Mawgan Porth Dark Age Village

Mawgan Porth Dark Age Village
Shown within Cornwall
Alternative name Porthglyvyan
Location Mawgan Porth
grid reference (SW851672
Region Cornwall
Coordinates 50°26′05″N 005°00′47″W / 50.43472°N 5.01306°W / 50.43472; -5.01306Coordinates: 50°26′05″N 005°00′47″W / 50.43472°N 5.01306°W / 50.43472; -5.01306
Type Ancient village
History
Founded c. 850 AD
Abandoned c. 1050 AD
Periods Early Middle Ages (Dark Ages)
Cultures Dumnonia
Site notes
Excavation dates 1949-52, 1954 and 1974
Archaeologists Rupert Bruce-Mitford, Paul Ashbee, Ernest Greenfield
Condition Ruins
Public access Yes

Mawgan Porth Dark Age Village is a small ancient settlement consisting of 3 courtyard house complexes and a cemetery on the North coast of Cornwall dating from the 10th century. It was excavated in 1950-54 by Rupert Bruce-Mitford. The site was first discovered after the apparent after the discovery of the skeleton in 1934. The landowner. Mr P A Wailes, had wanted to build on the land and soundings to test the subsoil revealed the skeleton, stone walls, pottery and bone fragments.[1]

Excavations

A trial excavation was carried out in 1948, and this led to larger scale investigation, between 1950 and 1954[2]

Cemetery

The cemetery contained several adult and child burials enclosed in slab graves. Pottery finds from the excavations form were distinctive forms, partly inspired by the bar-lug tradition of Scilly and Cornwall

Finds

Finds from the site are archived at the British Museum and negatives of Charles Woolf's photographs are held by the Photographic Library of English Heritage

Dark Age Cornwall

Very little is known of the period known as the 'Dark Ages' in Cornwall.[3] The Cornwall edition of Victoria County History, only lists stones crosses and the silver hoard that was found at Trewhiddle in 1974. In his work The Archaeology of Cornwall and Scilly (1932) Prof Hugh Hencken also lists ogham stones and Cornish crosses but not one single shard of pottery or dwelling house. The only sites in Cornwall comparable to Mawgan Porth are a cemetery at Tintagel and St Pirans Oratory near Perranporth.[4] and a Settlement was excavated at Gunwalloe.

Further reading

  • A Dark Age Settlement at Mawgan Porth, Publisher: Routledge 1956, by Rupert Bruce-Mitford
  • Saxon England: by John Hamilton (Author), Alan Sorrell (Illustrator) 1964. ISBN 0718808088
  • Supposed Iron Age Burial at Mawgan Porth (JRIC No 83, Vol XXIV, 1936), Hirst, FC, 1936,
  • 'Mawgan Porth Remembered', Cornish Archaeol. 37–8 (2002 for 1998–9), Ashbee, Paul

References

  1. ↑ "Revealing Mawgan Porth's ancient settlement". Newquay Voice. 1 August 2003. Retrieved 13 August 2018.
  2. ↑ "MAWGAN PORTH - Early Medieval settlement". Heritage Gateway. Historic England. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  3. ↑ "Cornwall 410 – 1066". Cornwall Heritage Trust. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  4. ↑ Bruce-Mitford, R.L.S. Recent Archaeological Excavations in Britain: Selected Excavations, 1939-1955. p. 171. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
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