An urn from Lanlawren, Lanteglos-by-Fowey

Cornish Archaeology 54, 2015, 157–170 An urn from Lanlawren, Lanteglos-by-Fowey A N D Y M JON E S , H E N R IE T TA Q UI NNELL AND GRAEME KI RKHAM The Lanlawren urn, a Bronze Age Trevisker vessel, was illustrated in W C Borlase’s classic nineteenthcentury work on Cornish barrows, Naenia Cornubiae, but is not known to survive. The recent unearthing of a watercolour illustration of the urn, apparently painted at about the time of its discovery, provides an opportunity to review what can be said of the depiction of the urn and to consider its archaeological context and parallels in the Early Bronze Age ceramic record. The Lanlawren urn was first depicted in print in William Copeland Borlase’s Naenia Cornubiae (1872, 145), where it was captioned ‘Cylindrical Urn from Lanlawren. From a Sketch by Mr Couch’ (Fig 1). However, beyond citing the find-spot, and including the engraving in a section of the text dealing with sepulchral urns, Borlase provided no information on how, when or in what context the vessel was found. The engraving published in Naenia Cornubiae shows a complete, relatively simple urn, which appears to have a small perforated lug. The upper portion is shown decorated by apparent cord impressions. The vessel would today be classified as belonging to the Trevisker ware series, first identified by Arthur ApSimon (ApSimon and Greenfield 1972). Trevisker vessels are found in Bronze Age contexts across Cornwall throughout the second millennium cal BC. In the first half of the period they occur within barrows and in other funerary contexts; subsequently, after c 1500 cal BC, they are found in domestic contexts in settlements (Quinnell 1998–9, 25; Jones 2005, 31, 37; Jones and Quinnell 2011, 212). A few years after its publication by Borlase, the Lanlawren urn appeared in Llewellynn Jewitt’s ‘grand corpus’ of British ceramics (1878, I, 11, fig 32). It is unlikely, however, that Jewitt ever saw the actual vessel as his engravings were taken from published sources. A number of Cornish urns illustrated in Naenia Cornubiae were selected for inclusion (Johns 1995) and Jewitt’s illustration appears to be a reproduction of Borlase’s engraving. One perhaps surprising outcome of publication in Jewitt’s volume was that the Lanlawren urn was selected to be one of the vessels reproduced as white china miniatures by the Goss Pottery in 1913, as part of a series of heraldic models of British prehistoric pottery (Johns 1995, no 17) (Fig 2). An internet search reveals versions of the Lanlawren model with a variety of crests, including those of Southport (Lancashire), Filey (Yorkshire), Sandgate (Kent), Pangbourne (Berkshire), Wellington College, the Royal Air Force and, a little more appropriately, given the urn’s origin, the manor of St Just, Cornwall. Again, it is likely that Jewitt’s engraving was used as the template for the model and that the whereabouts of the urn were at this time unknown. Catherine Johns (1995), in her catalogue of Goss heraldic pottery, lists the Lanlawren urn as lost. The original urn appears never to have been widely known to antiquarians and archaeologists. It was not mentioned by J M Winn (1845) in his review of urns then known in Cornwall, and was not described by Borlase (1872); nor was it included 157 ANDY M J ONES, HENRI ETTA Q U I N N E L L A N D G R A E ME K I R K H A M in Abercromby’s (1912) work on British Bronze Age pottery or cited by Hencken (1932). Florence Patchett included the vessel as G1 in her corpus of Cornish Bronze Age pottery (1944) but her description was again based upon the illustration from Naenia Cornubiae and no location was given. From this absence of information we can assume that the urn was lost well before the end of the nineteenth century and was probably never reported in any detail to Cornwall’s antiquarian community. Its disappearance from view could have occurred very soon after its initial discovery: some nineteenth-century country people were not inclined to keep urns and human remains which had been unearthed in the course of agricultural operations, reburying in nearby boundaries the vessels and the ashes they contained and sometimes also the cists in which they were found (Kirkham 2012, 13). The recent rediscovery of a watercolour painting of the Lanlawren urn (Fig 3), annotated 1844 and apparently contemporary with its original discovery (below), makes it possible to say a little more about the vessel and provides a prompt for enquiry into its possible original context. The watercolour was found in a private collection by Chris Bond and subsequently reproduced on his Cornish Sourcebook website. The authors are indebted to Chris Bond for a digital copy of the Fig 1 Engraving of the Lanlawren urn reproduced in Naenia Cornubiae (Borlase 1872, 145). Fig 2 Front and rear views of the Goss pottery heraldic model of the Lanlawren urn (Royal Cornwall Museum). (Photographs: Anna Tyacke.) 158 AN URN FROM LANLAW R E N , L A N T E G L O S - B Y- F O WE Y Fig 3 Watercolour of the Lanlawren urn by Jonathan Couch or Thomas Quiller Couch, c 1844 (in private ownership). 