The secret life of a stone circle

10.06.2025

I was lucky to find an empty layby on the A30 north of St Buryan that would get me close to the stone circle of Boscawen Un. There was a fingerpost that directed me through thick ground cover masking the whereabouts of the near by circle. A hundred yards along the path I came upon the curious rock formation of Tol Creeg , a smooth worn granite block that was once the centre of a barrow. Other stones lay around it but they were all hidden by the ground cover. I stepped up onto the former capstone where rock pools had formed, hoping I might get a sighting of the circle. I knew it was close by and was enclosed in it’s own field but there was no sign of it.

I followed the path in the hope it would lead me there and sure enough beyond brambles covering a waist high wall it revealed itself to me. I found a point in the wall where others had entered the enclosure. I crossed over and stood for while on the other side marvelling at the beauty and secrecy of what lay in front of me. I couldn’t remember ever approaching a circle in this way. Usually a circle is visible long before the point of close encounter, but here the sudden reveal stops you in your tracks and startles your senses.

My initial response was to the symmetry of the circle’s layout, only broken by the offset centre stone that leans at an angle of forty five degrees, creating a sundial effect. At eight feet in length above ground it must have been at least three feet in length below to stay upright. This circle is again made up of nineteen stones all of a similar size and thus has associations with the Solstices and the Lunar calendar. With this in mind, outlying stones would be in the near vicinity, but the perimeter hedge blocked any view of them. 

One stand out feature of the circle was the presence of a solitary quartz stone amongst it’s eighteen granite neighbours. Close inspection revealed large crystal deposits embedded in layers down through the surface. Like Boskednan circle, the inner faces of the granite stones are smoother than the outer sides. I had read of varying reactions to this place. Some had felt a malevolent presence whilst others as I had, sensed only peace and tranquillity. As time passed I was acutely aware of how the environment here made it very easy to block out any thoughts of the outer world. 

Less than a mile on up the A30 and through a breach in the hedgerow stands the Blind Fiddler standing stone, one of many standing stones in Southern Penwith that are said to be the cursed petrified remains of musicians that once made merry music on the sabbath. The frequency of these tales that have emanated throughout the UK is testament to the potency and efficacy of christen scare mongering. The stone was tapered at the top giving a faint hint of a human head but it would seem the fiddle had been dropped somewhere on route from the Merry Maidens to the south (see my next post).