|
Click relevant area in diagram for pictures and panoramas. |
| Visits - August 1995 / June 2000 |
The megalithic complex known as the Hurlers
stands near to the village of Minions on Bodmin Moor. There are three large
stone circles laid out in a line and two outlying stones, The Pipers, standing
close together at the west. The alignment of the circle centres is not exact, a
line through the northernmost circles missing the centre of the southern circle
by 8m. The circle stones are all of local granite and some have been shaped by
hammering. There is some suggestion that the circles may have been height graded
to the south, but the damage endured by the rings makes this difficult to prove.
With no dating evidence, there is no way to tell if the three circles were built
at the same time, but one view on multiple sites is that an original single ring
was added to over time as customs and ritual use changed. Assuming that this is
correct, the middle circle at the Hurlers is thought most likely to have been
the original "seed".
The name "The Hurlers" comes from yet another dose of petrification
from above, dealt out by an angry God in response to violation of His Sabbath
day. In this neck of the woods, it is usually some wayward girlies having a bit
of a cavort on a Sunday that feature as the lucky winners in the old
"instant statue" sweepstakes, but in the case of The Hurlers, the
victims were all male. Legend has it that the lads were engaged in a local pastime
called hurling, this involves two large teams trying to grab a wooden ball from
each other, but as they were playing on a Sunday, they got zapped.