Assessment and Evaluation Template v1.1 (DJR) 23/03/17

Distinctiveness Assessment and

Evaluation

Assessor: Adam Sharpe.

Date: 20 Apil 2017.

Asset / place: Bosullow Trehyllys courtyard house settlement.

Step 1: Define the asset

Define the entity that you want to describe the distinctiveness of (this could be a

single asset like a building or monument, or an area like a Conservation Area or

town. Please include a location plan / boundary.

Identify key evidence sources / existing descriptions such as HER / NHLE entries

or other pieces of text describing the asset. Highlight or annotate any sections

that relate to distinctiveness themes.

The extent of the Scheduled area at Bosullow Trehyllys.

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Bosullow Trehyllys in 1880.

Bosullow Trehyllys in 1908.

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Bosullow Trehyllys in 2005.

Features plotted by the NMP at Bosullow Trehyllys.

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Bosullow Trehyllys as shown on HES aerial photo F91-133.

One of the houses at Bosullow Trehyllys in 2016.

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2016 images of aspects of Bosullow Trehyllys.

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Name: Courtyard house settlement known as Bosullow Trehyllys, 515m north east of Chun Castle

List entry Number: 1006697

County: Cornwall

Parish: Madron

Date first scheduled: 14-Dec-1926

The courtyard house is a building form developed in south west England in the

Roman period during the second to fourth centuries AD. It was usually oval or

curvilinear in shape and took the form of a thick coursed rubble wall containing

rooms and storage chambers. A small central and generally unroofed area - the

courtyard - was enclosed by this wall, and the rooms within the wall and the main

entrance opened into it. Excavations of courtyard houses have revealed paved and

cobbled floors, stone partitions, slab-lined and slab-covered drains, threshold and

door pivot stones and slab-lined hearths, together with artefactual debris.

Excavations have also shown that some courtyard houses developed from earlier

phases of round houses on the same site. Courtyard houses may occur singly or in

groups of up to nine. The national distribution includes over 110 recorded

courtyard houses, mostly on the Penwith peninsula at the western tip of Cornwall .

A single complete example from the Isles of Scilly extends the south west limit of

their distribution. Courtyard houses are unique within the range of Romano-British

settlement types, showing a highly localised adaptation to the windswept

conditions of the far south west of England. At least four courtyard house

settlements are also associated with fogous, underground passages up to 30m

long and 2m wide, usually with side passages and/or chambers. The passages'

drystone walls were initially built in a trench, roofed with flat slabs then covered

by earth. The courtyard house settlements are important sources of information

on the distinctive nature and pattern of settlement that developed during the Iron

Age and Roman periods in south west England. Despite limited partial early

excavation, the courtyard house settlement known as Bosullow Trehyllys is one of

the best preserved, complete with its complex of dwellings, associated buildings,

paddocks, gardens and track. Most of the features in the settlement survive well

and are very clearly defined and substantial. The settlement will contain

archaeological and environmental evidence relating to its construction;

development and function of its buildings; social organisation; longevity;

agricultural practices; territorial significance trade and domestic arrangements as well as its overall landscape context.

The monument includes a courtyard house settlement, situated on the lower north

east facing slopes of a prominent hill on which Chun Castle stands, overlooking

the upper valley of the Lamorna River. The settlement survives as a complex of

three separate courtyard houses, with a fourth attached to at least seven

clustered stone hut circles and a possible roofless fogou. There are further free-

standing stone hut circles to the north west and a number of contemporary

paddocks, gardens and enclosures. The walls, built of coursed granite, stand up to

1.8m high and many of the buildings still have door jambs at their entrances. The

course of a prehistoric track, now re-used as a long distance footpath called the

'Tinners Way', curves around the northern half of the settlement. The settlement

has been the subject of a number of surveys, and of very limited antiquarian

excavations in the 19th century, when a few individual 'rooms' were inspected

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including one by Miller who found charred wood, burnt stone, some pottery and

paving. Hirst carried out a small trial excavation in 1935 and found late Iron Age

pottery. Weatherhill completed a further survey in 1977. Other archaeological

remains in the vicinity are the subject of separate schedulings.

