Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

I'm looking forward to that as I love the place.

It's so simple, but would be very hard to explain and very very easy to show you, and it all clicked into place for me by going there and believing the old drawing [which as you know i'd never done], when your next down give us a shout and i'll meet you there or you can grap me on the way there, anytime you like, I'd love to show you the things i've learnt at Zennor, Mulfra and bosporthennis Quoits, all simple but unknown things, I really understand what you said about you knowing what you know about Trethevy by spending so long there, because it's only by countless visits and hours at the sites that i've seen what i've seen, and i'd like to show you because apart from that i have no urge to show or tell anyone else and if i'm right would lay no claim on the knowledge myself, i just want to show you, it really should have been last year when you were writing your book but things went pearshaped for awhile, I really think the key to understanding trethevy better is Zennor, did you learn much from Zennor Roy?

Well I went to Zennor twice last year Paul. The first time just to see it, take as many pix as I could, both inside and out and generally take it all in. The second time, two weeks later, with a friend to hold the tape, as I took measurements all over it. Checked out the facade stone on the right and worked out by the spacings of the drill marks to find which of the uprights in the structure in front of it erected by that farmer geezer had come from it.
Strolled around a bit then went home.
Got a good feeling there and when I get the time I will sit down and have a serious look at all the info. Can't do it all at once.

If the old pictures right, how do you think it could have been two almost sealed chambers without it been dry stone walling? and did you notice the big bumps on the tops of the sideslabs? it is perfectly shaped to have held a big granite slab or even a timber lid, it's so clear and i can't believe it's not been noticed before, and there's 2 to show it's clearly meant, the 2 stones would have been the smallest and thinnest on site so easily broken up and they would have been the first to go or if wooden clearly gone 1000's of years ago, you should be able to see it on your photo's, the only trouble is it's best to be able to see both sideslabs in one picture to see how it would have rested in place, I'd love to know what you think, i didn't know you had lots of shots of the inside, did you get in it Roy? if you did, well done, I think george might even like it because it stays totally true to the old drawing, it just seals the 2 chambers up, and i've seen the sort of slabs they'd need on the nearby tors, so the right sort of shapes for the job were available to them as well, anyway you can see where and how a stone was once held in place on the top of both chambers but below the capstone, it's the only way to seal the chambers and stay true to the old drawing and all the components are there for it all to happen and it's bloody genus by the builders, I love the place.

Seek and you will find Paul. Look at this, ever seen it before. I bet you haven't because you've never looked for it. I did because I was researching and noting EVERYTHING down then looked at it all later when I had a different head on...the calculating one!
https://picasaweb.google.com/100525707086862773355/KeyingPoint?authkey=Gv1sRgCMSzjt2UluH4hwE#5852372274551030978

No it's not at Zennor, it has it's own which a have fimed and videod for when I get around to working on it, this is at Trethevy and never been mentioned before, just like those at Zennor have never been mentioned. Nobody has ever asked why the builders cut 15ft wide granite stones down on the diagonal and left keying points in certain places. Why not? How can you research something if you dont take down ALL the detail!!

Mr Goutté has sent in some recent photographs showing the present condition of the land around Trethevy Quoit.

It's a step in the right direction, now it's important that at the very least nothing bigger than sheep are ever in the field, it really needs buying up by the NT and just mowing now and again and very soon you'd have lovely rare wild flowers growing in the field within a few years and all the others creatures that would bring, i must say up in Scotland they're very good at mowing grass at the looked after ancient sites, they even do the Clava cairns every couple of weeks in the summer to keep it nice, now that's a job eh, gardening and keeping tidy Ancient sites, there should be teams out there to look after them and do the gardening, i can think of a few people on here [myself included] that would love to do that if it was a real job, in fact it would be the best job in the world, shame it doesn't exist.

After seeing the video I took the other week, a certain gentleman mentioned recently who featured the quoit in his book in the 80's, commented on 'How distressing it was' seeing it in its present condition!