Negligent damage to Chysauster Ancient Village

Chysauster Ancient Village is an Iron Age village in Cornwall which suffered severe damage as a result of inactivity on the part of English Heritage which was charged with protecting it by the UK government of the time. The village was centred around the remains of a fogou, an underground structure (probably) connected with Iron Age religion.

Only eleven fogous are known to survive and are consequently of considerable archaeological importance. Despite efforts by local archaeologists and the Cornwall Archaeological Society who offered both to help fund and supply volunteers in the work required to adequately preserve the site, English Heritage hatched a plot to bury the site. After a high-profile local media campaign, they were politically embarrassed into funding stop-gap reparations, but not before considerable damage had been done to the fogou and its subsequent collapse.

In the 1990s, archaeologist Craig Weatherill questioned the then head of English Heritage, Lord Montagu, about the dilapidation of the fogou. His response was curiously revealing: "It's not as if it's Stonehenge, is it?"

It should be noted that English Heritage were not the sole despoilers of Chysauster; negligent reinstatement work in the wake of earlier excavations resulted in the incorrect placement of some stone walls.