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Pen y Fan

Cairn(s)

<b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheatImage © A. Brookes (11.2.2012)
Also known as:
  • Pen-y-Fan

Nearest Town:Brecon (7km NNE)
OS Ref (GB):   SO01202159 / Sheet: 160
Latitude:51° 53' 1.1" N
Longitude:   3° 26' 8.26" W

Added by Rhiannon


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Photographs:<b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thelonious <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by cerrig <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by cerrig <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by cerrig <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by cerrig <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by thesweetcheat <b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN Artistic / Interpretive:<b>Pen y Fan</b>Posted by GLADMAN

Fieldnotes

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18/03/2019 – Only had a plan to visit here as a maybe for our trip, if the weather was good. The night before we checked the weather forecast and it predicted rain all day, low cloud and a bit windy. Not ideal but it looked like we would get wet anywhere so we decided to give it a go.

Early train from Bristol to Cardiff then the T4 bus up past Merthyr Tydfil to Storey Arms. As the weather was a bit rubbish and it was Monday I thought at least it would be quiet on the hills. Getting off the bus, I was surprised to see how many cars were parked up already!

We took the normal route up via the Beacons Way. Not too busy to be honest and most folk we met were in decidedly cheery moods considering the weather. The forecast was spot on, rain and more rain! All day, never stopped. We said goodbye to the views as we entered the clouds at around the 600m mark. It’s a decent walk up on a good path. The cairn on top of Pen y Fan is good. I liked the kerbing on it. It seems well looked after considering the amount of people that climb this hill each year. After a few misty photos we decided to head east to visit Cribyn.

On the way between the two tops the cloud broke a little and we were treated to some lovely views north and south. What a fine location and glad it cleared for a while, it would have been a shame to miss it.

Cribyn was a lot quieter, just us and the hill. I couldn’t find any remains of a cairn on top.

I would have liked to continue on east but thought it best to leave that for another time. After a brief sit on a rainy hillside for a quick brew and bite to eat, we headed back over Pen y Fan. This time I was paying more attention and noticed the fantastic ripple marks in the Old Red Sandstone left by the seas so long ago it hurts my head to think about it, wonderful.

After leaving the top again we headed over to the cairn on Corn Du. Very similar to Pen y Fan’s cairn, I think I liked it a little more though. From here we arched NW to follow the track back to Storey Arms.

As it was a good 30 minutes until the next bus, we passed the time by eating bacon butties from the van in the layby there which I thought was a very good idea.

A really good day out and the hills round here are a must visit.

A shame about the rain but it didn’t really effect the day too much. I had a bit of bad luck at the end though as water must have got into my camera. It’s now well and truly dead. I’ve had it for over 6 years and loved it, took a little shine off a great day but that’s how things go sometimes.
thelonious Posted by thelonious
26th March 2019ce
Edited 28th March 2019ce

Visited 3.4.16

'Let's do a team building exercise' - not something you would want to hear in work (and certainly not something I normally approve of) but on this occassion the 'exercise' was to walk up Pen-Y-Fan. Sounded good to me. No only would I get to visit a site which has been on my list for too long but I also score 'Brownie Points' with my manager!

I took Dafydd and Sophie with me to make it a bit of a familly event as well. The weather wasn't great but at least it was forecast dry(ish). We met at the car park and headed out across the small wooden bridge and uo the long path. There were lots of people about and the car park and grass verges were full.

All was fine until we got about 3/4 of the way up and could see the summit was lost in cloud! As we neared the top the wind became very strong and the temperature dropped. It also started to hail! Sophie was finding it hard going and soon was wearing two sets of gloves and two coats. I also had to part carry her as she was getting tired, cold and miserable. Dafydd on the other hand took it all in his stride.

Upon reaching the cairn we were engulfed in cloud and could only see about 20m in any direction. No views at all of the surrounding countryside - just a blanket of grey. Sophie was happy at last when she found a few patches of snow to play with.

WE didn't hang around too long and my boss decided to go back down via Corn Du - another idea I approved of! This is a place I will definitely re-visit - but on a nicer day! :)
Posted by CARL
3rd April 2016ce

Despite the indignity of now having a twee stone National Trust tablet - bearing the name of the peak - placed upon its summit, the excavated, and subsequently reconstructed, Bronze Age cairn of Pen y Fan still occupies the same spot it has for millennia. The setting, here upon the summit plateau of this, the highest mountain south of Cadair Idris, is 'otherworldly' in the extreme, a desolate area of disintegrating sandstone slabs so uniform it would appear to have had its crown sliced clean off by a gigantic cleaver. Or similar instrument. Indeed, I have a profound sense of being upon something akin to Conan Doyle's 'Lost World', the effect accentuated by the restricted downward views due to the regularity of elevation of the immediate environment. Ha! A natural altar, if ever there was one, just like Corn Du across the way.

