James Dyer of Crantock is credited in the detailed local account of Piper’s Hole with adding the horse carving in the 1940s. The female figure is attributed separately to Joseph Prater and is thought to be earlier.
That sequence matters because the carvings can look like a single memorial made at one moment. Later restoration added another stage: parish-council work in 2011 removed graffiti, recut the poem and restored the horse’s missing tail. Dyer’s contribution belongs to the changing history of the cave artwork, not to proof of the romantic drowning story attached to it.
Sources
Source 1: https://www.iwalkcornwall.co.uk/pi/pipers_hole_crantock
Connected subjects
Read on
- The Woman in Piper’s Hole: The Crantock Carving and the Story That Grew Around It
The woman, the horse and the verse at Piper’s Hole look like one tragic story. Their chronology tells a more complicated—and rather revealing—one.