Tresibbet medieval hamlets and Goodaver Stone Circle led by Pete Herring and Carolyn Kennett

Tresibbet is a well-preserved medieval settlement on Bodmin Moor, part way down the Fowey Valley. Two small hamlets each have a couple of longhouse farmsteads; among the best-preserved in Cornwall. There are outhouses, yards, mowhays and gardens. They were built where Bronze Age farmers had lived and worked before, and the medieval farmers reused some of their curvilinear fields and repurposed several of their round houses (hut circles) as pens or gardens.

Around them the land they shared was subdivided into strips to enable fair share holding. At least one group of these strips was laid out using the 18-feet Cornish rod. We get a sense of fairness and civilisation in one of the most marginal medieval settlements in Cornwall. The land within the fields was cultivated by spade-dug lazybeds, some of which survive as earthworks.

Briefly, probably in the 18th century, the largest longhouse was reused by having a small farmhouse placed in its shell. This too is now ruined but its fireplace contains a beautifully preserved bread oven, not of cloam (clay) but of carefully corbelled small granite stones. We will probably lunch among these ruins and will wonder how people lived in this exceptionally beautiful place, with its glorious views along the deep Fowey valley.

Then we climb onto the rounded ridge above, where the medieval farmers summered their cattle and sheep. At its southern end, hard against the land of Goodaver, we will visit a prehistoric stone circle that has long been hard to reach. Its new owners, Bill and Lucy, are just opening it to the public. This is Goodaver Circle, within a couple of miles of Jamaica Inn, discovered and restored in 1906 by the Vicar of Altarnun. There is uncertainty about how accurately the circle was restored as only 3 stones stood in 1906 and now 23 do, but recent studies suggest that the Rev. AH Malan did a careful job.

This is one of Cornwall’s most elevated stone circles; the views are panoramic and they have been revealed by the removal by Bill and Lucy of coniferous shelter belts to the north, west and south, and by the coincidentally simultaneous felling of Smith’s Moor plantation to the east.

John Barnatt had noticed that midsummer solstice sunset was over Brown Willy, the hill that most immediately catches the eye here, and there are other astronomically interesting alignments to others of the hills that ring the circle. Pete Herring and archaeo-astronomer Carolyn Kennett will discuss how it sits within the moorland landscape and Carolyn will help us understand how the circle also fits in with the modern and prehistoric skyscape, and with key astronomical events.

Pete is studying the hamlets in a landscape survey commissioned by Bill and Lucy. Carolyn has been considering the Circle’s astronomical interest.

Meet in the yard to the north of the new barn at Dozmaryhill Farm, at SX 1985 7542, What3Words cherished.chum.vipers. We’ll cross the Fowey by the new footbridge.