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WELCOME TO NEWQUAY. I can't believe it is November 19th already. We really are retiring at the end of this financial year as we will
both be 65 years old. It is time to have our own life.
Despite just running the bed and breakfast side of
our business we have been really busy. Yesterday Steve and I attended an archaeology symposium organised by the Cornwall Archaeological Society -
there has been a dig down the end of Mount Wise at Tregunnel. The site is on the same ridge our house is. Mark Brett of Cotswold Archaeology
talked about the site - really important with finds from the Early Neolithic up to a Romano British grave and medieval field use after that.
It makes me wonder what is under our house.
I have also found something to 'organise' instead of the guest house and our interest holidays - Newquay Old Cornwall Societ now has an
archaeological group which I started up about
two years ago. We keep an eye on local ancient monuments and clear them up when they get overgrown.
I have the title of 'Warden of Local Ancient Monuments' for my sins...lots of jokes about me looking after old gentlemen..
I have also been doing a lot of
local history research. Down on the River Gannel, Newquay side, along in the cliff face by Fern Pit -
where you can get the ferry to Crantock are 4 sets of carvings where about 40 in total slate discs up to 20 inches in diameter
have been removed. Newquay locals call them the 'Salt Pans'.
They have been listed as prehistoric but I think they really date to the late 1800's. I was told they were carved
out using
a bucket for garden stepping stones! I decided to have a go myself with
a bit of old slate a guest had left in our yard and a bean tin hence the photo above - I did discover that the
Egyptians used copper cylinders to take cores of
rock out of limestone when building ancient tombs so got the idea from that. Apart from the slate I used has the grain
the wrong way from that on the Gannel I did manage to make a mini paving stone by rotating the bean
tin on the slate until it cut through.
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