The Cheesewring, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall (distance on right) with Daniel Gumb's 'home' in the foreground.

Daniel Gumb was born in Linkenhorne village, Cornwall on the 27 April 1703. He was a stone cutter, and set up home by building a stone 'cave' just below the Cheesewring on the edge of Stowes Hill. It is said that Gumb was the father of at least nine children. There were almost certainly others who died in infancy. Gumb's actual residence was destroyed by quarrying in Victorian times, but two incised slabs of the original granite have been incorporated into a reconstructed home, close to the original site. One of these bears a mathematical diagram of Euclid's theorem: the other bears the inscription, 'DG 1735'.

Gumb worked on his mathematical formulae during the day, but this was only part of his work. The endearing - if eccentric - parson of Morwenstow, the Reverend R.S. Hawker (who inserted Harvest Festival into the church calendar) described Gumb as the scholar who sat up at night, 'learning the customs of the stars'.

All photographs on this site: © Caroline Gill, unless stated otherwise.