159 ANDY M J ONES, HENRI ETTA Q U I N N E L L A N D G R A E ME K I R K H A M image and to the anonymous owner of the painting for permission to reproduce it. the annotation on the watercolour directing the engraver makes it clear that this was the ‘sketch’ referred to. The initials T Q C which appear in the pencilled note added to the watercolour are those of Thomas Quiller Couch (1826–1884), a member of a prominent nineteenth-century Cornish family of doctors, naturalists, antiquaries and accomplished artists (Johns 2010). His father, Jonathan Couch (1789–1870), spent his working life as a doctor and surgeon in Polperro, only 4.5 km from Lanlawren as the crow flies. Jonathan’s principal interests were in natural history (for example, Couch 1838–44; 1860–5), but he also published a closely observed account of the opening of several barrows near Pelynt in the 1830s, donating what were described as ‘beautifully coloured drawings’ of finds from them to the Royal Institution of Cornwall (RIC) (Couch 1846; Royal Cornwall Gazette (subsequently RCG), 14 November 1845; Anon 1846, 18). He also produced a variety of short notes on other antiquarian topics, recorded antiquarian observations in his private papers and prepared detailed notes for a history of Polperro which was brought to publication by his son Thomas after his death (Couch 1854; 1867; 1871; Couch archive, Courtney Library, RIC). Several pieces of evidence suggest that Jonathan Couch was responsible for the watercolour of the Lanlawren urn. Late in 1847 the West Briton (12 November 1847) reported that at the annual meeting of the RIC held in Truro a week earlier, the Secretary of the Institution ‘shewed a drawing of a “British” urn, sent by Mr Jonathan Couch, of Polperro. The urn had been found in a barrow at Lanlawren, in the parish of Lansallos’ [sic]. The other Truro newspaper of the time, the Royal Cornwall Gazette, stated that a paper by Couch ‘on a sepulchral urn’ was read at the meeting (RCG, 12 November 1847). This paper was not abstracted in the following week’s edition as some other reports presented to the meeting were, and no account of an urn by Couch appeared in the RIC’s Annual Report for 1847. This did, however, briefly record the gift to the Institution by Mr J Couch F.L.S., Polperro, of a ‘Drawing of a Sepulchral Urn, found at Lanlawsen [sic], 1844’ (Anon 1848, 18). The writing on the inked caption to the urn painting strongly resembles that on a watercolour signed by Couch of a perforated greenstone ‘hammer’ recovered from one of the Pelynt barrows (Couch archive, Courtney Library, RIC; Couch 1846), although the style of depiction is not similar (Fig 4). The watercolour The original watercolour of the urn was made across a double page, perhaps of a notebook or sketchbook; a deep central fold is visible on the scanned image (Fig 3). The paper was matt, cream in colour and fairly fine, although not of particularly good quality (Chris Bond, pers comm). The size of the individual sheets was probably approximately 200 by 125mm. The side of one of the pages has been torn but fortunately the illustration was undamaged. The illustration is a simple watercolour with a light greyish-blue wash forming a background behind the urn and grey-brown shading representing a surface beneath it. The urn itself is represented in a dark terracotta colour with detail of the decoration probably executed in ink. The painting is captioned in ink ‘Sepulchral urn found at Lanlawren’ and a monogram, apparently representing a letter T combined with a C, is signed in ink below and to the left. The date 1844 has been added in pencil after the inked caption. Importantly, there is also a pencilled note across the foot of the page, presumably intended to run on from the inked caption, which reads ‘with fragments of burnt bone and Cinders’. The initials T Q C are added in pencil below this note. A further annotation in ink across the bottom right-hand corner of the sheet – ‘XXXVIII Reduce to size of Tresvennack’ – is a direction, almost certainly by W C Borlase himself, to the engraver of the plates for Naenia Cornubiae, Tresvennack referring to the findspot of another vessel illustrated in the volume (1872, 104). The Lanlawren image is actually the fortieth engraving in the work, suggesting that others were added to the sequence after this note was written. The engraver is identified in the preface to Naenia Cornubiae (ibid, xiii) as Joseph Blight, the younger brother of the Penzance antiquary and artist, J T Blight (Bates and Spurgin 2006, 209). The artist W C Borlase (1872, 145) referred to the engraving of the urn as based on a ‘sketch by Mr Couch’; 160 AN URN FROM LANLAW R E N , L A N T E G L O S - B Y- F O WE Y Fig 4 Watercolour sketch by Jonathan Couch of a perforated greenstone ‘hammer’ recovered from a barrow in Pelynt in the 1830s; compare the depiction in Naenia Cornubiae (Borlase 1872, 191). (Courtesy Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall.) Jonathan Couch was a fine artist, best known for his closely observed illustrations of fish and other natural subjects (for example, Couch 1860–5). However, despite the implicit attributions to him of the urn painting it is possible that he in fact presented it on behalf