MyCornwall Magazine - Dec/Jan

Men-an-Tol,
West Penwith
With more prehistoric sites per square
mile than anywhere else in Britain,
Cornwall has a seemingly endless
supply of enigmatic ancient remains just
waiting to be discovered. So when Samuel
Davison set himself the challenge in 2019
of visiting every standing stone in the
county, it was an ambitious quest that
would see him chased by angry cattle, lost
on wild, foggy moorland, trudging through
waist-high bracken, crossing rivers while
balanced on rotten branches, and perhaps
questioning his own sanity!
Three years on, Sam believes he has
visited somewhere between 200 and 300
sites across Cornwall, and has just released
his first book of photographs documenting
this amazing adventure.
Matter of the Otherworld - the Ancient
Stones and Megalithic Structures of
Cornwall - is lovingly designed and
thoughtfully curated. It does not contain
images from every single stone that
Sam has visited over the past few years
- that would be one weighty tome - but
it does gather a wide range of ancient
monuments from the familiar to the much
more obscure.
Over more than 400 pages, the book
covers some 44 prehistoric sites -
standing stones, stone circles and quoits,
the length and breadth of Cornwall. Each
entry contains multiple images of the
featured megalith taken at all times of
day and night and in different seasons
or weathers, capturing the changing
moods of these amazing monuments. A
short description of the site’s history is
included along with vital statistics and
map coordinates to help you to discover
these forgotten places for yourself.
Sam was born on Cornwall’s north
coast, and beyond his love of landscape
photography he has also worked as a
luthier and jazz musician. His interest in
the prehistoric world was piqued just a few
years ago, when he was inspired to research
some of the more famous megalithic
structures, such as the Great Pyramids
and Stonehenge - places that have been
puzzling and exciting archaeologists
around the world for centuries.
“Esoteric science, geomancy, sacred
geometry, quantum mechanics, ancient
eastern philosophy, you name it, I was
reading a book about it!” he told me.
“It sounds strange now, but for a while I
had no idea of the parallels between the
ancient stones in Cornwall and the rest of
the world. One day, it just dawned on me
to see what was here in Cornwall, and you
can imagine my joy!
“Before I knew it, my dog Cody and I
were travelling all over the place in my
beat up 20-year-old car, trekking across
all kinds of moorland and all sorts of offthe-beaten-track
places, in all kinds of
weather - often getting chased by large
animals in the process!”
Once Sam started visiting the prehistoric
sites on his own doorstep, such as Brown
Willy, Rough Tor, Trethevy Quoit and the
n 44 | My
Issue 75 | December 2022 - January 2023