Craig-y-Dinas, which crowns a prominent outcrop, is a stone walled polygonal hillfort measuring some 90m NE/SW by 40m NW/SE externally, with outworks extending 14m to the north-east. The fort encloses 0.18 hectare. It has extensive entrance works to the east where stone clearance and walling for an approach trackway can be traced for about 80-100m. There is a prehistoric roundhouse settlement below the entrance to the east (NPRN 89033) and a farmstead of post medieval character just to the south (NPRN 55993).
History of enquiry:
The hillfort is first mentioned by Thomas Pennant in his ‘A Tour in Wales’ (The Journey to Snowdon: MDCCLXXXI. (1781)), as he stayed at Cors y Gedol hall nearby. He noted (pp. 109-110)
‘I first visited Craig y Dinas, the summit of a hill, surrounded with a vast heap of stones, the ruins of a wall, which, in many parts, retain a regular and even facing: this, and some others similar, are the first deviations from the rude ramparts of stone, and prior to the improvement of masonry by the use of mortar. Into this is an oblique entrance, with stone facings on both sides; and near it are two ramparts of stones. The whole is on the steep extremity of the hill, near to which is a pass into the country.’
The fort is mentioned in the Royal Commission’s 1921 Merioneth Inventory (no. 199, p. 75; visit date 1919) where a photograph is reproduced of a section of exposed rampart walling which has been cleared and presented in a walled ‘inspection box’, a feature still visible on site today. The site description is reasonably thorough.
The fort is further described in Bowen & Gresham’s 1967 History of Merioneth Volume 1 (pp. 158-160) together with a new plan (Figure 65) which is accurate for the main walled fort, but not accurate for the detail of the northern ramparts and entrance approach. The authors provide a good description of the fort, noting the ‘art and care’ which has gone into the construction of the defences and the degree of destruction and collapse which was then evident on site. They draw close parallels with Craig y Castell hillfort, Cader Idris (NPRN 302966) and suggest that the design of both hillforts may well have been by ‘the same hand’. Despite a thorough description, the authors are dismissive of the ‘undue importance’ that Pennant’s visit and entry have given the site and suggest it resembles many other sites in Merioneth.
More recently the hillfort was described by George Smith (2009, 7 and Figure 4) of the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust for an unpublished visitor guide to the hillforts of Meirionydd. Smith suggests the site may have been a refuge rather than a permanent settlement;
‘The lack of houses within the fort means it was probably created as a place of refuge and perhaps as a communal meeting place, rather than as a permanent settlement or as the centre of authority of a chief.’
Smith also notes that there have been no excavations or chance finds. However, the ‘inspection box’ of the rampart walling mentioned above, and illustrated in the 1921 Inventory, suggests a C19th or early C20th investigation was carried out without record. The plan reproduced by GAT appears to be a reorientated re-drawing of Bowen and Gresham’s plan, and has carried forward the same errors.
Description: the hillfort setting and defences
The hillfort was visited on the 28th July 2023 and a new drone survey was conducted to provide new vertical images for stone-by-stone analysis. These have revealed new structural details of the fort and entrance approach.
Craig y Dinas hillfort crowns a rocky summit at 357m O.D, which visually dominates the inland moorland valley of the Afon Ysgethin. As noted by past fieldworkers, the crag provides a drier ridge projecting south into the very wet bog and moorland and the hillfort is naturally approached from the north along this rocky isthmus.
The hillfort forms a polygonal walled enclosure with a number of sharp angles in its single stone-walled rampart. It encloses the highest point of the crag but leaves some more level ‘dead ground’ undefended beyond the rampart on the south side. Along the west the crag forms a line of unclimbable cliffs. The easiest approach on the north side is further protected by a double line of lower ramparts, while the main entrance approach was a walled passage cleared through the outcrops and scree on the east side.
The fort is enclosed in a single strong stone-walled rampart, around 2m thick with inner and outer walled faces and an infill of rubble. While large sections of this have collapsed, good stretches of faced rampart wall still survive on the south-west, north and east sides. An inferior later wall, probably of post-medieval date, has been constructed along the internal perimeter. The external rampart wall is perhaps most impressive on the eastern side, south of the gateway, where large polygonal blocks and slabs have been locked tightly together and ‘snecked’ with small spalls of stone, still in-situ. These large facing blocks are built upon, and echo, the square and polygonal forms of the naturally outcropping rock face, and the whole may have been deliberately contrived to appear impressive on the eastward approaches to the fort as an exercise in monumentality (see Driver 2023).
Description: the hillfort interior
There do not appear to be any original internal features. An internal stone shelter on the north side measures 8m across and is probably a sheepfold. Despite earlier statements, there are several good areas where buildings could have been positioned. Lighter stake-walled roundhouses as recorded at Crawcwellt and Bryn y Castell to the east would leave no surface traces. A single isolated boulder perched on the highest outcrop seems an unlikely chance survivor from a phase of intensive consumption of stone during hillfort building; nor could it have been easily lifted into place in past centuries. It may well have been retained inside the fort for ceremonial purposes.
Description: the entrance approach
The main gate of the fort is presently inturned, but this appears to be a later rebuilding within the collapse of an Iron Age gateway structure. Perhaps the most interesting feature of Craig y Dinas is its extensive, structured entrance approach - a stone-walled passage which varies in width and structure.
The gateway passage begins some 100m to the east of the fort, and 20m downslope from the summit. Here there is a wide ‘apron’ some 56m across, cleared of stone, forming a V-shaped funnelled entrance into the narrow gateway passage. Perhaps at a later date a roundhouse settlement was established within this apron area (NPRN 89033). The walled passageway originally curved around and climbed the slope for some 60m up to the main gate from this apron, but was later narrowed with the addition of new walls at the apex of the ‘V’. These served to repurpose two natural boulders as new gateway terminals within a narrower entrance to the passage.
As the curving passage enters the final 25m approach to the main gateway, the narrow passage ends in a wider area picked clear of stone. To the north of this is a circular walled enclosure off to one side, now recognised as a guard chamber. Two natural outcrops of rock which flank the passage have been repurposed as bastions, and walls spring from their rears to form the final angled approach to the main gate. In places the gateway passage only measures 1m across.
There are traces of recent shelter building and disturbance to the rampart scree in the vicinity of the gateway, including the construction of a stone ‘chair’ to the south of the gateway.
Toby Driver, Royal Commission, 31 July 2023
References:
Bowen, E.G. and Gresham, C.A. 1967. History of Merioneth, Volume 1. The Merioneth Historical and Record Society. Dolgellau.
Driver, T. 2023. The Hillforts of Iron Age Wales. Logaston Press. Woonton.
Pennant, T. 1781. A Tour In Wales: The Journey to Snowdon. London: printed by Henry Hughes. Accessed here: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ecco/004889634.0001.002?rgn=main;view=fulltext
Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments and Constructions in Wales and Monmouthshire. 1921. An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire VI: County of Merioneth. London: HMSO.
Smith, G. 2009. A visitor guide to the main Iron Age hill forts of Meirionydd. Project No. G1770; Report No. 839. (Unpublished).