Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/492

 A HISTORY OF CORNWALL Stannon Circle takes its name from the farm near by and is in the parish of St. Breward, south-east of Camelford and 4 miles by road from that town ; Sir W. Onslow, bart., is the landowner. This circle and Fernacre belong, as has already been said, to a class apart, of large area, irregular outline and small stones set near together, but with no barrow in the middle. The stones here are perhaps rather larger and more uniform. The ring is so flattened on the north side as to make it quite unsymmetrical, and it is curious to note how many stone circles are thus irregular, although it would have been easy, with a stake for centre and a rope of some sort for radius, to have traced out an exact circle. ' Long Meg and her Daughters,' a circle in Cumberland with an average diameter of 332 ft., has the same flattening of the northern limb. The average diameter of this one is about 138 ft. ; there are seventy stones in the ring, forty-one of which are erect and the rest fallen, some buried. The stones are small, as the above table will show, and the largest now standing (58) is 4ft. high and 4ft. 5 in. wide; all are of granite. Viewed from the circle, the great hills which dominate these moors, Row Tor and Brown Willy, are conspicuous objects. The summit of Row Tor lies N. 68 E. from here and shows such a curious cleft that the question arises whether at any special season the sun would rise just behind this notch in the hill-top. Actual observation on the spot would decide, but the sunrise on Mayday would be about N. 7iE., three degrees farther south than the cleft. Brown Willy is less conspicuous, although its several points show up in a striking manner, due east, or nearly so, just over the slope of Louden Hill, Fernacre lying out of sight between. On Stannon farm are the remains of several hut-circles ; a few are to be seen on the moor near by and many more on Louden Hill. Lukis and Borlase do not mention this monument, but Mr. A. L. Lewis has described it in the paper so often referred to and has illustrated it by a plan. 1 NINE STONES No. Remarks Height Breadth Thicknets No. Remarks Height Breadth Thickness ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. I leans out 3 8 3 ii 8 6 3 8 i 6 I O 2 3 7 i 7 I I 7 3 10 I IO 10 3 3 7 2 IO o 9 8 4 2 2 I 2 4 3 10 I IO o 8 9 Centre 3 9 I 2 o 9 5 3 3 2 4 o 7 stone, Stone at 2 6 2 looks com- base of long paratively No. 5 modern This circle has apparently never been 'figured or described by any Cornish antiquary and yet it is of a type unusual in the county, from 1 Journ. Anthrop. Inst. (Aug. 1895). 396