Gwithian

A Middle Bronze Age farming site in Cornwall, England, with prehistoric and medieval remains. There are houses of the Beaker Period, field systems of the Middle Bronze Age, and small square fields of Celtic type. The sites of the post-Roman period include a small settlement of circular drystone huts, a shell midden, and a late Saxon chapel. There are also sub-Roman (400-950), early Christian (550-850), and the Late Saxon (850-1050) levels which have been determined by the pottery. Gwithian ware and Mediterranean imports mark the first phase, and Grass-Marked pottery, the second. The chapel of St. Gocanius is one of the few pre-Conquest buildings in Cornwall (c 9th-10th century).

Over the last 30 years the parish of Gwithian in Cornwall, southwest England, has been the subject of intensive archaeological research. Among the sites of all periods investigated, some of the most interesting belong to the prehistoric and medieval periods. A settlement site with evidence of two successive timber structures, the earlier circular, the second oval, belongs to the Beaker period. At a later period, in the Middle Bronze Age, evidence of two successive field systems has been found here. Small square fields of ‘Celtic’ type (see Celtic held) were cross-ploughed using an ard and finished off with a wooden spade. Both the ard marks and the spade marks, the latter concentrated around the edge of the field, were exceptionally well preserved in blown sand. The sites of the post-Roman period include a small settlement of circular drystone huts, a shell midden and a late Saxon chapel. The sites cover the sub-Roman (400-950), the early Christian (550-850) and the Late Saxon (8501050) periods. These classifications have been made on the basis of pottery, which is far more determinate in the Celtic regions than anywhere else in Britain at this time. Gwithian ware and Mediterranean imports mark the first phase, and Grass-marked pottery (associated with Irish missions and settlements) the second. The economy of Gwithian in the early medieval period seems to have been based on mixed agriculture, supplemented by shellfish. The rectangular chapel of St Gocanius is one of the few pre-Conquest buildings in Cornwall and although it is 9th or 10th century in date, it may well be the successor of an earlier Celtic chapel.