Page:The parochial history of Cornwall.djvu/226

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
184
ST. CLEER.

"After sufficiently viewing Dungerth's monument, we directed our course towards Cheese-wring, and soon came to the Hurlers, but first we rode up to the High Cross before mentioned, which at a distance looked somewhat like a man. Under its cross it has an oblong square, as if the border of an inscription, but at present there is not the least vestige of a letter on it. Soon after we came to the Hurlers, which we found to be moorstones of about five or six feet high, forming two circles one without the other (not as represented in Hals' Parochial History, but like that in Borlase), the circle nearest Cheese-wring less than that of the other. Some of the stones are fallen down, and remain where they fell, and others have probably been carried off for gate posts and other purposes. The areas of the circles are not level, there being many pits in them, as if the earth had sunk over large graves. I confess I was not much struck with the appearance of these famous stones, not having faith to believe they once were men. Near this place we fell in with a man going to Cheese-wring, and were glad to follow him as a guide. Among other questions, I asked him, as we passed along, whether he could tell me the name of the tenement on which Dungerth's monument was; he answered Pennant. I also asked him whether he knew where the source of the Looe river was; he said in a field next below Dungerth's monument. I was sorry to hear this, as we could not conveniently return to see it, but I learned from him it was a mere spring of water uninclosed.

"When we reached Cheese-wring, we discovered a man and woman on the top of the mount (on the declivity of which Cheese-wring stands), who, we afterwards found, were cutting turfs for fuel. Our guide first led us to the house of the late Daniel Gumb (a stone-cutter), cut by him out of a solid rock of granite (the rocks all around this place are granite, or moorstone as commonly called in Cornwall, and of the finest quality). This artificial