of his son, Thomas Quiller Couch. Thomas, also later a doctor, was born and brought up in Polperro and would have been about 21 in 1847. The monogram on the painting appears to be TC, rather than JC, and resembles one on a pen sketch of a bird dated 1846 in a small album of Thomas’s works in the Couch archive (RIC Courtney Library); it is also comparable with slightly more complex monograms which appear on some of his illustrations, the earliest dated 1850, which were later published in Ancient and holy wells of Cornwall (Quiller-Couch and Quiller-Couch 1894, 36, 37, 59, 89, 118). At about the period at which the watercolour was produced Thomas also appears to have used the name Thomas Couch (and would therefore have had the initials TC): his name is inscribed thus on the title page of his copy of a collected edition of Pope’s Essay on Man and other literary material published in 1844 (Couch archive, RIC Courtney Library). Thomas was undoubtedly a gifted artist from an early age (B Couch 1891, 150; Johns 2010, 80): he produced drawings from wax impressions of coins held in the British Museum to illustrate his father’s translation of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia, published in 1847 (Wheeler 1983, 115), and the Couch archive (Courtney Library, RIC) contains a variety of his work. His later drawings of holy wells are charming and full of detail (QuillerCouch and Quiller-Couch 1894). Thomas also had strong antiquarian interests. In the mid-1850s he guided and accompanied the young J T Blight while the latter prepared material for his Ancient crosses and other antiquities in the east of Cornwall (1858) – Thomas’s drawing of the cross at Lanteglos-by-Fowey church appears in the volume and Blight acknowledged having received from him ‘accurate drawings of Crosses, &c., in the neighbourhood of his residence’ (ibid, v, 61) – and in 1862 he was the official guide in east Cornwall for the visit of the Cambrian 161 ANDY M J ONES, HENRI ETTA Q U I N N E L L A N D G R A E ME K I R K H A M Archaeological Association (Bates and Spurgin 2006, 24, 60). He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (RCG, 4 June 1870) and was evidently proud of the honour, citing himself as F.S.A. in listings in postal directories. In 1871 he showed items from his own collection, including a Bronze Age bead, ‘celts’ and spindle-whorls, to members of the RIC lunching at Boscastle during their annual excursion (Anon 1871, xxxviii). His researches on holy wells in Cornwall were published posthumously by his daughters (QuillerCouch and Quiller-Couch 1894). A case can therefore be made for either Jonathan Couch or his son Thomas as the author of the watercolour. One possibility is that Jonathan, already a well-known figure in Cornwall’s learned societies, added a caption in his own hand to a watercolour produced by Thomas prior to donating it to the RIC in November 1847. At a later date, probably around 1871–2, the watercolour of the Lanlawren urn was removed from the RIC and given or loaned to W C Borlase for use in preparation of the engraving subsequently published in his Naenia Cornubiae. The withdrawal may have been made by Thomas Quiller Couch. His father Jonathan, the original donor, had died in 1870 and Thomas was at this time the local Secretary of the RIC for Bodmin and would therefore presumably have had a degree of privileged access to the Institution’s collections; however, Borlase was himself a member of the RIC committee at this time (Anon 1872). It was presumably Thomas who added the pencilled note bearing his initials to the watercolour, referring to ‘fragments of burnt bone and Cinders’ found with the urn. Thomas is otherwise known to have been in contact with W C Borlase prior to publication of Naenia Cornubiae: the latter acknowledged having received an account from him of a glass ‘adderbead’ – almost certainly a Bronze Age faience glass bead – which had been found ‘in a stone cairn’ near Fowey (Borlase 1872, 223n; cf Anon 1871, xxxviii). The note to the engraver, Joseph Blight, specifying the size at which the image of the Lanlawren urn was to be reproduced, was evidently added by Borlase while the volume was in preparation. What subsequently happened to the watercolour and the route by which it came to be in the private collection where it was seen by Chris Bond are unknown. It appears not to have returned to the RIC: no mention of it has been found in the Institution’s later records (Jane Marley, pers comm). It may have remained with the engraver, Joseph Blight, or could have been returned by him to Borlase. If the latter was the case the painting may have been among the contents of Borlase’s library auctioned with his other possessions after his bankruptcy and disgrace in the late 1880s (Cooke 1993, 28; Bates and Spurgin 2006, 223). The depiction of the urn The watercolour of the Lanlawren urn is in the simple style common among many antiquarian illustrators of the first half of the nineteenth century, such as Philip Crocker, the draughtsman and surveyor who illustrated Richard Colt Hoare’s Ancient history of Wiltshire (1812–21). Rather than including a landscape background or other artefacts as the