Boskednan stone circle () is a partially restored prehistoric

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of megalithic standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being ...

near Boskednan, around northwest of the town of

Penzance Penzance ( ; ) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is the westernmost major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situated in the ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

, United Kingdom. The megalithic monument is traditionally known as the Nine Maidens or Nine Stones of Boskednan, although the original structure may have contained as many as 22 upright stones around its 69-metre perimeter.

Location

The stone circle is in southwest

north of the road from

Madron Madron ( (village) or (parish)) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Madron is named after Saint Madern's Church. Its annual Trafalgar Service commemorating the death of Horatio ...

Morvah Morvah () is a civil parish and village on the Penwith peninsula in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The parish has a population of 49. Geography The village is centred approximately west-southwest of St Ives and north-west of Penza ...

, and is approximately 1 km northwest of the village of Boskednan and can only be reached on foot. The enigmatic

Mên-an-Tol The Mên-an-Tol (Cornish language, Cornish: ''Men an Toll'') is a small formation of standing stones in Cornwall, England (). It is about three miles northwest of Madron. It is also known locally as the "Crick Stone". Location The Mên-an-Tol s ...

stones (which may also be the remains of a stone circle) are less than 1 kilometre to the southwest.MEN AN TOL
, Pastscape, retrieved 9 November 2013

Construction

The stone circle once probably consisted of 22

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

blocks, from which 10 still survive. Six stones stand upright, one sits half a metre out of the ground, the others remain lying in the soil. The stones are all about 1 m high, the highest measure approximately 2 m and stand to northern edge of the circle.Boskednan (Nine Maidens)
a

/ref> The stone circle originally described a circle with a diameter of approximately 22 m. The stone circle may have belonged with the nearby barrow to an extensive cult district.Boskednan or 'Nine Maidens'
a

/ref>

History

Stone circles such as that at Boskednan, were erected in the late

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

or in the early

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

by representatives of a

Megalithic A megalith is a large Rock (geology), stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging ...

culture. The first mention of the stone circle in modern times, in 1754, is found in the work ''Antiquities, historical and monumental, of the County of Cornwall'' by William Borlase, who reported 19 upright standing stones.

William Copeland Borlase William Copeland Borlase (5 April 1848 – 31 March 1899) was a British antiquarian and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 until 1887 when he was ruined by bankruptcy and scandal. Early life Borlase was born at Cas ...

, a descendant of the earlier Borlase, conducted excavations and found a

cist In archeology, a cist (; also kist ; ultimately from ; cognate to ) or cist grave is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. In some ways, it is similar to the deeper shaft tomb. Examples occur ac ...

and a funerary

urn An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape ...

near the stone circle, dating from the early

. Borlase described his discoveries in 1872 in his work ''Naenia Cornubiae'', which concerns prehistoric monuments of Cornwall.

Location

Construction

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links