Sources: HER:- PastScape Monument No:-424266 and 1340703

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1006697

Possible site of two fogous situated within the Iron Age courtyard house village known as

Bosullow Trehyllys, which also incorporates several round houses. The location is 540

metres north east of Chun Castle hillfort. Remains of a fogou-like passage and creep can

be found close to hut 4 and lies within an earth mound. Examples of Later Iron Age

pottery were found in 1935 during a reclamation exercise. The remains of a second

possible fogou lie a short distance to the north east.

http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1340703&sort=4&search=all&criteria=madron%2

0fogou&rational=q&recordsperpage=10

Nearby to the east lies the Romano-British courtyard house village of Bosullow Trehyllys

which may be broadly contemporary with the hillfort, or may represent a shift in

settlement patterns following the abandonment of hillforts such as Chûn Castle during

the 1st century AD.

http://www.historic-cornwall.org.uk/a2m/iron_age/hillfort/chun_castle/chun_castle.htm

Bosullow Trehyllys is a small village of Late Iron Age Courtyard Houses situated at the

base of Chûn Hill, about 550 metres northeast of Chûn Castle. It is second only to the

nearby village of Chysauster, in terms of preservation. Bosullow Trehyllys remains

unexcavated.

http://www.cornwallinfocus.co.uk/history/ancientsites.php?r=W

The Cornish Ancient Sites Protection Network (CASPN) is extremely active all year round,

monitoring and looking out for many of the prehistoric sites on the West Penwith

peninsular. Once a month they organise a clearup session, staffed entirely by volunteers,

to cut back growth on designated sites and ensure they are not entirely lost to nature.

October’s scheduled clearup coincided with my visit to the area, so I decided to once

again go along and lend a hand. The designated site this month was the courtyard

settlement at Bosullow Trehyllys, in the shadow of Chun Castle. The site lies on private

land, so this was a chance to see a site that is not usually accessible to the public. I have

been here once before, at a previous clearup session a couple of years ago, and it’s a

wonderful site.

Bosullow Trehyllys comprises of four identifiable courtyard house structures, with

additional circular structures which may predate the courtyard structures. I was told that

the settlement was much larger, but historical field clearance destroyed at least half of

the original settlement. A large mound of stones in the adjoining field may attest to this.

https://heritageaction.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/cornwall-heritage-protection-in-action/

The surprise of a wonderful sunny Sunday encouraged us to make an early start to fill in

a bit more of the Tinners' Way.

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We started where we left off last time, at the foot of Carn Downs and headed towards

Bosullow Trehyllys Iron Age settlement which is well worth a detour and a future visit.

Excavated between 1925 - 1930 it is a wild version of Chysauster or Carn Euny with

several very obvious houses and rooms. According to the Great Author, there may even

be an above-ground fogou here but we searched in vain.

https://allgriffs.blogspot.co.uk/2014_03_01_archive.html

Finally, which of all Cornwall's tens of thousands of sites and monuments is my own

favourite? No contest. It's the wonderful courtyard house village of Bosullow Trehyllys,

NE of Chun Castle. I've spent hours in there, relaxing in one or other of its rooms, just

soaking up the sheer peace of the place. I think it's Ian Cooke's favourite, too (he of

"Journey to the Stones", who lived at the Men-an-Tol Studio until recently).

http://www.artcornwall.org/features/Craig_Weatherhill_Memoirs.htm

At Cam Euny and Bosullow Trehyllys courtyard house settlements, several singular

stone-built circular structures were occupied prior to their inclusion within or

transformation into courtyard house settlements, a process of ‘courtyardisation’ not

often acknowledged (see 5.4.2). The earlier phases of these sites, and the more recently

discovered structures from Threemilestone (Pitts 2005) hint at a degree of open

settlement in the Later Iron Age, comprising classic circular and oval stone-built

architecture, currently under-represented in academic literature.

The presence of courtyard houses in Cornwall has often sought explanation in the form

of cultural influences and/or invasion. Parallels have been drawn with the dry-wall

structures and enclosures of northern Wales (Guthrie 1969: 5), although the affinities of

these Welsh examples are closer to the grouped structures attached by lengths of

walling found on Dartmoor, and at sites such as Bodrifty and Bosullow Trehyllys, than

they are with courtyard houses. Most recently, Quinnell (1986: 120, 2004: 188) has

argued that all courtyard houses are Roman in date; the implicit inference being that

their evolution resulted from the social changes, cultural influences and possible

migrations that transpired in Cornwall as a result of, and after, the Roman conquest of

Britain. In light of these arguments, it is interesting to note the earlier discussions of

Thomas (1963), where an emphasis was placed upon the environmental factors

conditioning courtyard house development during ‘the latter part of the Cornish Iron Age

by conservative pastoral elements in the granite uplands’ (Thomas 1963: 28).