artist Thomas Guest had done in his portrayal of prehistoric objects (Smiles 2005), and as Jonathan Couch himself did with some of his depictions of fish, the vessel was shown on a plain background with no attempt to set it in either a relevant landscape context or to include other objects which would give an indication of scale: we actually have no information on the original dimensions of the urn. Nonetheless, the character of the vessel is very clearly shown and the depiction is certainly equal to those produced by other artists illustrating Cornish artefacts at this time. Compare, for example, the urns figured by F B Edmonds, nephew of the Penzance antiquarian Richard Edmonds (Edmonds 1849, figure between pages 228 and 229), or J T Blight’s painting of a ‘sepulchral urn’ (Bates and Spurgin 2006, fig 32) and his drawings of urns from Penzance museum (Blight 1861, 194). Interestingly, Blight was encouraged in his earliest archaeological drawings by Jonathan Couch’s older son, Richard Quiller Couch (Bates and Spurgin 2006, 21), also a naturalist and doctor and an early stalwart of the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society, of which W C Borlase was also an important member. Richard too occasionally dabbled in antiquarian matters, sending, for example, observations on a bronze figure of a bull found in St Just-in-Penwith to the same annual meeting of the RIC at which the drawing of the Lanlawren urn was first shown (West Briton, 12 November 1847). The engraving produced for Naenia Cornubiae differs from the watercolour in a number of 162 AN URN FROM LANLAW R E N , L A N T E G L O S - B Y- F O WE Y small but important details. Both show a simple band of chevrons between horizontal lines but the engraving shows a down-turning chevron on the far right-hand side, the watercolour original does not; the vertical relationship between the band of chevrons and the vessel base is also different. Further, in the watercolour the chevrons appear to lie between the horizontal bands of cord impression; in the engraving the apices of the chevrons appear to coincide with – that is, they over- or under-lie – the horizontal lines. In addition, the rim in the engraving is shown more or less upright whereas in the watercolour it has a slight out-turn. It is clearly the same vessel – both show a large crack down the right hand side – but the viewpoint in the watercolour appears slightly higher than that of the engraving. These differences may be a consequence of re-drawing to create an original from which the engraver could work or, more probably, in light of the annotation by Borlase, Joseph Blight produced his engraving by interpreting the original watercolour. Whatever the reason, the two depictions differ slightly from one another. The watercolour, presumably taken from the original artefact, is likely to be the more accurate, offering a more reliable basis for future comparisons of form and decoration. Cornwall (NGR SX 1670 5330) (Figs 5, 6). It lies in a fertile area characterised as Anciently Enclosed Land or Farmland: Medieval, part of Cornwall’s agricultural heartland and farmed since at least the medieval period (Cornwall County Council 1996; Herring 1998, 77–82; Dudley 2013, 35–40). Lanlawren itself was first documented in the tenth century AD when it was granted, with its land and fish weirs, to Lansallos church (Padel 1979; 2005). At the time of the Lanteglos-by-Fowey tithe survey, finalised in 1845, Lanlawren was a substantial 177-acre farm but formed part of a larger composite holding which also included land in Lansallos and Pelynt parishes (Cornwall Record Office (CRO) HL/1/120/(vi); RCG, 12 June 1840). The farm was owned by the Howell family, who had been sporadically resident at Lanlawren until the death of David Howell in 1804 (CRO HL/2/153; Universal Magazine, ns, 3 (Jan– June 1805), 178). At the time of the tithe survey the property was owned by the latter’s son, also David, then of Trebursye (South Petherwin), but the land was in the hands of tenants. From at least the mid-1820s until the early 1840s it was held by Thomas Thomas and his family (CRO HL/1/120/ (vi); RCG, 12 June 1840; 1841 census: HO107/153 (part 3), enumeration district 10, book 9, folio 17, p2). Thomas must have left the farm in the early 1840s: the tithe apportionment recorded William Harris occupying Lanlawren and he and his family were still there at the time of the 1851 census (HO107/1903 (part 4), enumeration district 2B, folio 251, p8). The location Lanlawren is a farm situated in the ecclesiastical parish of Lanteglos-by-Fowey in south-east Fig 5 Lanlawren: location. 