Trig point within Bartine Castle, Bartinney Downs - geograph

Bartinney Castle is an

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

enclosure located in the

Penwith Penwith (; kw, Pennwydh) is an area of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, located on the peninsula of the same name. It is also the name of a former Non-metropolitan district, local government district, whose council was based in Penzance. ...

Peninsula of Southwest

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

, England, United Kingdom, it is surrounded by a circular earthwork standing on a hill surrounded by various archaeological prehistoric remains, including ancient settlements, field systems,

tumuli A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones buil ...

and

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

s. One mile to the southwest is Carn Brea, the westernmost hill in Britain; and a mile to the southeast is

Carn Euny , alternate_name = , image = CarnEuny1.jpg , alt = Fragments of stone round-houses , caption = Carn Euny ancient village , map_type = Southwest Cornwall , map_alt = , map_size = , location = Brane, Cornwall , region = , coord ...

village and

fogou A fogou or fougou (pronounced "foo-goo") is an underground, dry-stone structure found on Iron Age or Romano-British-defended settlement sites in Cornwall. The original purpose of a fogou is uncertain today. Colloquially called , , , giant holts ...

, and the neighbouring Caer Bran

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

and

Sancreed Beacon Sancreed Beacon is a Bronze Age archaeological site near the village of Sancreed in the Penwith peninsula of Cornwall maintained by the Cornwall Heritage Trust. On top of the hill are several stone cists and Bronze Age archaeological remains comp ...

. On the hilltop are the remains of a circular bank, about 250 feet across, and an encircling ditch. This bank may have been much higher and there are suggestions the site could have been a sacred enclosure or Plen an Gwarry, which was a type of

amphitheatre An amphitheatre (British English) or amphitheater (American English; both ) is an open-air venue used for entertainment, performances, and sports. The term derives from the ancient Greek ('), from ('), meaning "on both sides" or "around" and ...

with rows of stone seats where feast days or

fire festival is an annual professional wrestling round-robin tournament held by Pro Wrestling Zero1 to determine the top wrestler in the promotion, typically contested in late July/early August. Within the English-speaking professional wrestling world, th ...

s celebrating the

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

solar god,

Belenos Belenus (Gaulish: ''Belenos'', ''Belinos'') is an ancient Celtic healing god. The cult of Belenus stretched from the Italian Peninsula to the British Isles, with a main sanctuary located at Aquileia, on the Adriatic coast. Through ''interpreta ...

, were held or where

mystery plays Mystery plays and miracle plays (they are distinguished as two different forms although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the represen ...

were staged. Other theories suggest a large disc barrow or an unfinished

hill fort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

; the outer wall is not high enough to have been of any defensive value. In the centre of the enclosure are three smaller circles arranged in a triangle, originally made of contiguous stones which have since been removed. The largest of these is forty feet in diameter; the other two are about 25 and 30 feet across. Local parish records suggest that Bartinney Castle was the site of a

marking the harvest or

Samhain Samhain ( , , , ; gv, Sauin ) is a Gaelic festival on 1 NovemberÓ hÓgáin, Dáithí. ''Myth Legend and Romance: An Encyclopaedia of the Irish Folk Tradition''. Prentice Hall Press, 1991. p. 402. Quote: "The basic Irish division of the year ...

, the Celtic New Year's Day.

The name Bartinè signifies the lighted eminence, or the hill of fires (Cornish - ''Bretanow''). The Druids, it is said, had their fires on the eve of November, when the people were obliged to resort and re-kindle the private fires in their houses from the consecrated fires of the Druids, the domestic fire having been first carefully extinguished. On Midsummer's Day, in recent times, the inhabitants, of this parish were greeted with sounds resembling the discharge of musketry in different directions, proceeding from holes bored in rocks, which being charged with powder were exploded in succession; and on the same day a new flag was displayed on every mine, and the night was ushered in with noisy festivities, and bonfires blazing on many of the hills.

The name may also be derived from Tinne, the Druid name for the holly tree, the burning of which was associated with the death of the old year and the coming of the new one on

or 31 October.https://sites.google.com/site/lookingforthegoodinit/ogham/t-tinne-holly Tinne also means a metal ingot or iron bar according to the

Bríatharogam In Early Irish literature a ''Bríatharogam'' ("word ogham", plural ''Bríatharogaim'') is a two word kenning which explains the meanings of the names of the letters of the Ogham alphabet. Three variant lists of ''bríatharogaim'' or 'word-oghams' ...

References

{{coord, 50.106474, N, 5.645986, W, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(SW407290), display=title Hill forts in Cornwall History of Cornwall Iron Age sites in Cornwall Prehistoric sites in Cornwall