A HISTORY OF CORNWALL Rith (red down) preserves the memory of a bloody conflict. The first authentic reference to Dawns Men is but a late one, that of William Hals (1685-1736), and he, with his usual inaccuracy, probably confounds it with Boscawen-un, when he talks of a centre stone. Dr. Borlase (1754) * noted nineteen stones, but says nothing of a central one ; Britton and Brayley (1801) 2 mention the same number ; but by 1827 the circle had experienced reverses, for William Cotton records sixteen stones standing and two fallen ; 3 he must have overlooked one, since Richard Edmunds, in 1850, speaks of three out of nineteen stones being prostrate. 4 Lukis and Borlase give a plan and description of the circle, and remark that the proprietor, Lord Falmouth, had restored to the ring a stone which had been removed. 5 Certainly the circle has been well taken care of and is in very perfect condition now. Both at Boscawen-un and Dawns Men there exists a gap in the peri- phery wide enough to take another stone, and yet our earliest records only mention nineteen stones. The Dartmoor Exploration Committee were met by the same problem at Whitemoorstone Down, where the circle has nineteen stones and a gap, in this case on the north side. Their Report says that they removed the turf and searched the sub-soil for the socket, or pit-hole, of another stone ; but having failed to find any they con- cluded that the gap was intentional. 6 No such search has been made in these Cornish circles, and if made it might be inconclusive, since Dawns Men at least has been ploughed and the hedge at Boscawen-un passed through the gap itself; ploughing however is unlikely to go deeper than a foot and would not in that case destroy traces of a missing stone. It may be urged that there is a lack of uniformity in the position of these gaps, but we find the same in the well-marked entrances of the Cumbrian circles. TREGASEAL No. Height Length Breadth Thickneis No. Height Length Breadth Thickness ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. ft. in. I 3 3
i 8 i 6 16 against 5 9 2 9
o 2 IO
2 I hedge 4 3 *
I IO o 9 i7 3 10 in hedge 3 o
5 2 9 1 4 O IO 21 3 o
2 I O 6 3 o
1 9 i 6 22 2 7
2 6 i 4 7 3 7
2 i i 24 3 9
2 6
8 3 I0
2 i i a enclosure 4 o i 8
9 fallen 4 7 2 I
b
2 i 6
10
5 7 2 3
c
3 8 2 9
1 1 5> 5 4 I 2
a
2 9 2 4
12
3 3 2
e
2 6 2 3
H
4 6 o 7
f
3 o 2 3
- Beauties of England and Wales, ii. 496.
1 Ant. ofCornw., (ed. i),pp. 169, 170, 183. 3 Illustrations of Stone Circles, pp. 21-2, pi. i. 4 Trans. Penzance Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Sue. old ser. i. 3812. 4 Prehistoric Monuments, pp. i, 21, pi. i. 6 Report of Devonshire Association (1896), pp. 182-3 5 ('897) pp. '47 -8. 384
