The earliest houses on the site were built of timber, in 1960 a ten year official excavation showed the early timbers structures had a floor of packed china clay, under which were stone built covered drains. The first stone structure was the "beehive" hut which is thought to date from 500 years BC. At a later date the hut was buried and a round house was built on top of it.
The beehive hut was discovered in the 1840s and shortly after a local miner used dynamite to blast apart the rocks of the floor searching for treasure. Today the floor is a jumble of small stone where it once was large paved stone with a well built gutter running through it.
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The stone built main passage was built later than the hut and again probably started life above ground. It has a small creep passage which was the only entrance once the structure had been buried, this can be seen at the beginning of the video and slopes fairly steeply down towards the main passage. To get down it you would have to crouch or crawl.
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In the 1860s further excavations revealed an earth filled passage which was cleared out to reveal a man made subterranean "cave" adjoining the "beehive hut". There are a lot of these underground structures in West Cornwall and they are known as Fogous (pronounced foogoos).
Excavation around the beehive hut revealed that the stones had been cemented on the outside with local clay known as rab. This implied that it may have once been free standing above ground. The original entrance to the hut can still be seen but is now some 4 meters underground and blocked with packed earth.
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About
100 AD the settlement changed with the building of new structures
known as courtyard houses. At his time the end of the passage (marked
as L on the Plan) was opened and connected to an adjacent house.
Above ground well preserved remains of courtyard house dwellings can be seen. Walls of earth and stone surround a central courtyard which would have been open to the elements. The picture below shows two "rooms" which are arranged around the edges of courtyards and would have been roofed with thatch or turf, some of these are very narrow - 1.5 -2 meters and may have housed people and animals.
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The main passage There have been many explanations as to what a fogou may have been used for but these are educated guesses and the real use is still not known. Suggestions for use include: storage, prison, hideaway, ceremonial centre. Fogous all seem to have been accessed through tiny creep passages, the idea of people squeezing in through a small passage to store food seems a bit far fetched and the drains in the floor suggest it would have been damp which would not be good for storing food. They are very elaborate for prisons. The idea of a whole village going underground to escape detection from enemies also seems a bit ludicrous as once discovered they would be trapped and could be easily killed by blocking the entrance and cutting off the air supply. This leaves the ceremonial use as the most likely explanation. Some think that the abundant standing stones were associated with sun rituals and the fogous were associated with earth rituals but we will probably never know for sure. |