163 ANDY M J ONES, HENRI ETTA Q U I N N E L L A N D G R A E ME K I R K H A M Discovery of the urn The archaeological context Nothing is known of the circumstances under which the urn was originally found or how it subsequently came to be seen and painted by either Jonathan or Thomas Couch. The discovery probably took place in 1844, the date added to the caption on the drawing and cited when Jonathan Couch donated it to the RIC in November 1847 (above). We have no way of knowing how soon after its discovery the Couch family were told of it. Jonathan Couch would certainly have been known locally at this time for his interest in local antiquarian matters, not least for the ‘watchful eye’ he kept in the 1830s and 1840s on the removal of material from barrows near Pelynt (Couch 1846). He was evidently well known in the wider area around Polperro – he first went to school in Lansallos and Pelynt (Wheeler 1983, 102–3) – and as a doctor had frequent contacts with farming families in the locality, travelling considerable distances on horseback to make home visits (Couch 1891, 93; Hipperson 2008; Johns 2010, 101). Couch’s daughter Jane married into a local family who farmed at Tregue, Lansallos (Johns 2010, 34). This was also part of the Howell estate (CRO HL/1/147) and Jonathan evidently knew David Howell of Trebursye, the owner of Lanlawren: in July 1841 he sent him a detailed letter about local political matters (CRO HL/2/255). Couch also had extensive networks among local gentry and was particularly well connected at Trelawne (Pelynt), the home of Sir Harry Trelawny, making extensive use of the library there (Wheeler 1983, 136; Couch 1871, 12; B Couch 1891, 49; Johns 2010, 37). The novelist Ann Eliza Bray met Couch at Trelawne in November 1833, describing him as a ‘medical man of talent who lives in the neighbourhood and is a linguist, an antiquary, a naturalist and a zealous preacher . . .’ (quoted in Johns 2010, 38). Given this diverse range of local contacts it is not altogether surprising that the Couch family came to hear of the discovery of the urn or that, given their interests and abilities, either Jonathan or Thomas produced an illustration. More surprising, perhaps, is that neither appears to have left an account of what they knew about the unearthing of the urn; nothing referring to it has been found in the extensive Couch archive in the Courtney Library at the RIC. The annotation on the watercolour referring to burnt bone and cinders suggests that the urn contained a cremation and came from a funerary context. No accounts are known of barrows or other burials having been opened in the immediate area of Lanlawren. Field names recorded in surveys of the farm made c 1720, in 1815 (CRO HL/2/59; HL/1/147) and in the Lanteglos-by-Fowey tithe apportionment offer no clues to where a barrow may have been located, nor do accompanying maps. The caption to the watercolour stated that the urn had been ‘found at Lanlawren’ but it is conceivable that it was in fact discovered elsewhere in the locality and then brought to the farm. In 1840 Lanlawren was offered for lease with additional land in adjacent parishes, including a parcel of 4 acres named Carn Parks in Pelynt (RCG, 12 June 1840). The Pelynt tithe survey of 1840 recorded a field called Carne Park, measured as 4 acres of arable with an additional half acre of furze (TA 1250–1), as part of a holding called Polain, of which the lessee was William Harris, also the name of the tenant of Lanlawren from the early 1840s. No barrow or other funerary feature is known in Carne Park but it lies only about 400m south of the principal Pelynt barrow group (below) and alongside the same stream. The lack of information about the original site from which the urn came, and its discovery, is not of itself surprising: many barrows in Cornwall were opened without record in the post-medieval period by antiquarians and treasure hunters; many others were damaged or completely removed in the course of land improvement and similarly went undocumented (Kirkham 2012). W H Box of East Looe, another local doctor with antiquarian interests, lamented the ‘vague and confused testimony’ he obtained of such occurrences from the ‘accidental discoverers among the labouring classes’ (Box 1847, 56). Overall, unless further documentary evidence is unearthed, it is unlikely that the original site from which the urn came can be identified. Nonetheless, it is possible to gain some understanding of the local context for such a discovery. In many other parts of Cornwall in which Anciently Enclosed Land predominates (Cornwall County Council 1996; Herring 1998, 77–82) above-ground survival of barrows as earthworks is relatively rare and only small numbers are known 164 AN URN FROM LANLAW R E N , L A N T E G L O S - B Y- F O WE Y Fig 6 Probable Early Bronze Age monuments – barrows, cists or unmounded graves, standing stones and the Duloe stone circle – in the wider area around Lanlawren (data from the Cornwall and Scilly Historic Environment Record, with additions). from antiquarian accounts or air photographs (for example, Young 2012, fig 37). By contrast, the wider area around Lanlawren hosts comparatively extensive survivals of standing prehistoric sites, particularly barrows (Young 2015, 117–20), and it is evident that there was a rich Early Bronze Age ceremonial landscape in this part of Cornwall (Fig 6). Mabel Barrow (Lansallos) lies on high ground only 1.8 km south east of Lanlawren (Cornwall Historic Environment Record (HER) MCO 3086) and air photographs show several other probable barrow sites within less than 2 km (HER MCO 39935, 40063, 40080, 40082, 40427); the former existence of others in the area has been identified from historic maps and inferred