St Breock Downs Monolith (or ''St Breock Longstone'';

Cornish Cornish is the adjective and demonym associated with Cornwall, the most southwesterly part of the United Kingdom. It may refer to: * Cornish language, a Brittonic Southwestern Celtic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken in Cornwa ...

: ''Men Gurta'' ) is the largest and heaviest prehistoric

standing stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be fou ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlan ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

.St Breock Downs Monolith
English Heritage, retrieved 12 April 2012 It stands on the summit of

St Breock St Breock ( kw, Nanssans) is a village and a civil parish in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The spelling St Breoke was also formerly in use. Geography St Breock village is 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Wadebridge immediately to the sou ...

Downs.

Description

The stone is made from the local

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, w ...

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especia ...

which has extensive

feldspar Feldspars are a group of rock-forming aluminium tectosilicate minerals, also containing other cations such as sodium, calcium, potassium, or barium. The most common members of the feldspar group are the ''plagioclase'' (sodium-calcium) feld ...

veining, and it is estimated to weigh around 16.5 tonnes. It is 4.92 metres long and stands to a height of just over 3 metres above ground level.History and Research: St Breock Downs Monolith
English Heritage, retrieved 12 April 2012 It stands on a low stone mound or cairn with a diameter of around 10 metres. It is believed to be

Late Neolithic In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is some ...

Early Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

(around 2500-1500 BC). It fell over in 1945, and was re-erected in 1956 after a small excavation had been carried out. The excavation showed that the stone stood in a setting of quartz pebbles below which were two small hollows. Similar hollows at other sites have been found to contain human bone or ashes. The stone may have been associated with other Bronze Age ritual monuments in the area, including one other standing stone, and a series of barrows that extend up to 4 miles (7 km) to the west. The stone is mentioned in antiquarian records as early as 1613, and was later adopted as a St Breock parish boundary marker. The site is now in the care of the

Cornwall Heritage Trust The Cornwall Heritage Trust (CHT) is an organisation which owns and manages historic sites in Cornwall, UK. It was founded in 1985. List of managed sites The Trust owns and manages a number of sites:English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

.Sites Managed and Cared for by Cornwall Heritage Trust for English Heritage
, retrieved 12 April 2012

Notes

External links

{{Commons category inline, St Breock Downs Monolith
St Breock Downs Monolith
English Heritage English Heritage sites in Cornwall Megalithic monuments in England Prehistoric sites in Cornwall