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On many of the higher points of land there are the remains of hill forts, such as that at Chun Castle, near to Morvah on the North Coast. These were usually circular constructions with ditch and rampart defences and usually contained a village or other permanent settlement. 
Amongst the most well known features in this rich area is the Merry Maidens stone circle just outside Lamorna which, along with a single standing stone in an adjacent field, is the legendary result of young village maidens and their piper being turned into stone for dancing on a Sunday! Another well known example is the Men-an-Tol - a "holed" stone set with two adjacent stones in a line - which is the source of several interesting local legends. This is located on the moors a little way off the road between Madron and Morvah, and about a mile from Lanyon Quoit. |
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The West Cornwall landscape from Penzance to
Lands End and the North Coast beyond has a history going back to the
Stone Age. This area was widely settled during the Neolithic, Bronze
and Iron Age periods. Scattered over the lonely moorland are pre-historic
village and settlement sites, some of which - like those at Chysauster
and Carn Euny - have been fully explored and excavated and, under
protection of English Heritage, can be visited. 
Chysauster, located just a couple of miles north
of Penzance, in particular is an excellent example of a late Iron
Age village site which is thought to have been occupied right up to
the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. The basic house layouts
can been seen as outline of the lower parts of the walls while the
postholes - where the main support for the circular thatched roofs
was set - can be clearly identified. The remains of a "fogou" can
be seen, this being an underground storage chamber believed to be
used for holding grain and housing cattle. A superb example of this
type of construction can be seen at Carn Euny, near the village of
Sancreed to the west of Penzance. 
There are several "quoits" or burial chambers which
can easily be visited, of which the easiest and most well known is
Lanyon Quoit just to the west of Madron, on the outskirts of Penzance.
These quoits were granite constructions with a large single piece
of granite as a cap-stone and were generally covered with soil or
otherwise buried in the ground - those which can be seen have had
all, or most, of the surface material removed.