from farm and field names (HER MCO 2998, 2999, 3890, 37217.10). Important groups of barrows are located south west of Pelynt churchtown – at least ten in the cluster known as the Mountain barrows (HER MCO 1961) and others nearby at Cartole and Hendra (MCO 2396, 2796–2800) – and to the south at Ashen Cross (MCO 2049–55, 39311); all of these are in Pelynt parish and within 3–4 km of Lanlawren. Several of the Pelynt barrows were opened in the 1830s and 1840s in the course of agricultural operations and by antiquarian excavators (Anon 1846, 18; Couch 1846; Box 1847). The report of the ‘drawing’ of the Lanlawren urn having been shown at the annual meeting of the RIC indicated that the vessel had come from a barrow (West Briton, 12 November 1847), but this may have been supposition. No mention of a barrow was made in the original caption to the watercolour or the subsequent annotation and it may in fact have come from an unmounded context. Unmounded burials – ‘flat graves’ – do occasionally occur in Cornwall, although it is not usually possible to demonstrate that mounds have never covered them. Several examples are known from the area around Lanlawren. In 1972 a cist containing a ‘barrel-shaped’ pottery vessel and large pieces of bone was discovered in a field at Headland 165 ANDY M J ONES, HENRI ETTA Q U I N N E L L A N D G R A E ME K I R K H A M Farm, Pelynt, 1.5 km north east of Lanlawren (HER MCO 28626), and another urned cremation together with unburnt bones was discovered in a cist found under a road adjoining the barrow group near Pelynt churchtown (Bond 1823, 68); a further cist containing an urn was discovered to the south of the village in 1857 (Dunkin 1875). A stone-lined cist, apparently empty, with a capstone 1.1m long, was uncovered in 1979 during ploughing at Carne (Lanteglos-by-Fowey), less than 2.5 km west of Lanlawren (HER MCO 26712). Further afield, Jonathan Couch recorded the discovery in 1840, perhaps in a flat grave, of a ‘very coarse brown urn, rudely made’ during the construction in 1840 of a new road from East Looe to St Martin-by-Looe churchtown; the urn was about 10 in (255mm) high, ‘clumsily mark’d round the mouth’ and inverted over a deposit of fragments of burnt bone (Couch archive, Courtney Library, RIC). A flat grave with a single vessel containing ashes deposited in a cist was discovered in 1840 near Fowey, again during construction of a new road (Treffry 1841, 66–7; Borlase 1872, 202). Another example, from which two vessels were recovered, is known from Portmellon, near Mevagissey (Sheppard 1961). A brief survey of such sites in Devon and Cornwall was published by Watts and Quinnell in 2001. The wider area around Lanlawren therefore shows evidence for a significant number of funerary, or potentially funerary, sites (Fig 6), although it is worth noting that when one of the Pelynt barrows was opened the excavators found no trace of an urn or human remains, only ‘black ashes’ and a perforated greenstone ‘hammer’ (Couch 1846, 35) (Fig 4). Other features suggest a more diverse ceremonial landscape in the area. A cluster of up to ten probable former standing stones – only two remain upright – on the Polruan promontory south west of Lanlawren may represent the remains of a stone setting, a stone circle or stone row (HER MCO 7439, 7441–4; Payne and Lewsey 1999, 248– 9). Two further stones are said formerly to have stood on the eastern outskirts of Polruan (Ackland 1975, 102; HER MCO 7485). No investigations of these stones are known, although evidence of prehistoric activity, including flint and sherds of Bronze Age Trevisker pottery, was recorded in the same field as the two surviving upright stones and in the adjacent area during a watching brief on cable trenching (Taylor 2012). Other possible prehistoric standing stones are recorded at Watergate and Great Kellow (both Lansallos) (HER MCO 7413, MCO 23450) and another was reported within the same field as the Ashen Cross barrow group in Pelynt (MacLauchlan 1847, 32). Standing stones are relatively unusual in lowland Cornwall, other than in West Penwith (Barnatt 1982, 95); the stones in the Polruan group are particularly so in being formed of slate (ibid, 103, 261). Barnatt (ibid, 100–2) suggested that standing stones in west Cornwall and on the Lizard may have marked out different landscape zones in the Early Bronze Age (cf Peters 1990; Herring 2011). Some certainly also had funerary associations, although their primary purpose may not have been as commemorative markers (Barnatt 1982, 95–7). In the Lanlawren area the only hint of a possible funerary association is the reported former presence of a standing stone in the same field as the Ashen Cross barrow group (MacLauchlan 1847, 32). A Trevisker-type urn with cremated bone was found in the early 1860s at the small and unusual stone circle at Duloe, located approximately 8 km north east of Lanlawren (HER MCO 18441). Some accounts suggest that the urn was discovered when a fallen stone was raised (Borlase 1872, 127–8; Tregelles 1906, 399–401); Dunkin, however, asserted that the urn was found ‘in the course of digging round the fallen or north-north-west stone . . . This ancient vessel was