Boscawen's 19 stones form a 25 m ellipse around a leaning central pillar

October 30, 2026EnglandArchitectureShare

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Key facts

• Boscawen lies in a field north of St Buryan, on the south side of the A30 road, a few miles short of Land's End in Cornwall.
• The place name is Cornish: 'bos' = farm or dwelling, 'scowan' = elder trees, 'un' = one; published renderings include 'the single farm by the elder trees' and 'the dwelling by the elder trees and the elder tree on the downs', and the correct translation is argued over.
• The enclosure is made up of 19 upright stones set in an ellipse roughly 25 m by 22 m.
• A block of white quartz on the southwest side forms one side of a wide gap in the circle; the speakers prefer to read this as an entrance rather than a lost stone, given the massiveness of the quartz block.
• At the northeast edge lies a jumble of stones that may have once been a burial kist or cairn.
• South of the centre stands the stone that distinguishes the circle: a pillar nearly 3 m long, leaning hard to the northeast, with its tip only about 2 m above ground; whether it always leaned is unknown.

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