However, the segmentation of certain structures still appears ‘unusual’ (e.g. CH3

Bosullow Trehyllys (2140), CHI Nanjulian (2030) and CH2 Treen (2202)) and require

further interpretation. In the gazetteer (Appendix 4) it is proposed that their room

composition indicates a role outside of that of a more ‘typical’ house used for the

everyday activities of a household. To this extent, courtyard house structures with

anomalous formats and which appear to have a bigger emphasis upon the ‘main rooms’ -

courtyards and round rooms - over side rooms, could have performed as centres for the

collective gathering of the community, possibly in addition to housing certain individuals.

https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/30806/1/U226117.pdf

Assessment and Evaluation Template v1.1 (DJR) 23/03/17

Step 2 : Identify which of the distinctiveness themes relate to the asset

Use the prompts to identify what parts or features of the asset relate to

each theme and why. This might include: materials, design,

associations, function, use and so on.

Physical distinctiveness

Courtyard houses are distinctive settlement types of the Roman period in Cornwall, and

are restricted in their distribution to West Penwith (apart from one known example on

Scilly). Set within and attached to a generally oval coursed stone-faced high earth bank

and facing onto an open central courtyard were a series or roofed structures which

provided a dwelling and a series of storage buildings or animal shelters.

Courtyard houses were predominantly farming settlements (though their occupants

might have also been involved in specialised activities such as metal working) and occur

either singly or in groups with associated rectilinear lynchetted field systems. The best

known of these – Chysauster - exhibits a number of anomalous aspects in its design; the

majority of courtyard house groups include two, three or four houses. Some sites, such

as Bosullow Trehyllys also include free-standing round houses, and some shows signs of

round houses having been converted into the ‘round room’ dwellings within courtyard

houses – a process known as ‘courtyardisation’.

Few courtyard houses have been scientifically excavated.

The rationale behind their shape has been a subject of some debate, Thomas having

suggested that they represent adaptation to the geology and weather conditions found

on the high West Penwith Moors, whilst Quinnell has suggested that they reflect cultural

influences which arrived in west Cornwall during the early part of the Roman period. It

has been suggested that there are approximate parallels in terms of form and period

elsewhere within the Irish Sea zone.

Bosullow Trehyllys is one of the larger and best preserved courtyard house settlements,

and is sited on the north-eastern lower flanks of Chun Downs, being overlooked by Chun

Castle.

Economic distinctiveness

It is evident from the limited distribution of this settlement type that the cultural ideas

which influenced their shape probably arrived with travellers within the Irish Sea and

Atlantic seaboard zones suggesting that an exchange of ideas and goods was taking

place by sea. It is tempting to speculate that the Cornish trade was in locally-mined and

processed tin, and that the courtyard house dwellers were engaged in this trade and

industry at some level. Certainly some ingots of tin and pebbles of alluvial cassiterite

have been found in the limited range of excavations which have taken place in such

sites. That having been said, evidence for rather larger scale industrial activity has been

archaeological recorded at some Cornish rounds (enclosed settlements of the same

period), and it is most likely that the tin trade would have been organised at a higher

social level than that of the individual courtyard house holder or the hamlet. The social

and economic relationships between Chun Castle and Bosullow Trehyllys is unknown, as

is whether they were occupied contemporaneously

Assessment and Evaluation Template v1.1 (DJR) 23/03/17

Spiritual folkloric and artistic distinctiveness

Few myths or legends are associated with West Penwith’s courtyard house settlements

and none specifically to that at Bosullow Trehyllys.

Many people (particularly those with New Age leanings) find the distinctive curvilnear

shapes of the courtyard houses, their intimate connection to the landscapes within which

they are sited, and the modern (compared to round houses) arrangement of their

interiors innately comfortable, and could see themselves living in such settlements.

Linguistic distinctiveness

It may be that there was formerly a Cornish name for courtyard houses, but this has

long been lost, although one now-destroyed site near New Bridge – ‘The Crellas’ – may

preserve this in some form. The placename Bosullow derives from a Botuolo recorded in

1244 and Boschiwolou in 1302, which seems to be derived from bod + chi + golow

interpreted as meaning ‘dwelling of a cottage of light’ (Padel). The meaning of ‘Trehyllys’

is uncertain.

