There was one more site we intended to see before we hit the road in earnest, and that was Lanyon Quoit. It is one of the best-known dolmens in Cornwall, probably in part because it is so easy to access, standing in a field right beside the road and not far from Mên-an-Tol. We were really looking forward to seeing this site and so, it was with some excitement that we climbed the stile into the field.

It looks amazing in the empty landscape. The huge capstone, weighing around thirteen and a half tons and over eighteen feet long, is supported on three upright stones. Old stories tell that a man could ride a horse beneath the capstone, but today you must bend your head to enter the chamber that would once have been encased in earth. And for once, it was not a happy place.

The ancient burial chambers that we have visited are usually warm and welcoming. There is no sense of any fear of the dead, but on the contrary, an invitation to enter and commune with the ancestors… those distant kin whose presence gives access to the Otherworld. Where the tombs are sealed by earth, stone, or archaeologists, there is a feeling of vague disappointment and yearning, for these were places meant to be visited, where the womblike darkness of the earth could lead to a rebirth for the dead and, perhaps, a spiritual rebirth for the living.

Lanyon Quoit, though, we didn’t like. It was hard to explain… it didn’t ‘feel’ right. Stuart thought it might be because one of the uprights was not in place, although we have visited dolmens a worse state of repair and not felt this sense of loss and sadness.

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