ILLUSTRATION OF STONE CIRCLES, CROMLEHS

and other remains of the Aboriginal Britons in the West of Cornwall

by William Cotton (1827), reprint edited by Ian McNeil Cooke

"During a visit to Cornwall, in the autumn of 1826, I was led to notice the various remains of the superstition of our Ancestors, consisting of Circles of Stones, Cromlehs, Hill Castles, and singularly shaped Rocks, which there abound: and having made sketches of several near the Land's End, I was induced, by a curiosity to know something more about them, to read through Dr.Borlase's learned work on the Antiquities of Cornwall." ( W.Cotton: extract from his preface)

Published in 1998 in A4 paperback format of 75 pages including 11 pages of black and white line illustrations.

EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THIS EDITION

"William Cotton was born in 1795 and, when 31 years old, he travelled to the Land's End Peninsula and sketched many of the most famous prehistoric sites in the area; he later made etchings from these drawings and incorporated them into a small book which was printed in an edition of only 25 copies published in 1827.

Despite a few minor surveying errors (see his plan of Boscawen-un circle) and his mistaken report of the total destruction of Zennor Quoit - he had probably been informed of the pulling down of a large quoit at Trewey not far away - his drawings owe far less to artistic licence than the engravings in Dr.Borlase's monumental work three quarters of a century earlier and are a valuable record of the state of the sites in the early 19th century. Cotton was the first person to publish drawings of the Merry Maidens, West Lanyon Quoit, and the two circles at Tregeseal - one of which is now completely destroyed.

Cotton recognised his debt to the work and opinions of Dr.Borlase, and makes reference to Classical and Biblical sources, as well as to the religions of the Eastern Mediterranean, in his discussion on the origins of the inhabitants of Britain and their Druidical 'opinions, manners, and customs'. Although Druids were only recorded during the Roman era they must have existed as an indigenous priestly caste for many centuries before written history began, and Cotton acknowledges that, despite their practice of human sacrifice - a common enough custom in many contemporary cultures - they were, nevertheless, 'a studious and learned body of men'.

As the author of my own Journey to the Stones I have much pleasure in republishing this much earlier journey: the text has been retyped while retaining Cotton's spelling and punctuation, and keeping to the original layout as much as possible; only pagination and reference numbers have been altered."

Ian McNeil Cooke

Penzance 1998

[ISBN 0-9512371-8-7]