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Doniert Stone
St Cleer |
Caradon
NGR: SX 23617 68844 |
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The Doniert Stone, also known as King Doniert’s Stone, is one of two
ancient carved stones which stand together in an enclosure beside
the road linking the A38 to Minions and Upton Cross, on the
south-eastern side of Bodmin Moor. The two stones are parts of early
mediæval crosses, perhaps of late 9th century date.
The Doniert Stone is the decorated pedestal for a large memorial
cross and is panelled on all four sides with a mortice cut into the
top, probably to take a cross shaft and cross-head, each piece cut
from an individual block of granite. Three sides of the stone are
carved with beautifully designed interlace patterns while the fourth
is cut with an inscription bearing the name of the last recorded Cornish King. The
inscription reads “Doniert rogavit pro anima” which translates as
“Doniert begs prayers for the sake of his soul”. Documentary sources
refer to a King Dumgarth who drowned c AD875 and with whom Doniert
has been identified.
The second stone on the site, know as “the Other Half Stone” is a
decorated cross-shaft. A mortice in the top indicates that this
stone was designed to have either a cross-head socketted into the
top or a further length of shaft and then the cross-head. The
decorated panel on the front is an eight cord plait and the back has
broken off but the two sides are uncarved, suggesting that the
monument was never completed.
Both stones, as we see them nowadays, are only small fragments of
original stone crosses, and there can be no doubt that when first
set up, these were impressive monuments. Assuming that the Doniert
Stone does indeed commemorate a Cornish King, one can only speculate
on its purpose, standing as it does beside a track only 12 miles
from Hingston Down where in 838 the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar had
defeated a combined force of Danes and Cornish, thus decisively
bringing Cornwall under English control.
Similarly designed cross-shafts can be seen at nearby St Neot Church
and St Just in Penwith in Cornwall, as well as at Copplestone near
Crediton and Exeter (in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum) in Devon.
In South Wales, ‘composite’ and interlace-decorated crosses like
these are found at Nevern and Carew, although whether there is any
relationship between the two groups is uncertain.
In the seventeenth century local miners prospecting near the crosses
broke into an underground chamber beneath the stones. Despite
various theories suggesting that the chambers might represent a
chapel or vault associated with the stones it seems far more likely
that they relate to mining activities in the area.
The field adjacent to the one in which these two crosses originally
stood is identified as “Two Cross Downs” on the 1840 Tithe Map,
probably in reference to these two crosses. The name also gives a
clue to their original setting. Though now within a small enclosure
surrounded by farmland, the stones would once have stood on open
downland, like nearby Long Tom. At this point, tracks heading east
across the downs towards Kit Hill, west to St Neot and Bodmin,
south-west to Dobwalls and thence to Lostwithiel and Fowey, south to
Liskeard and north up the Fowey Valley all crossed, making the
location a significant one.
The Doniert Stone and the Other Half Stone can be visited at any
time. A small layby allows easy parking beside the road.
Sources
Langdon, AG, 1896. Old Cornish Crosses. Cornwall Books.
Langdon, A, 2005. Stone Crosses in East Cornwall. Federation
of Old Cornwall Societies. ISBN 0 902660 32 2 |
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