Guidebook: Chysauster and Carn Euny Ancient Villages

From the middle of the nineteenth century, pioneering antiquarians began to take an interest in the curious remains of stone-walled ‘courtyard’ houses found only in the far south-west of Cornwall and on the Isles of Scilly. Chysauster and Carn Euny, located in Penwith, represent two of the best examples of these mysterious settlements. Excavations have revealed that they were small agricultural villages, inhabited in the late Iron Age and Romano-British periods and subsequently entirely abandoned for hundreds of years. Carn Euny is also the site of an enigmatic ‘fogou’ – an underground passage whose exact purpose remains unclear. After they were abandoned, both sites were plundered as a source of building stone. A miner’s cottage was built at Carn Euny and Chysauster became the unlikely setting for open-air Methodist preaching in the mid nineteenth century. Objects recovered during excavations at both sites, some of which have been reconstructed in this guide, offer a glimpse of life in these remote communities, only distantly connected with Roman trading networks. Today, visitors can explore the remains of these courtyard houses in their picturesque settings, and even descend into the atmospheric tunnels and chamber of Carn Euny’s fogou. This beautifully illustrated new guidebook presents detailed tours of both sites, as well as in-depth features, maps, plans and reconstruction drawings, and a combined history telling their stories from earliest times to the present day. Key Features: Paperback Published in 2017