Chun Downs, Castle and Quoit and nearby sites, with Pete Herring and archaeo-astronomer Carolyn Kennett

This walk is a return to an old CAS tradition of getting a New Year blast of winter air on a wild and interesting hilltop to clear Christmas, Yule or Solstice away, or perhaps to bring them into a different focus. This walk will be a joint adventure with the Cornwall Ancient Sites Protection Network, CASPN, and we will visit three sites that CASPN cares for.

We thought we’d restart the tradition down west, in St Just, Sancreed and Morvah at Dry Carn and Chun Downs, where parish boundary lines are almost as interesting as the archaeology.

Chun Quoit (Cathy Parkes)

We start by walking up the NW face of Dry Carn to the Boswens Long Stone and its platform cairn, and if we are fortunate with the weather we will enjoy spectacular views of the western uplands of West Penwith, including our next destination, Chun Downs. By approaching this from the south we will appreciate how the builders of the outer enclosure designed it in relation to Chun Quoit, or Cromlech. We will also be creeping up on the startling Iron Age inner enclosure, a stone-built hillfort so reminiscent of Irish cashels. Chun Castle appears from pre-war excavations to have been reused in the Early Medieval period.

Chun Downs beyond Boswens Long Stone (Pete Herring)

We’ll try to engineer the walk so that we get to Chun Quoit in time to see the sun dropping towards and even setting behind Carn Kenidjack. Carolyn will explain the solstitial alignment from the quoit to Carn Kenidjack’s propped stone, which many of us saw back in February. There are other elements of landscape design to note as well. Few places in Cornwall are better for seeing how prehistoric people observed and responded to the remains created by their predecessors.

Chun Castle from the west (Carolyn Kennett)

We will meet at 13.00 at the ‘Chun Quoit car park’ (so-named on Google Maps) opposite the Trewellard turning 1/4 mile south of Pendeen on North Road at SW 3934 3336, or What3Words trying.surfer.unheated . There should be room for 12 cars here if we all park sensibly; once this is full there are 2 further laybys down the road and plenty of room in the farm lane to Boslow Farm (please park sensibly).

We hope to get you back there by around 5pm.

Wear clothing and footwear suitable for a cold day and wet ground. We will assume that lunch has already been eaten.