© 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society CORNISH ARCHAEOLOGY 41–42 HENDHYSCANS KERNOW 2002–3 EDITORS GRAEME KIRKHAM AND PETER HERRING (Published 2006) CORNWALL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society © COPYRIGHT CORNWALL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 2006 No part of this volume may be reproduced without permission of the Society and the relevant author ISSN 0070 024X Typesetting, printing and binding by Arrowsmith, Bristol © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society Contents Preface i HENRIETTA QUINNELL Reflections iii CHARLES THOMAS An Iron Age sword and mirror cist burial from Bryher, Isles of Scilly 1 CHARLES JOHNS Excavation of an Early Christian cemetery at Althea Library, Padstow 80 PRU MANNING and PETER STEAD Journeys to the Rock: archaeological investigations at Tregarrick Farm, Roche 107 DICK COLE and ANDY M JONES Chariots of fire: symbols and motifs on recent Iron Age metalwork finds in Cornwall 144 ANNA TYACKE Cornwall Archaeological Society – Devon Archaeological Society joint symposium 2003: 149 archaeology and the media PETER GATHERCOLE, JANE STANLEY and NICHOLAS THOMAS A medieval cross from Lidwell, Stoke Climsland 161 SAM TURNER Recent work by the Historic Environment Service, Cornwall County Council 165 Recent work in Cornwall by Exeter Archaeology 194 Obituary: R D Penhallurick 198 CHARLES THOMAS © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society Preface This double-volume of Cornish Archaeology marks the start of its fifth decade of publication. Your Editors and General Committee considered this milestone an appropriate point to review its presentation and initiate some changes to the style which has served us so well for the last four decades. The genesis of this style, with its hallmark yellow card cover, is described on a following page by our founding Editor, Professor Charles Thomas. The cover is now glossy laminated card – very durable – with a colour photograph, for this volume, of the mirror recovered from Trelan Bahow, St Keverne, in the nineteenth century. The spine and back remain yellow so that the volumes will keep their distinctive appearance on the shelf and preserve visual continuity with those previously published; the convenient contents list on the back also remains. The colour photograph on the cover will change from issue to issue, generally illustrating an item in the volume. The position and form of the title and volume details may change slightly from volume to volume to ensure a good balance with the background of the photograph but we will continue to display a bilingual journal title. Overall page size of the publication is now just a trifle larger. Surprisingly, with modern paper sizes, this increase actually results in a more economic use of paper and proportionate reduction in costs. Hopefully this slight size change will not result in any problems of shelving or binding. Inside the covers the most obvious change is the two-column format. Many find this easier to read than long single lines; the double column layout has advantages for the arrangement of illustrations. Your Committee was split almost fifty - fifty on this innovation and we await reaction. For this volume we regard it as experimental. There is also an improvement in paper quality. Colour illustrations will appear at first in modest numbers but in future should both improve the look of the content and the presentation of complex data. Cornish Archaeology has, since its inception, made a major contribution to the national, and indeed international, archaeological publishing world. I look at the long line of yellow volumes on my bookshelves and feel a sense of pride and achievement on the Society’s behalf. Those volumes form an enormous repository of archaeological data which both represent the current state of knowledge and the basis for such knowledge and research far into the future. Some members, as we are well aware, find too much space taken up with detailed accounts of excavations but the publication of reports on excavation and other forms of investigation and research forms a commitment to archaeology in Cornwall that the Society must carry out. (Editors spend a lot of time chasing up unpublished reports and then reworking them into a state in which they can be published.) But your Editors are aware of the need to keep the contents varied and there are plans to extend the range and scope of published papers and to increase our appeal and importance to a wide range of readers in the new format which this volume introduces. Editing archaeological publications is very time-consuming, a task that can only be carried out by those with appropriate background knowledge. There have been problems over the past decade in finding those with both the time and the knowledge to edit Cornish Archaeology and this has resulted in the slippage in volumes that is only now being rectified. Our present Editors, Peter Herring and Graeme Kirkham, have now brought