Caer Bran

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Coordinates: 50°06′17″N 5°37′37″W / 50.104667°N 5.627000°W / 50.104667; -5.627000
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Caer Bran
Ditch and rampart at Caer Bran hill fort

Caer Bran Hill Fort is an archaeological site near Sancreed and Carn Euny Iron Age village, on the Penwith peninsula in Cornwall.

Site

It is a popular location for walkers and antiquarians because it commands a stunning 360 degree panorama of the southern end of the Penwith peninsula, which probably accounts for its defensive importance.

The site consists of an

hill fort which originally included a circular stone-lined inner wall, twelve feet thick, enclosing a space 200 feet in diameter. Surrounding this was a ditch forty-five feet wide and seven feet deep, an earthen rampart fifteen feet high with stone revetment and a slight counterscarp outer bank. There are remnants of a stone-lined causeway over the ditch at the original entrance to the North West adjacent to the ancient trackway linking Penzance with Land's End. In the centre are the remains of a large circular stone building, of about fifty feet in diameter.[1]

There are three Bronze Age ring cairns within the outer ramparts according to a Cornwall Archaeological Unit Survey.[2] Most of the original stonework was robbed for building purposes during the nineteenth century.

The fort was probably built to protect locally mined metals in particular tin, copper and silver before transportation to nearby ports in Mount's Bay or the Hayle estuary. It overlooked at least three Iron Age settlements within a half mile radius.[3]

Folklore

The name derives from

Arthurian legend who lived at a castle called Corbenic which is similar to Corben the old French word for Crow.[4]

In

Chun Castle and a stone was erected at the site which was said to correspond to the height of the dead warrior.[5]

In local legend Caer Bran was said to be a

faeries.[6]

50°06′17″N 5°37′37″W / 50.104667°N 5.627000°W / 50.104667; -5.627000

Landmarks

References

  1. ISBN 0-906720-01-X
  2. ^ "Oliver's Cornwall - Antiquities". www.oliverscornwall.co.uk. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  3. ISBN 0-9512371-4-4
  4. ^ "British Mysteries - Caer Bran". Archived from the original on 21 August 2007. Retrieved 3 May 2010.
  5. ISBN 0-9512371-2-8
  6. ISBN 0-906720-01-X

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Caer Bran hill fort.
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