Mynydd y Gelli Stone Circle View all content for Mynydd y Gelli

Visited 6.11.10 Now it's not very often I set out on a days 'adventures' with only one target in site but after failing on my last attempt, I was determined to succeed this time. Since it appears to be no longer possible to gain entry to the access road leading up to the former landfill site I decided upon a different tactic. Once you find the village of Gelli (not as easy as it sounds as the road signs are not as good as they could be) I headed for Bwllfa Farm (as per Burl's advice). It is probably easiest to ask a local for directions as it is a bit of a maze of terraced houses / side roads to navigate. (As an aside I saw my first house with Christmas decorations!!) Once you have parked, walk up the track that takes you to the farm and you will come to the metal gate which is at the bottom of the farm drive. Immediately to the left of the metal gate is a sort of 'home made' wooden stile (strangely enough I saw two pigs feet at the bottom of the stile!). Climb over the stile and you come onto the road which leads to the landfill site (the same road that the bloke on the gate won't let you up!). Walk up the road and just before you reach the locked gates at the top, you will see a parking bay on your right and a battered public footpath sign. Go up the grass bank and follow the chain link fence (on you left) for about 10 minutes. You will then see a green 'shed like' structure on the other side of the fence. The cairns are a bit further on, over to your right. I am no expert and it took me quite a while a while to 'get my eye in' and spot what I believe were several of the cairns. They ranged from small ones, about 2 metres in diameter to large ones about 10 metres across. They were all covered in grass/moss and consisted of low mounds with stones sticking out of the surface. Some of the stones were large but most were small. There are a lot of 'natural' stones sticking out of the ground so it is possible that some of what I saw was natural and not a cairn. The ground was very uneven and the grass / brown ferns still fairly high so it was not an easy exercise to locate the cairns. The ring cairn (about 10 metres across) is in the same area but nearer the fence – there were several larger stones in this cairn. From where I parked it took half hour to walk to the site and although I am glad I finally managed to visit –the 'Welsh Stonehenge' in all honesty it is hardly worth the effort. There isn't a great deal to see although there are reasonable views to be had. The highlight for me was spotting what appeared to be a lone standing stone quite close to where the hill starts to shelve off. It is about 20 inches high and triangular in shape. Again, I am no expert so perhaps this was also 'natural'? One other thing I saw was an obviously recent burial site on top of the mountain. There was a small wooden cross with still freshly cut flowers around it. It made me think that over the thousands of years people were still using this site as a final resting place. Goes to show that some ancient traditions are still maintained? There are certainly worse places you could end up.

Posted by CARL 8th November 2010ce

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