Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Trevethy Stone / by C.W. Dymond. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![TRETHEVY STONE. BY C. W. DYMOND, ESQ., F.S.A. (Bead December 3, 1879.) Trethevy Stone is one of the two finest dolmens in Cornwall, being little, if at all, surpassed by Zennor Quoit, in the same county. It crowns a small hill conspicuously placed in the midst of an amphitheatre of higher land, standing about three quarters of a mile north-east of the village of St. Cleer, and within a mile and a half of the Hurlers,1 Doniert’s Stone, and other remains of antiquity. From their silence with respect to it, we may suppose that Trethevy Stone was unknown to most of the early writers who have treated on the topography and anti- quities of Cornwall: but some also, who cannot have been unaware of its existence, have equally ignored it. It is not mentioned either by William of Worcester, or by Leland, Carew, Camden, Tonkin, Dr. Borlase, Grose, Maton, or Warner. Norden, however (circa 1584), visited, and was the first to describe it.2 “ Tretheuie, called in Latine Casa gigantis, a litle howse raysed of mightie stones, standing on a title hill within a feilde, the forme herevnder expressed.” [Here he gives a view of the dolmen which will be more particularly referred to presently.] “ This monument standeth in the parish of St. Clere. The couer being all one stone, is from a to B 16 foote the length, the bredth from c to D is 10 foote, the thicknes from G to h is 2 foote ; E is an arteficiall lioll 8 inches diameter, made thorowgh the roofe very rounde, which serued as it seemeth to putt out a staffe, wlierof the howse it selfe was not capable : F was. the dore or Entrance.” Next in order of date3 is the description of this dolmen by Britton and Brayley,4 which they illustrate by a fairly correct view, looking east. 1 Of which a plan and description were published in the volume of this Journal for 1879, pp. 297-307. 2 Specidi Britannia: pars, Cornwall, pp. 88, 89. 3 I have not been able to refer to Hals’ Parochial History to see whether he mentions Trethevy. 4 Beauties of England and Wales, 1801, vol. ii, p. 389.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2245844x_0006.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
