NAR SN89SE2

1. Rock cut ditch 56ft diameter (possibly round barrow-scheduled) with in centre empty post hole of gibbet, gibbeting irons found in 1938 'excavation'.

2. A low mutilated mound crowning an isolated eminence on a high ridge top, overlooking the old highway. It was described in 1960 as a ring ditch, 18.4m in diameter and 1.0m wide, with a low internal bank 2.3m wide (Putnam 1961, 33).
In 1938 diggings at the centre of the monument uncovered a post pit in which was discovered a gibbet-iron containing an adult male skull (Peate 1939). Worked flints and cremated bones are also said to have been found suggesting that this was a prehistoric barrow reused as a gibbet mound.
Local tradition associates this spot with Sion y Gof who allegedly murdered his wife and family in about 1700. The gibbet is depicted on a map of 1774 (Jerman 1939).
Having been mercifully buried the skull is now exposed to public view once more at the National Museum of Wales.

Sources: Peate in Archaeologia Cambrensis 94 (1939), 102
Jerman in Archaeologia Cambrensis 94 (1939), 102-4
Putnam in Montgomeryshire Collections 57 (1961-2), 33-41

John Wiles 16.04.07