1. Largely intact array of anti-glider trenches sited on bare, open moorland to the south of Tor Clawdd. The moor achieves 317m elevation at its northern end, and the trenches are aligned in two parallel sets, each with a main north-south 'spine' nearly 1km long, and with a maximum of 10 pairs of east-west trenches extending some 620m, the whole forming a rectilinear grid. Each narrow trench is flanked by regular piles of spoil from the excavation. Recorded during RCAHMW aerial reconnaissance in 2007.

T. Driver, RCAHMW, 22nd Feb 2010.

2. The anti-glider trenches were built in 1940 in response to British Government fears that German glider-borne troops would land on suitable ground adjacent to ports, capture the port and use it as a bridgehead for a full blown invasion. The War Cabinet requested the Air Ministry, War Office and Ministry of Home Security to commence the reconnaissance of vulnerable sites particularly near to ports and airfields that would require obstruction on 13th May 1940.

National Archives War Diaries for HQ Western Command, File WO199/336, contains a tracing overlay for a map of Wales dated 15/05/1940. Entitled 'Areas identified for reconnaissance for ground defence 5 miles around airfields selected by Western Command', it was Western Command's response to the War Cabinet's request. The map depicts a large 1000 acre circular polygon centred on the port of Swansea, which includes Tor Clawdd. It is reasonable to conclude that the anti-glider ditches on Tor Clawdd were constructed as part of this national programme and as such they would form one of the earliest known WW2 anti-invasion defences in Wales, pre-dating the construction of the better known pillboxes and stop lines erected after the Dunkirk evacuation, albeit by a fortnight.

Very few of these sites appear to have survived. Other examples in the Thaw valley and around Lavernock Point, both in Glamorgan, have now been backfilled.

Information from Jon Berry, Cadw, 11th March 2010.