CommunityLlanfihangel Cwmdu with Bwlch and Cathedine
Type Of SiteROUND CAIRN
PeriodBronze Age
Description
A robbed round cairn located on Pen Tir at 440m above sea level. It lies some 50m north-east of a mountain trackway and adjacent to a second (unmarked) trackway which passes close by on the north towards peat cutting pools to the south-east.
The cairn is a low stony mound overgrown with heather and bilberry. The most obvious feature is a cairn of loose stones, 2.5m across and 1.1m high, which has been piled up on the western side of a central dished area. The main body of the disturbed mound measures some 11m from north-east to south-west by 8m and is 0.4m high. Its shape has been distorted by robbing spoil which has been deposited on the west to form a low platform of irregular shape conjoining the mound and measuring some 9m from north-west to south-east by 5m and 0.3m high.
The site looks like a badly robbed burial cairn with spoil dumped on the west and loose material subsequently used to create a marker cairn. It has been scheduled as a ring cairn and ritual platform. The site is portrayed as a 'sheepfold' on the Ordnance Survey 1st edition 25" sheet surveyed in the 1870s and therefore it is likely that it once exhibited greater circularity than is now the case. Its identity as a formerly well-preserved ring cairn, subsequently disturbed, is therefore quite strong.
D.K.Leighton, RCAHMW, 11 May 2006
Resources
DownloadTypeSourceDescription
text/plainDSC - RCAHMW Digital Survey CollectionArchive coversheet from an RCAHMW digital survey of Pen Tir Round Cairn, carried out by David Leighton and Louise Barker, 17/11/2005-14/06/2006.