The purpose of the miles and miles of subterranean passages and caves remains a mystery
Deep within West Cornwall, a series of ancient and enigmatic underground caves known as fogous (pronounced foo-goos) continue to baffle experts. These unique subterranean passages and caves, found nowhere else in the world, lead to unknown destinations.
Despite their mysterious nature, it’s clear they served an important function thousands of years ago, even if we may never fully understand what that was. Among the best-preserved ancient villages in the South West is Carn Euny, near Penzance.
The village, occupied from the Iron Age until late Roman times, houses one of these perplexing caves. The settlement features stone house foundations dating back to the second to fourth century AD, with walls still standing up to a metre high.
At the heart of the village lies its most fascinating feature – a stone-walled underground passage. Fogous, the Cornish term for cave, are typically made up of a buried stone wall, narrowing at the top and covered by stone slabs.
This peculiar type of Iron Age monument is exclusive to the far west of Cornwall, although similar structures have been discovered elsewhere. Despite being in place for millennia, very little is known about their origins, reports Cornwall Live.
The foundations of the caves are believed to have remained largely unchanged, looking much as they would have when they were part of the original settlements. The village of Carn Euny was first unearthed by tin miners in the early 19th century, but it wasn’t extensively excavated until 1964-72.
Over the years, it has suffered damage from stone-robbing and farming, making the overall layout difficult to discern. However, archaeologists believe there were at least ten houses from various periods of occupation from the Iron Age onwards.
Carn Euny’s fogou is one of two such structures managed and protected by English Heritage. The largest and best-preserved is Halliggye Fogou, on the Lizard peninsula.
Experts estimate that there are about 15 of these ancient structures in total, with similar ones known as souterrains found in Ireland, Scotland, and France. Halliggye Fogou, also cared for by English Heritage, is thought to date back to the fifth or fourth century BC.
It was once part of a small farming settlement, likely occupied until the end of the Roman period. This complex of fogou passages, roofed and walled in stone, is the largest and best-preserved of several mysterious underground tunnels associated with Cornish Iron Age settlements.
Visitors can delve into the mysterious and narrow passages of the fogou, a hidden world nestled within a type of settlement known as a round. A round is a small enclosure defined by banks and a ditch, typically housing small timber or stone houses, round or oval in shape, often set around the age.
Excavations have revealed that Halliggye, where the fogou is located, has been occupied since the fifth or fourth century, making it one of the earliest known examples of this kind of settlement. The fogou’s entrance is situated in the north-west part of the round, leading to a short open passage with its original sloping floor.
The passages of the fogou then run entirely underground, containing several different sections built at various times, as discovered in excavations in the 1980s. The purpose of fogous has sparked much debate and numerous excavations over the years.
Win Scutt, properties curator in the west for English Heritage, shared with CornwallLive that there are three main theories about these intriguing caves’ purpose. He suggests they could have served as a refuge during troubled times, a cold store or cellar for food storage, or even held some sort of ritual significance, although he considers this last theory the least likely.
Win Scutt delved into the mystery of fogous, stating: “They are an Atlantic phenomenon if you like,” and explained that while “Fogou is a Cornish name but these types of structures have been found elsewhere and in Ireland they use a French word, souterrain, which means under the ground. They have also been found in Scotland.”
He then shed light on their prevalence in Cornwall: “I think one of the reasons they are in Cornwall is because they have adapted to the conditions and the geology. If you’re in Wiltshire for example, you don’t easily have the stone required, but I also think it was a cultural thing people did in West Cornwall, certainly in the Iron Age and through the Roman period.”
However, he acknowledged the enigma surrounding their purpose, adding: “But we don’t really know much more than that about what they are for and that is partly because they haven’t been properly excavated under modern conditions and even then it would be difficult to determine.”