us i © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society PREFACE nearly up-to-date and have also invested the time necessary to present the journal in its modern guise. The Society is greatly indebted to them. As the second Editor, from 1975 to 1981 and immediately following on from Charles Thomas in the old hot metal days, I appreciate the amount of work put in. Technological changes make the end result appear more attractive but do not reduce the amount of work involved to any great extent. Enjoy this issue of Cornish Archaeology and let the Editors, myself or other Officers and Committee members know what you think about the changes. Henrietta Quinnell President 2004–7 ii © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society Reflections In the run-up to the official launch of our Society on 7 April 1962, the matter of an annual journal to replace Proceedings of the West Cornwall Field Club had been discussed. As President, C A Ralegh Radford persuaded the officers and committee that we should move from the crown 8vo format of PWCFC to a larger size, 7 by 9 inches, to allow for larger text figures, to attract fresh contributors and to fall into line with our sister journals in Devon, Somerset and Dorset. Having edited the first seven annual issues of PWCFC, I had handed over the editorship to Bernard Wailes, but was now persuaded to resume the post on Bernard’s departure to Philadelphia. Peter Pool, as Hon Treasurer, and I were instructed to bring out the first issue of our new journal before the end of 1962. We chose as printers H E Warne of St Austell, at that time probably the best commercial printers in Cornwall, and had unstinting help and support from the brothers Jock and Stuart Warne. Because, though lecturing at Edinburgh during university terms, I now spent the vacations mainly at our Gwithian home, it was possible to supervise printing and production at Warne’s St Austell press. Of course, we needed a new design. Vincent Megaw (later Professor J V S Megaw), an active WCFC member, was then employed on the archaeological publications at Thames and Hudson in Bloomsbury. For a ridiculously small fee, Vincent arranged that Ian Mackenzie-Kerr, T & H’s staff typographer and designer, should create an entirely new format for us. Wishing to emphasise ‘Cornishness’, Peter Pool and I settled on a yellow cover with bold black titling. Revived Cornish then had no word corresponding to the (invented) Welsh archaeoleg, first seen in 1928. As a calque on the Greek basis of ‘archaeology’, Peter came up with Hendhyscans Kernow, literally ‘Old-Knowledge, Ancient- Learning – Cornwall’. We also decided to use different cover illustrations for each number. The first, drawn for us by Morna MacGregor (Mrs D D A Simpson), inevitably used William Borlase’s c 1740 watercolour of Lanyon Quoit. For subsequent issues, I commissioned as editor drawings from Cornish artists - Peter Lanyon, Marjorie Somerscales, Roger Penhallurick, Bryan Pearce, etc – paying for these myself and therefore, cunningly, retaining the originals. Cornish Archaeology 1 (1962) appeared on time and was well received, within and beyond Cornwall, by members, librarians and reviewers. Ian Mackenzie-Kerr had suggested a full-page layout for papers and the Parochial Checklists, with double column format (then very fashionable) for reviews, notes and the various serials. We adhered to this throughout, the only change being in the generous spacing of full- page material, which was set 10 or 11 pt on 14 or 15, i.e., with wide spaces between lines. The Warne brothers pointed out that we were paying for blank space and in CA 2 the letterpress was indeed vertically condensed to something like 10 on 12. Our new journal brought us plenty of new members and, more importantly, new contributors. I was happy to edit it for a good many years until sheer pressure of work obliged me to resign. But the inception of CA was over 40 years ago; the content has changed, and tastes and fashions in printing iii © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society REFLECTIONS and display have also shifted. It’s high time for a completely new design; hot metal printing has gone, the technology is not only different but cheaper and easier to operate and your founding editor looks forward, sympathetically and eagerly to this first number of Cornish Archaeology redivivus. Charles Thomas iv © 2006, Cornwall Archaeological Society Cornish Archaeology 41–42, 2002–3, 1–79 An Iron Age sword and mirror cist burial from Bryher, Isles of Scilly CHARLES JOHNS with contributions from KERI BROWN, J D HILL, CLAIRE INGREM, PETER MARSHALL, SIMON MAYS, HENRIETTA QUINNELL, IAN STEAD, VANESSA STRAKER, ROGER TAYLOR, CHARLES THOMAS, GORDON TURNER- WALKER and PENELOPE WALTON ROGERS During autumn 1999, Cornwall Archaeological Unit and English Heritage carried out a programme of archaeological fieldwork following the discovery by a farmer of an Iron Age sword in a Porth Cressa- type cist grave on Bryher, Isles of Scilly.