Ballowall Barrow or Carn Gluze

Megalithic Tomb - Cornwall

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SW 35531 31271 (GPS 49min)
Visited June 2000

 More correctly known as the Ballowall Barrow, Carn Gluze (or Gloose), is a large chambered cairn situated on the very edge of the coast, with marvellous views from Cape Cornwall to Sennen and, in good weather, out to the Scilly Isles. The cairn was excavated around 1870, until then it had been buried in the waste tips of local mines.
 The first phase of the monument was a large chamber 11.2m in diameter with drystone walls and a corbelled roof. This chamber contained several small cists in its floor and, at the northeastern end, a stepped pit cut down into the rock. Some time later, the monument was modified by the building of a circular raised platform some 25m in diameter, this platform buried the lower parts of the chamber leaving only the roof exposed. As well as several cists inserted below the platform, an Entrance Grave was built into its SW outer edge.
The appearance of the cairn today owes very much to the early excavators, the "moat" in the cairn surrounding the central chamber is their work, as are the thickened walls of the chamber itself. 
We could not help thinking that the intact modified cairn must have looked very much like a stone version of Klaatu's flying saucer from the film "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

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