Page:A Book of the West (vol. 2).djvu/112

84 flat marsh to Killmar, is as fine as anything on the Bodmin moors. On the west side of the marsh is an ancient British settlement, apparently unconnected with the stream-works for tin. The houses were long and quadrangular; one was apparently a council chamber, having a judge's seat in granite and benches of granite down the sides. Unfortunately these have been wantonly destroyed recently by a man who was building pigsties. The houses had separate bakeries, and two or three of these with their ovens remain in a tolerably perfect condition. The same long building was occupied by two or three families, divided off from each other by an upright slab of granite, making so many horseboxes, but each family had its own hearth. The pottery found there was all wheel-turned; and as many hones were found, no doubt could exist that the occupants belonged to the iron age. No other village of the kind has as yet been noticed on the moors except another somewhat higher up the stream that feeds Trewartha Marsh, and this has been much mutilated of late years. Independent of these singular quadrangular buildings are hut circles belonging to a far earlier age, before steel and iron were known.

The whole of the hillside is cut up into paddocks, and a conduit of water was brought from the little stream at Rushleford Gate to supply the settlers with pure drinking water. No traces of burnt slag were found, and consequently the ovens cannot be pronounced to have been made to smelt the ore, but it is strange that there should be several of these ovens. The whole settlement is so curious that I