Lots of stones!

About halfway between Penzance and Land’s End by bus, you’ll find this lovely stone circle in a field.

This late Stone/early Bronze Age (2500-1500BC) stone circle is renowned for both its beauty and the stories connected to it. . . . The regularity of spacing between stones and its truly circular form make the Boleigh Merry Maidens unusual in Cornwall, however restorations in the C19th (on the orders of the land owner Lord Falmouth who wanted to avoid the fate which had befallen other nearby circles and stones, namely field clearance and their use in construction) led to some stones being put back slightly skewed. There are 19 stones in all, with a gap in the eastern section which is common to almost all British stone circles. In addition to the regular spacing, the stones were also obviously carefully chosen and positioned as they gradually diminish in size from the southwest to the northeast; this waxing and waning in size believed to mirror the cycle of the moon.
Cornwall Guide

As you can see it’s early in the morning. There’s just me and nineteen stones in a perfect circle.


The local myth about the creation of the stones suggests that nineteen maidens were turned into stone as punishment for dancing on a Sunday. (Dans Maen translates as Stone Dance.) The Pipers, two megaliths some distance north-east of the circle, are said to be the petrified remains of the musicians who played for the dancers. A more detailed story explains why the Pipers are so far from the Maidens – apparently the two pipers heard the church clock in St Buryan strike midnight, realised they were breaking the Sabbath, and started to run up the hill away from the maidens who carried on dancing without accompaniment.
Wikiepedia

About five minutes walk down the road is one of the pipers.

And the other is in an adjoining field.

It’s very tall!

Back down the road towards the circle of Maidens, the Nun Careg Cross

Wayside crosses are one of several types of Christian cross erected during the medieval period, mostly from the 9th to 15th centuries AD. In addition to serving the function of reiterating and reinforcing the Christian faith amongst those who passed the cross and of reassuring the traveller, wayside crosses often fulfilled a role as waymarkers, especially in difficult and otherwise unmarked terrain. . . . The Nun Careg Cross stands in its original location beside a road running parallel to the south coast of the Penwith peninsula and marked at intervals by several other medieval wayside crosses. The cross acted as a way marker within the parish to the church at St Buryan, the site of a major Celtic monastery, traditionally founded by Athelstan in the early tenth century.
Historic England

Down a bit further and on the other side of the road is Gun Rith, another standing stone.

Obviously he is keeping watch over the Maidens. You can see them behind the hedge in the corner.

Opposite Gun Rith, on the other side of the road–and when I say side of the road, I mean on the side of the road–

there is a is a Neolithic or early Bronze Age chambered tomb. The panel nearby says

This entrance grave would have originally been covered by a circular mound of earth and surrounded by a ring or kerb of stones. During the 1840s the road (B3315) was built on top of the north-western section of the mound. Two stones mark the entrance to the chambered tomb.

This was a burial monument. Graves such as this usually contained cremated bone and charcoal deposited in a small pit in the chamber floor; or one or more pots or urns filled with cremated bone. . . .The chamber is 4.9m long and has composite side walls of large edge-set slabs at the front giving way to dry stone walling towards the rear. The chamber is roofed with stones nearly 3m long, probably five originally, four remaining today.
Cornwall Heritage Trust

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