Gwallon Menhir

Also known as:
Giant's Staff and Long Stone at Mount Charles
Nearest town:
St Austell (1km WNW)
OS reference:
SX029521
OS sheets:
200, 204
Latitude:
50° 20' 6.58 N
Longitude:
4° 46' 11.95 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Gwallon Menhir by postman

Big green fence could be climbed if you felt that way inclined.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Aug 24, 2013
Image of Gwallon Menhir by postman

My patient daughter marks the gate where we didn’t climb over.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Aug 24, 2013
Image of Gwallon Menhir by ocifant

“I’m photographing the stone, honest officer!”

Image credit: Alan S>
ocifant
ocifant Oct 15, 2003
Image of Gwallon Menhir by phil

The stone is sited on a school playing field
You have been warned!! :(

phil
phil Jan 27, 2002
Image of Gwallon Menhir by phil

The stone appears to be on a leyline!

(Or perhaps a sportsfield)

phil
phil Jan 27, 2002

Articles

Gwallon Menhir

postman
postman Aug 24, 2013

Easy enough to find, just a couple of minutes walk from the road, But a whopping great big green gate stood in our way. There was no one around, not that we checked so we didn’t climb over, didn’t leave my less than agile daughter at the gate, and then didn’t scurry over to take a quick couple of pictures of this tall and graceful standing stone. Because we didn’t partake in trespassing we have no way of knowing that there was or wasn’t a bin right next to the stone, but if there was then I reckon Eric would have pulled it out of the way whilst I take a few pictures.
It was a very nice day, and besides Lesquite quoit this morning this standing stone would have been my only stones of the day, so it would have been nice to sit under it and watch the Swallows swoop, but we didnt so we have no way of knowing if there even was any swallows.
If you felt inclined to break the law, heaven forbid, the gate is easy to climb...... I’d imagine.

Gwallon Menhir

C
CARL May 3, 2012

Visited 18.4.12

After spending a couple of hours looking around the shops in St Austell with Karen and the children it was time for a bit of ‘old stoning’.

We found the school easy enough and the footpath was also easy to spot.
Karen and the children stayed in the car and I headed up the path in the pouring rain.

In this instance the rain was a good thing as there was no one about and these days you have to be careful being seen hovering in trees near a school – even if it is on a public footpath!

I was surprised by how big this stone is – it’s massive!

It goes without saying that getting a close up of the stone would be impossible without prior permission from the school.

Gwallon Menhir

ocifant
ocifant Oct 15, 2003

8th October 2003

This is a tricky one. It’s actually set in the grounds of the school, but a footpath from Porthpean Road just south of the A390 goes quite near. Follow the path along the back of the tennis courts into the field beyond, then look back to see the stone.

There are signs advising against trespass onto the school grounds, and when I was there, the school had just gone onto a break period and the kids were coming out.

Because of this I couldn’t get too close, and taking pictures was tricky in case anyone got the wrong idea! I managed a couple of shots though...

Folklore

Gwallon Menhir
Standing Stone / Menhir
phil
phil Feb 24, 2002

homepages.rootsweb.com/~marcie/kernow/austell2.html

A giant travelling one night over Gwallow downs, near Charlestown, was overtaken by a storm that blew his hat off. He immediately ran after it, by having a large staff in his hand, which rather impeded his progress, he pitched it in the ground, until his hat was secured’ but after wandering about for some time in darkness, without being able to find his hat, he gave over the pursuit, and returned to secure his staff, but this, also, he was unable to discover, and they were both irrecoverably lost. When daylight appeared, the hat and staff were both found by the inhabitants, about a mile asunder’ the former lying on the ground, the latter in a perpendicular- position. The hat lay on Whitehouse downs, and bore some resemblance to a mill- stone, very thick, but not of great diameter. This singular stone continued in this place till the autumn of 1798, when some regiments of soldiers being encamped round it, fancied, as it was a wet season, that this giant’s hat was the cause of the rain; so they raised it on its edge and rolled it over the cliff into the sea. His walking staff still remains stuck in the ground near the Charlestown mills, being an enormous pillar of granite, about twelve feet high above ground, commonly called Longstone. It is no less curious than true that the Longstone is a perfectly isolated piece of granite, there being none within miles of the position it has so long occupied.

Sites within 20km of Gwallon Menhir

Like all websites everywhere, we use cookies.