the merry maidens stone circle.
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the merry maidens stone circle or dawns-maen sits just below the 100m contour, at 98mod, the lowest in altitude and nearest to the coast of the four remaining circles in west penwith. all seem to be culturally related, with the merry maiden, boscawen-un and tregaseal all having similar numbers of stones (19-20) with a wider gap forming the entrance, in this case on the eastern side. it has a number of outliers in its immediate vicinity with two of the largest standing stones in cornwall, the pipers, to its northeast, and goonrith or gunrith to its west. holed standing stones are also close by. a date around 2500bc is suggested (burl). a second circle situated to the south west of present circle, was recorded in the early eighteenth century by borlase, who noted the presence of four upright and three recumbent stones forming a circle of about 30 paces in diameter. it was seen again by haniwell in 1861, but most of the stones were by then ‘thrown down and concealed by furze’ (barnatt 1982) |
