“Camden, in his Britannia, speaking of St. Neot’s parish, says, ‘Near unto this, as I have heard, within the parish of St. Cleer, there are to be seen, in a place called Pennant, that is, the head of the vale, two monuments of stone; of which the one in the upper part is wrought hollow, in manner of a chair; the other, named Other-halfe-stone, hath an inscription of barbarous characters, now in a manner worn out,’ which he thinks should be read thus: DONIERT ROGAVIT PRO
ANIMA. As for this Doniert, Camden thinks he was that prince of Cornwall whom the chroniclers name Dungerth, and record that he was drowned in the year of our salvation 872. Camden also says, ‘Hard by there is a number of good big rockes heaped up together; and under them one stone of a lesser size, fashioned naturally in form of a cheese, so as it seemeth to be pressed like a cheese; whereupon it is named Wring Cheese. Many other stones besides, in some sort four-square, are to be seen upon the plain adjoining; of which seven or eight are pitched upright of equal distances asunder. The neighbouring inhabitants term them Hurlers, as being by a devout and godly error persuaded, they had been men sometime transformed into stones, for profaning the Lord’s day with hurling the ball. Others would have it to be a trophy (as it were) or a monument in memorial of some battle. And some think verily they were set as mere stones or landmarks; as having read in those authors that wrote on limits, that stones were gathered together of both parties, and the same erected for bounders. In this coast the river Loo maketh way and runneth into the sea, and in his very mouth giveth name to two little towns joined with a bridge together.’
“On the 6th August, 1802, I went with a party of friends to see these natural and artificial curiosities, mentioned by Camden. I first got the party to Red-gate,[26] in St. Cleer parish, about four miles from Liskeard, in order to find out Doniert or Dungerth’s monument, which I understood was somewhere near to it. I made inquiry at the house at Red-gate after this monument, but could get no account of it for some time,
though I questioned in a variety of ways; at last, however, we got information where it was situated. It is about a quarter of a mile off from Red-gate, eastward, in a field next the high road. We got into this field, and seeing an erect stone went towards it, and found it to be the monument we sought. One moorstone stands erect, and the other with the inscription on it, lies in a pit close by. The figures of these stones in Borlase’s History are most like them of any I have seen.[27] I made out and copied the inscription very perfectly, by rubbing a soft stone which left its mark in the letters.
DONIERT: ROGAUIT PRO ANIMA
“This stone by recollection is about two feet wide at top, and about five or six feet in length. And the other stone, which still stands erect, and ornamented with cross lines, &c. is about the same in height.
“The west front is quite plain; the top has the remains of a kind of mortice, left hand corner broken off. The east front is dotted over, but has no letters.
“I find in Hals, that the pit in which the stone with the inscription lies, was formed in the latter end of the reign of Charles II. in consequence of his, Hals’s, going there at that period with some gentlemen, to view, as he says, the, at that time thought barbarous, inscription; for some tinners in the contiguous country, taking notice of these gentlemen visiting this place, apprehended they came there in quest of some hidden treasure; whereupon, as Hals says, some of them wiser than the rest, lay their heads together, and resolved in council to be before-hand, and accordingly went with pickaxes and shovels, and opened the earth round about the monument, to the depth of about six feet; when they discovered a spacious vault walled about, and arched over with stones, having on the sides thereof two stone seats, not unlike those in churches for auricular confession. The sight of all which struck them with consternation, or a kind of horror, that they incontinently gave over search, and with the utmost hurry and dread, throwing earth and turf to fill up the pit they made, they departed, having neither of them the courage to enter or even to inspect into the further circumstances of the place; which account Hals says, he had from the mouths of some of the very fellows themselves. Some short while after, the loose earth, by reason of some heavy rains which fell, sunk away into the vault, which occasioning also a sort of terræ-motus and concession of the earth adjoining, the said monument was at length so undermined thereby, that it fell to the ground, where it still remains. Would some gentlemen of ability and curiosity, says Hals, and so say I, be at the charge of again opening and cleansing this under-ground chapel, or whatever else it may be denominated, it might probably afford matter of pleasing amusement, if
not grand speculation to the learned searchers into matters of antiquity.