The downside to a visit here centres upon the seemingly endless procession of walkers determined to be able to say - in the immortal words of local comedian Max Boyce - 'I was there!' And good luck to 'em, I say, for it is some achievement. And who knows, a glimpse of that cairn may perhaps begin to germinate the seed that may one day flower into another stonehead? Perhaps. As for myself, though, a perch upon the protruding sandstone slabs below to the north is the order of the day. For here the natural world once more takes precedence, a striking panaroma rendered upon the broadest of canvas... the flamboyant sweep of the brush... as in the ridge Cefn Cwm Llwch boldly thrusting towards a Brecon sparkling white in the sunshine, the hillfort Pen y Crug rising to its left, itself illuminated by a passing shaft of light...the elegant skyline formed by The Black Mountains ending abruptly at the English border.... and the little, deft strokes to highlight detail.... a wild foal prancing and skipping far below, much to the apparent annoyance of its mother.. the site of a small defended enclosure upon the lower flanks..... Llyn Cwm Llwch shining like a precious stone beneath a monument to the death of a lost, frightened little boy. Yeah, that is what these mountains are all about. Contrasts.... Grieg's 'Morning' one moment, Holst's 'Mars' the next, but never, ever indifference. They insist you explore the full range and diversity of a sensory perception which, although perhaps fully utilised by our forebearers in the ongoing struggle to survive, is sadly under used by the majority of us nowadays in a society seemingly designed to anaesthetise. In short they make you feel ALIVE!! A primeval injection of reality into the bloodstream. Ha! More please....

Returning to the summit several hours later, all is virtually silent, the plateau almost deserted. Unlike virtually every other summit I've been on, it's almost eerie like this. The contrast, I guess. Hell, it just doesn't look like a mountain top! To be frank, Pen y Fan and Corn Du are very nearly unique in these Isles (the only other comparable pairing I know of are the much smaller Macleod's Tables on The Isle of Skye). Is this what attracted our ancestors so? Hmmm. Slowly I make my way back to the also virtually deserted Corn Du. After the crowds have gone, as they say.....

To be honest I don't know if I'll be back. If not, so be it, since I'm glad I came again. Besides, people will continue to make the pilgrimage to the cairns. Just as they always used to do.
GLADMAN Posted by GLADMAN
29th September 2010ce
Edited 3rd October 2010ce

Next stop on a tour of the central Beacons peaks, coming from Corn Du (22.5.2010). Arrived just after 11:30, already blazing hot under a cloudless sky.

Despite the hordes of people up here, the enormous flat summit gives enough room to find a spot overlooking the escarpment and Cwm Llwch, falling away dramatically to the north. The cairn itself is a modern construct and it's not easy to know if anything visible is original. To be honest, it doesn't really matter: the key to this site is the location rather than the monument itself. Just awesome.

From here it's off eastwards to Cribyn and Fan y Big.
thesweetcheat Posted by thesweetcheat
1st June 2010ce
Edited 27th December 2010ce

Pen-y-Fan and its companion, Corn Du, are the summit peaks of the Brecon Beacons at 2,907ft and 2,863ft respectively.

By far the most recognisable mountains in South Wales because of their enigmatic 'flat tops' - the result of a layer of hard 'plateau bed' rock upon the soft Old Red Sandstone - it's hardly surprising these high places were venerated by the ancient cairn builders.

Not a great deal remains of Pen-y-Fan's summit cairn nowadays - the monument having been reconstructed, following excavation in 1991 - but what does exist only adds to the 'other worldliness' of this magnificent viewpoint. To be buried here must have been the Bronze Age equivalent of a spot in Westminster Abbey.... only many times more relevant being 'up here'.

The summit of Pen-y-Fan is not a quiet spot by any means, the eroded footpath scars testament to the many thousands of visitors who make the pilgrimage, for one reason or another, every year, a high percentage from the Storey Arms to the west. But find yourself a perch upon the crags a little below the summit to the north, gaze down into beautiful Cwm Llwch with its circular tarn, a cwm resplendent with ancient tales, and Pen-y-Fan remains an awesome place to be indeed. Just make sure you don't forget the sandwiches the Mam Cymru had lovingly prepared. Doh!
GLADMAN Posted by GLADMAN
17th June 2009ce
Edited 31st May 2010ce

Folklore

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This country is well sheltered on every side (except the northern) by high mountains; on the western by those of cantref Bachan; on the southern, by that range, of which the principal is Cadair Arthur, or the chair of Arthur, so called from two peaks rising up in the form of a chair, and which, from its lofty situation, is vulgarly ascribed to Arthur, the most distinguished king of the Britons. A spring of water rises on the summit of this mountain, deep, but of a square shape, like a well, and although no stream runs from it, trout are said to be sometimes found in it.

