The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 1 (of 4)
History
The Parochial History of Cornwall, Volume 1 (of 4)
Cornwall (England : County) -- History; Geology -- England -- Cornwall (County)
In this parish stands Castell-an-Dinas. It consists of about six acres
of ground, within three circles or intrenchments, upon the top of a
pyramidal hill, composed or built of turf and unwrought stones, after
the British manner, without lime or mortar, comparatively a hedge;
each of those circles or ramparts rising about eight foot above each
other towards the centre of the castle, consisting of about an acre
and a half of land, in the midst whereof appear the ruins of some old
dilapidated houses; near which is a flat vallum, pit, or tank, wherein
rain or cloud-water, that falls down from the middle regions, abides
more or less in quantity as it falls one half of the year; which, I
suppose, heretofore supplied the soldiers’ occasions, as no fountain,
spring, or river water is within a thousand paces thereof. There were
two gates or portals leading to this fort, the one on the east, the
other on the west side thereof, which, on a stony causeway now covered
with grass, conducts you up and down the hill towards Tre-kyning, that
is to say the king’s, prince, or ruler’s town. Moreover, contiguous
with this castle are tenements of land or fields, named Tre-saddarne,
that is to say god Saturn’s town, a place where the god Saturn was
worshipped by the soldiers, who probably had their temple or chapel
here before Christianity.
Near this castle, by the highway, stands the Coyt, a stony tumulus so
called, of which sort there are many in Wales and Wiltshire, as is
mentioned in the Additions to Camden’s Britannia in those places,
commonly called the Devil’s Coyts. It consists of four long stones of
great bigness, perpendicularly pitched in the earth contiguous with
each other, leaving only a small vacancy downwards, but meeting
together at the top; over all which is laid a flat stone of prodigious
bulk and magnitude, bending towards the east in way of adoration, (as
Mr. Lhuyd concludes of all those Coyts elsewhere,) as the person
therein under it interred did, when in the land of the living; but
how, or by what art this prodigious flat stone should be placed on the
top of the others, amazeth the wisest mathematicians, engineers, or
architects, to tell or conjecture. Colt, in Belgic-British, is a cave,
vault, or cott-house, of which coyt might possibly be a corruption.
Not far from this coyt, at the edge of the Goss-moor, there is a large
stone, wherein is deeply imprinted a mark, as if it were the impress
of four horseshoes, and to this day called King Arthur’s Stone; yea,
tradition tells us they were made by King Arthur’s horse’s feet, when
he resided at Castle Denis, and hunted in the Goss Moor. But this
stone is now overturned by some seekers for money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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