found at a depth of about 3 feet; not beneath but buried in the loose earth by the side of the stone’ (Dunkin 1873, 46– 7). Overall, the apparent concentration of barrows, unmounded burials, standing stones and a stone circle in this area around and between the Looe and Fowey rivers distinguishes it from most other areas of lowland Cornwall. Comparanda for the urn The Lanlawren urn was associated with human remains – the annotation to the watercolour refers to burnt bone – and comparanda for the vessel may therefore be sought among ceramics with funerary associations dating to the first half of the second millennium cal BC. The vessel has the slightly sinuous profile and flat-topped rim of many Trevisker vessels of this period, with the decoration formed by double lines of impressed cord. It is not possible to ascertain from the illustration whether these double lines were of cord twisted in opposed directions – the so-called ‘plaited cord’ (ApSimon and Greenfield 1972, 326) – or parallel to one 166 AN URN FROM LANLAW R E N , L A N T E G L O S - B Y- F O WE Y the circumstances of the original find, highlights the potential for both additional knowledge of the past and new insights into the early development of Cornish archaeology to be obtained through investigation of archive material. This case also reminds us of the apparent concentration of Bronze Age ceremonial sites in the parishes of Pelynt, Lanteglos-by-Fowey, Lansallos, Lanreath and Talland, and in adjacent areas on the east side of the Looe river and the west side of the Fowey. In addition to the barrows and flat graves noted in the Cornwall Historic Environment Record there were clearly many other funerary sites in this area which, as with that attested by the watercolour of the Lanlawren urn, have disappeared without any detailed record. Jonathan Couch, for example, wrote of ‘Urns . . . which at different times have come to light’ along the sides of the road running north west from Looe where it passed across high ground near Pelynt (Couch 1846, 33–4). He also noted the discovery in 1839 of ‘bones, urns, and ashes of human beings’ close to the bank of the Looe river within the modern urban area of East Looe (ibid). His son Thomas owned a Bronze Age faience bead said to have come from a cairn near Fowey, of which there appears to be no other record (Borlase 1872, 223n), and Patchett recorded twentieth-century finds of Bronze Age urns from Port Looe and Hannafore, both near West Looe, the latter with fragments of bone, but for neither of which are the find-spots or contexts known (Patchett 1944, 35, fig 8, table 4, D.10, table 6, F.14). These instances can be added to the relatively large number of certain and possible barrows and flat graves which have been more closely located. Was this a particularly well occupied part of Cornwall during the Bronze Age, with a consequently large number of burials, or was it a preferred zone for constructing ceremonial monuments and memorialising the dead? Or is the apparent frequency of such sites in this area simply an illusion of survival and the happenstances of past recording? The rediscovery of the watercolour of the Lanlawren urn usefully opens these questions for further investigation. It also acts as a reminder of the complex networks within the learned community in Cornwall in the middle decades of the nineteenth century: members of the Couch and Blight families and W C Borlase were all linked in some way to the urn drawing. Jonathan Couch is himself buried, another. It is almost certain, considering the range of Trevisker vessels now known, that the pierced lug shown centre front in the Lanlawren illustration is one of an opposed pair. The pattern of decoration, with simple chevrons set between pairs of parallel lines, has no close comparanda among known vessels from funerary contexts. It is assumed that the well-spaced layout of these chevrons is accurate even if there was some error in the number of lines shown. The closest published by Patchett (1950, F4, 59) is the vessel from Merrows (now Merrose), Gerrans (Winn 1845); this has four plain lugs. The fragmentary vessels from Treligga 2, St Teath (Christie 1985, fig 50), and Davidstow 1 (Christie 1988, fig 11) also have chevrons. One of the two vessels from the ‘flat cemetery’ at Portmellon, Mevagissey (Sheppard 1961, fig 20), has the most comparable impressed chevrons found, with only four lines of these; the vessel had two simple perforated lugs but these were not decorated and it is therefore not a close parallel. Fairly similar pieces (vessels B and Y) appear to occur among the fragments of numerous broken pots found in the ditch of the Trelowthas barrow, Probus (Jacky Nowakowski, pers comm). Most vessels with chevron decoration, however, have a much more packed pattern, with eight or ten stacked chevrons impressed between the bordering lines (cf Crig-amennis, Perranzabuloe: Christie 1960). The overall impression from a brief review of all available published vessels from funerary contexts is that zig-zags, rather than chevrons, were the more commonly used motif (cf Patchett 1944; 1950, passim), and that where chevrons were used they were in close-spaced