This mountain is now called, by way of eminence, the Van, or the height, but more commonly, by country people, Bannau Brycheinog, or the Brecknock heights, alluding to its two peaks. Our author, Giraldus, seems to have taken his account of the spring, on the summit of this mountain, from report, rather than from ocular testimony. I (Sir R. Colt Hoare) examined the summits of each peak very attentively, and could discern no spring whatever. The soil is peaty and very boggy. On the declivity of the southern side of the mountain, and at no considerable distance from the summit, is a spring of very fine water, which my guide assured me never failed. On the north-west side of the mountain is a round pool [.. from which] issues a small brook [..] I am rather inclined to think, that Giraldus confounded in his account the spring and the pool together.
From Sir Richard Colt Hoare's translation of Giraldus Cambrensis's Itinerary and Description of Wales, of the 12th century.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
30th September 2010ce
Edited 30th September 2010ce

Cwm Llwch, the great glacial valley below and to the north west of Pen-y-Fan is rich with folklore regarding the Tylwyth Teg, 'the little people'.

Below is an extract regarding the valley's circular lake taken from 'The Welsh Fairy Book', W Jenkyn Thomas (1907):

'..In very ancient times there was a door in a rock hard by, which opened once in each year — on May Day — and disclosed a passage leading to a small island in the centre of the lake. This island was, however, invisible to those who stood upon the shore. Those who ventured down the secret passage on May Day were most graciously received by the fairies inhabiting the island, whose beauty was only equalled by their courtesy to their guests. They entertained them with delicious fruits and exquisite music. and disclosed to them many events of the future. They laid down one condition only, and that was that none of the produce of the island was to be carried away, because the island was sacred...'

More of the legend here:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/wfb/wfb12.htm
GLADMAN Posted by GLADMAN
24th April 2010ce
Edited 10th December 2017ce

On my ascent of the Vann mountain in Brecon, there often came a mass of limestone rolling down the precipice. "Ah sure," said the old shepherd, who was watching his fold on the mountain-side, "the fairies are at their gambols, master, for they sometimes do play at bowls with these chalk stones."
Such was his explanation; but, on gaining another ridge of the Brecon Beacon, I starteled a whole herd of these fairies, who scudded off as fast as their legs could carry them, having first changed themselves into a flock of sheep.
From 'The Philosophy of Mystery' by Walter Cooper Dendy (1841). Such cynicism from a man writing a book about apparitions.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
17th September 2007ce

Miscellaneous

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Like the example upon neighbouring Corn Du, the Bronze Age burial cairn upon Pen-y-Fan has also been excavated. According to Coflein:

'Cairn on the summit of Pen-y-Fan, 16m in diameter,excavated 1991, now reconstructed'.

In addition, selected CPAT records state:

1) Massive cairn 18m diameter with large cist at centre.Erosion revealed that Trig point had been built on top of this. (Jones 1978)

2) Excavated May and August 1991 in response to tourist destruction. Half of monument had already been destroyed. Cairn comprised a turf mound built around a substantial stone cist. Over the mound had been placed a stone capping of overlapping sandstone slabs. Larger slabs defined edge of mound. Organics well preserved below cairn on OGS and within basal layers of turf mound. Small bronze hoard comprising ring, sheet fragments and spearhead fragment from disturbed area on north. Fragments of cremated bone from cist and green copper alloy stain on cist floor (Gibson, A M 1991b, 14-15).
GLADMAN Posted by GLADMAN
24th April 2010ce
Edited 27th September 2015ce

Links

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SURVEY ON PEN-Y-FAN AND CORN DU - APRIL-MAY 1990


Report prepared by CPAT for the National Trust on 22nd August 1990 with 'pre-excavation and consolidation' images of the Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du Bronze Age cairns.

Very interesting reading and (in my opinion) a fine example of assessing the risk to some priceless upland archaeology.. and subsequently doing something about it before it was too late. Top work.
GLADMAN Posted by GLADMAN
27th September 2015ce
Edited 27th September 2015ce