Trebarveth Settlement

Overview

Although the Salt-Working site has been studied since the 1920’s, the complex nature of the archaeology and the fragmentary excavation records leave significant archaeological and environmental potential for more information on the chronology of the settlement and its use through periods of climatic, economic and political change.

Several partial excavations have provided good information for building a basic chronology of the site. The earliest evidence for human use of the area is a Mesolithic flint working site on the south western side of Carrick Crane Rocks excavated in 1933 which produced around 650 worked flints. Several finds of Neolithic pottery in nearby caves suggest a long period of occupation along this part of the coast and hint at the wide variety of resources people have been able to exploit and live off for millennia. Extensive field systems extending from the raised beach up to the gabbro tors and associated roundhouses have produced Bronze and Iron Age pottery, stone rubbers and an iron blade.

The most accessible part of the site today is a Romano-British salt making site dating to the 2^nd century AD which sits dramatically on the cliff edge. The oval building, only half of which survives today, housed two rectangular stone-built ovens in which large shallow vessels called briquetage filled with sea water were heated, evaporating the water and leaving salt crystals for use in preserving food and trading. Large amounts of briquetage have been recovered from the site and as quickening coastal erosion pushes the cliff edge back, sherds of pot can be seen on the beach below.

The site of Trebarveth Settlement was part of Cornwall National Landscape’s A Monumental Improvement Project, which aimed to ensure that 40 scheduled monuments across Cornwall National Landscape were better protected, identified and enjoyed by a wider range of people. Between 2022 – 2025, the Project delivered conservation repairs, installed new heritage interpretation signage, ran a range of community volunteering events and developed new website resources. The Project was primarily funded thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with support from our other partners – Cornwall Council, Historic England, The National Trust, Cornwall Heritage Trust and Cornwall Archaeological Society.

Historical Significance

Trebarveth is an incredibly important site in Cornish Archaeology, as it was here that the importance of gabbroic clay was first understood. The lower firing temperature of the clay made the manufacture of pots and other vessels easier with less dedicated infrastructure.

The salt-working structure (T3) has an unfortunate history of excavation, detailed in Cornish Archaeology Volume 8 (1969) with a lack of published excavation notes or reports. In 1933 Dr. Vernon Favell excavated several of the sites in the scheduled area but did not publish. The finds, supposedly in the British Museum, can no longer be found and only 5 sherds remain of the collection in the Truro Museum.

In 1952 J. Manchip White re-examined the site but his work was unpublished and the extent is of study is not clear. His finds ‘deposited in the Cambridge museum’ cannot be located.

Thankfully, Edith Downson recovered a lot of information from the last surviving member of Favell’s excavation, Mr. Guy Maynard in the 1960’s which was published and provided valuable assistance in the most recent excavation in 1969 by Dr D.P.S. Peacock.

Unfortunately the site is vulnerable to erosion and since the 1969 excavation, a significant amount of the land has fallen into the sea. Roughly half of the building has eroded revealing large amounts of pottery, buried in the cliff and scattered across the beach below.