on numerous occassions and I'm going to see them twice on their current tour and at Beautiful Days.

Hopefully I'll be spending about two weeks down there if the weathers ok so I should have plenty of time to have a good look about etc.

I can find the Ding Dong Mines but not the spring in the woods The spring is interesting because there's an old building of some sort close to it but I cant remember much about it other than what it looked like! I'll keep looking this evening

There are a lot of interesting sites around Gulval to visit.


ETA found it. Its Madron Holy Well