Natural distinctiveness

Bosullow Trehyllys sits at the interface between the West Penwith moors and its higher

pastures and cultivated land. It thus shares both type of vegetation, and it requires the

regular efforts of teams of volunteers to prevent it becoming inundated in bracken and

gorse scrub.

Cultural connections and resonance beyond Cornwall

The courtyard house settlement type is restricted to West Penwith, though there can be

little doubt that its occupants had active cultural and trading links with other areas of the

Irish Sea and Atlantic seaboard provinces.

Assessment and Evaluation Template v1.1 (DJR) 23/03/17

Step 3: how does the asset’s distinctiveness inform and contribute to

the historic, evidential, aesthetic, and communal heritage values of the

asset?

Please use the tables within the ‘themes’ document to identify the

relationship between the cultural distinctiveness of a place and

established heritage values.

Historic value

Historic value connects contemporary places to past people, events and aspects

of life and can be illustrative or associative

People have always needed to construct shelters against the elements and to safeguard

themselves and their families (and from the Neolithic onwards, their possessions,

livestock and food) from wild animals or from other people. Courtyard houses are

immediately recognisable as houses which have individual rooms for separate activities,

s today – perhaps the reason why modern people find it so easy to connect to them.

They are not – as round houses are viewed by many (erroneously) as giant tent-like

structures without clear internal divisions or clear areas for activities which now keep

physically separated from one another. It is easier, therefore, for visitors to courtyard

houses to see their inhabitants as ‘modern’ and like themselves. They are thus more

able to project themselves into the past at such sites and attempt to understand how the

people here might have lived in the past.

Evidential

The evidential value of a place lies in its potential to provide evidence of past

activity.

There has been almost no modern scientific excavation and recording within courtyard

houses, though documentary records suggest that many have been subject to

antiquarian investigation. No detailed modern survey of Bosullow Trehyllys exists which

might allow its arrangements to be analysed and its phasing better understood, and the

documentation suggests than only limited early 20th century investigation of two of its

houses has taken place. Bosullow Trehyllys therefore has considerable potential in to

undertake research work which would allow us to better understand the development

and use of this particular site type.

Aesthetic

The ways in which people draw sensory and intellectual stimulation from a place

through its designed or fortuitous appearance

As mentioned above under ‘historical values’ most visitors to courtyard house sites find

them accessible and potentially comprehensible, and many bloggers comment that these

are some of their favourite archaeological sites in Cornwall, and are clearly positively

stimulated by their visits. This may stem from the apparent familiarity of their layouts,

but also the ways that they appear to be harmoniously sited within the landscape rather

than being imposed in it.

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Communal

The value of a place through its social and collective meanings and place in

memory – particularly where this value is expressed in terms of

commemoration, symbolism, social identity or spiritual understanding.

We know almost nothing of the inhabitants of these settlements, including their

lifestyles, beliefs and language, yet many of those who value these sites give the

impression that they feel that these people must have been ‘proper Cornish’. This is in

part because West Penwith and parts of the western and southern Lizard were some of

the last parts of Cornwall where Cornish was spoken; it is also argued by some Cornish

nationalists and those whose knowledge of Cornwall’s antiquities is not scientifically

derived that given that they were also furthest distant from English influence in the post-

Roman period, and closest to the other ‘Celtic’ nations of the Irish Sea and Atlantic

Fringe zones, it must follow that the archaeological site types which appear to be

distinctive to these two areas must have been the most ‘Cornish’.

Step 4 – Record your conclusions, specifically noting how

distinctiveness should inform any current expression of the site’s

significance and identifying opportunities for this distinctiveness to

inform place making or ongoing management of the place.

Bosullow Trehyllys is one of the larger, more complex, potentially multi-phased and least

investigated of a group of settlement types whose distribution is more or less wholly

restricted to West Penwith – courtyard houses.

The site is privately owned, but its vegetation is currently occasionally managed (under

Historic England supervision) by volunteer groups to prevent it scrubbing in. Access to

the site is informal, though it is sited immediately adjacent to a stretch of the Tinner’s

Way.

It would be useful if public access to the site could be formalised under an agreement

with its landowner. The site also has considerable potential for detailed survey and for

research excavation.