multiple rows. What is also apparent, however, is the very great variety of detail in the cord-impressed decoration on Trevisker vessels used in funerary contexts. No vessel appears to be the exact match of any other, even if some decorative or formal features are similar. The long vertical crack in the Lanlawren vessel may well have occurred during firing and not subsequent to deposition. A similar crack is recorded from a vessel from a cairn at Stannon on Bodmin Moor (Harris et al 1984, fig 6). Conclusion The rediscovery of the watercolour of the Lanlawren urn, despite the meagre information available on 167 ANDY M J ONES, HENRI ETTA Q U I N N E L L A N D G R A E ME K I R K H A M References with members of his family, less than 2 km from Lanlawren in the small, private cemetery he established, and where his monument still stands, immediately adjacent to the Early Bronze Age Mabel Barrow (Couch 1871, 19; B Couch 1891, 131; Johns 2010, 66). We can be grateful for what Jonathan and the other two busy polymath doctors of the Couch family, his sons Thomas and Richard, left to enhance our understanding of the past, but may also vainly regret that they did not produce more archaeological work to set alongside their achievements in studying the natural world. However, as Thomas observed in notes for the preface to his planned work on holy wells, ‘The local antiquary who gathers even a fragment is not without his praise’ (Quiller-Couch and QuillerCouch 1894, xxi). Abercromby, J, 1912. A study of the Bronze Age pottery of Britain and Ireland and its associated grave-goods, Oxford (2 vols) Ackland, N, 1975. Parochial check-list of antiquities. Hundred of West 1: parish of Lanteglos-by-Fowey, Cornish Archaeol, 14, 101–7 Anon 1846. Presents made to the Institution from the 3rd of December, 1844, to the 7th of November, 1845, Twenty-seventh Annual Report Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1845, 17–18 Anon 1848. Presents made to the Royal Institution of Cornwall, from November 6, 1846, to November 5, 1847, Twenty-ninth Annual Report Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1847, 16–18 Anon 1871. The autumn excursion, Jnl Roy Inst Cornwall, 12, xxxi–xl Anon 1872. [List of patrons, trustees and officers of the Royal Institution of Cornwall], Jnl Roy Inst Cornwall, 13, not paginated ApSimon, A M, and Greenfield, E, 1972. The excavation of the Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement at Trevisker round, St Eval, Cornwall, Proc Prehist Soc, 38, 302–81 Barnatt, J, 1982. Prehistoric Cornwall: the ceremonial monuments, Wellingborough Bates, S, and Spurgin, K, 2006. The dust of heroes: the life of Cornish artist, archaeologist and writer John Thomas Blight 1835–1911, Truro Blight, J T, 1858. Ancient crosses and other antiquities in the east of Cornwall, London Blight, J T, 1861. A week at the Land’s End, London Bond, T, 1823. Topographical and historical sketches of the boroughs of East and West Looe in the county of Cornwall, London (J Nicholls and Son) Borlase, W C, 1872. Naenia Cornubiae, a descriptive essay illustrative of the sepulchres and funereal customs of the early inhabitants of the county of Cornwall, London Box, W H, 1847. On the barrows of Cornwall, with an account of the examination of those near Pelynt, Twenty-eighth Annual Report of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, 1846, 38–56 Christie, P M, 1960. Crig-a-mennis: a Bronze Age barrow at Liskey, Perranzabuloe, Proc Prehist Soc, 26, 76–97 Christie, P M, 1985. Barrows on the north Cornish coast: wartime excavations by C K Croft Andrew 1939– 1944, Cornish Archaeol, 24, 23–122 Christie, P M, 1988. A barrow cemetery on Davidstow Moor, Cornwall: wartime excavations by C K Croft Andrew, Cornish Archaeol, 27, 27–170 Cooke, I McN, 1993. Mother and son. The Cornish fogou, Penzance (Men-an-Tol Studio) Cornwall County Council 1996. Cornwall landscape assessment 1994, Truro (Cornwall County Council) Acknowledgements The authors and editors are grateful to Chris Bond for providing digital copies of the watercolour of the Lanlawren urn and to the anonymous private owner for permission for it to be reproduced in Cornish Archaeology. The website developed by Chris Bond, A Cornish sourcebook, on which the illustration was previously reproduced, is now accessible only through the British Library UK Web Archive: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/ archive/20090806120733/http://cornovia.org.uk/ hiac/hiac01.html Thanks are due to Angela Broome in the Courtney Library, Royal Institution of Cornwall, for her help with access to the Couch archive held there, and also to her and to Jane Marley, former Curator of Archaeology at the Royal Cornwall Museum, for attempting to trace the earlier presence of the urn watercolour in the RIC. Thanks also to the Royal Institution of Cornwall for permission to reproduce Figure 4 and to staff at the Cornwall Record Office, Truro, and the Cornish Studies Library, Redruth, for facilitating research in those institutions, and to Andrew Young, Cornwall Archaeological Unit, for sight of the results of the Lowland Cornwall project. 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