Coombe Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Combe; Crane Castle

In the civil parish of Illogan.
In the historic county of Cornwall.
Modern Authority of Cornwall.
1974 county of Cornwall.
Medieval County of Cornwall.

OS Map Grid Reference: SW63474397
Latitude 50.24843° Longitude -5.31901°

Coombe Castle has been described as a Uncertain but is rejected as such.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Crane Castle is first mentioned by Leland who called it 'Coombe Castelle'. The OS record the remains of a cliff castle, consisting of double ramparts 80m long and averaging 2.3m high. There is no trace of an entrance. The remainder of the enclosed area has disappeared as a result of large scale cliff erosion. Tangye describes a rectangular enclosure which extends outward from the fortifications, which has earth banks up to 0.9m high and are approx 3.0m wide, with a possible ditch on the outside (south-east side). This enclosure is later in date than the cliff castle, probably constructed in the Post Medieval period. The banks of the bivallate work appear to be of earth and stone. Both the bivallate bank and the later enclosure are visible on air photographs and were plotted for the NMP. (Cornwall & Scilly HER)

The remains of an Iron Age cliff castle consisting of double ramparts 80 metres long and averaging 2.3m in height. There is no discernable entrance. Much of the castle has disappeared through erosion of the cliff. A piece of Early Iron Age pottery was allegedly found on the site. (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1004390, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number co519
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 426191.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 26605.

Books
- Borlase, W., 1754, Antiquities Historical and Monumental of the County of Cornwall p. 313
Periodical Articles
- Tangye, M., 1971, 'Earthworks in the Parish of Illogan' Cornish Archaeology Hendhyscans Kernow Vol. 10 p. 43 online copy
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 68
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 189 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Henderson, C., 1914, Notebooks of Parochial Antiquities. MS At RIC. Vol. 2 p. 317

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

Data >	PastScape	County HER	Scheduling
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio