From 'WRAO' on Facebook:
"Six? possible cup-marks on a stone re-used as a gate post. The hole in the centre is for a gate bolt and is distinctly different in character to the standard bowl profile of the cup-marks... continues...
First Tara.. and now the welsh assembley has followed suit by sneaking through the distruction of one of the most sacred sites on anglesey.
2km from Holyhead is Ty Mawr and Trefignath and surrounding tombs and circles.
Excavators are currently ploughing up the area so as to build a buisness park on the site... continues...
EXPERTS have been brought in to help turn ancient bronze age copper workings in North Wales into a major tourist attraction.
Focus for the Copper Mountain project, which includes the old port of Amlwch in Anglesey, will be the historic Mynydd Parys mines and open cast sites... continues...
A henge before breakfast! Just across the field from the Bryn Gwyn stones, the cold light of a December dawn illuminates the horizon as I sit on the embankment to write my fieldnotes. The bank remains satisfyingly large, with a clearly visible entranceway. Castell Bryn-Gwyn has been cut in half though and a small farmhouse hunkers within its precincts, which make you feel a bit like an intruder, as if you are sat in someones garden!
I wonder about the links between the nearby Bryn Gwyn Tre'r Drwy stones, and whether the whole area was part of a larger ritual complex, certainly standing on the bank the stones are visible to the south-west. It's peaceful here, magical in the early morning light.
Bryn Gwyn means 'Gwyn's Hill' (or possibly it could be 'Blessed' hill, since the name Gywn means blessed) and I wonder if there are any folkloric associations with Gwyn ap Nudd here? I've not come across any, but it's something I'll look into. I certainly seem to have lost time whilst sitting in the henge, as if the Twywth Teg were around, half an hour having passed like five minutes!
The stones are towering above me in the early dawn light, looming in the darkness in front of me like a pair of stone colossi. Waking up extra early, I've walked here from the holiday cottage where we will be seeing in the New Year, eager to visit some of the sites on Ynys Mon I've never seen.
Leaving everyone else in bed I grabbed a torch and OS map and set off for the stones and nearby henge. Navigating through the quagmire of mud from yesterdays heavy rains, I tramped across the field. The stones themselves are huge and chunky, this would have been such an impressive site as an intact circle consisting of megaliths this large. I'm pleased to see the stones cruel misuse as gateposts seems to be at an end, the rusting gate I'd seen in previous photos being nowhere to be seen. Now the stones act more like a ritual entranceway, leading you towards the henge of Castel Bryn Gwyn in the next field.
I give the stones a hug on my way past to the henge as the sun starts to peek above the horizon for the last time this year, being here at dawn is just magical. I think I'd underestimated Bryn Gwyn in the past, the picture in the big papery TMA doesn't do it justice. It's definitely worth stopping by to see these huge stones, and nearby henge if you're on Anglesey.
Ty Newydd (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) — Fieldnotes
Visited 31st December 2011
Of all my many previous visits to Anglesey I'd never been here before. Despite being only a stones throw from Barclodiad-y-Gawres I'd always found the maze of lanes around Llanfaelog confusing, or maybe I'd been subconsciously avoiding seeing the appalling restoration of the dolmen, now with an OS map in hand there were no excuses so we set off to view the site.
Initial impressions were hopeful, as we parked up in the tiny layby outside Ty Newydd's field, the shape of the huge capsone hove into view and I thought well that doesn't look too bad. Indeed from one angle it doesn't, but as you approach the true horror of the restoration becomes apparent.
Oh dear.
Looking more like a dodgy garage extension than a serious attempt at archaeological restoration the brick pillar 'supports' are so inappropriate as to totally ruin the form of the monument, and I desperately try to angle my photos to hide the ugly brickwork.
Well done to the 19th century gaping rustic who lit a bonfire on the capstone cracking it and necessitating this later awful reconstruction. I'm generally in favour of restoring megalithic sites but to be honest this one would have looked better if it had been left in a tumbledown 'dolmen on a blasted heath' type state rather than having been used as bricklaying practice for the Ministry of Works. Surely it would now be possible to restore the monument in a more sympathetic way?
If you can overlook the bricks the dolmen is of a good size, the capstone being impressively huge. I was initially perplexed by the small concrete posts which surrounded the structure, before figuring out that they indicated the circumference of the mound which would have once covered the dolmen (at least I think that's what they're for, please someone correct me if I'm wrong!) At least from one angle it looks great, like a perfect stone table, perhaps I can dream that one day someone will come along and restore it properly!
Maybe half a mile away, in the same narrow band of land between the Afon Braint and the Afon Rhyd y Valley, there was another massive stone:
On a farm within this parish [Llangeinwen] there was, within these few years, a large stone pillar, which was probably one of those called Meini Gwyr, by Rowlands. It was about twelve feet high; but when the present farm-house was built, having no fear of antiquarian anger before their eyes, it was blasted, to make lintels for the doors and windows. The name of the farm, Maen Hir (the Long Pillar), however, preserves its memory.
From 'The History of North Wales' v2, by William Cathrall (1828).
Rowlands = his 'Mona Antiqua Restaurata'.
On the 1:25,000 map, very close by, you will see 'Ffynnon Gybi' marked.
The Revd. Mr. Owen says, "Upon Clorack farm there is an upright stone with a large protuberance on one side of it, called Lleidr Ty Dyvridog, i.e. the Tyvrydog Thief, concerning which there is a tradition, that a man who had sacrilegiously stolen a church bible, and was carrying it away on his shoulders, was for his transgression converted into this stone.
There are also two wells on this farm, one on each side of the road leading to Llanerchymedd, and exactly opposite to each other, remarkable not for their medicinal virtues, but as having been, according to tradition, where St. Seiriol and St. Gybi (the former the patron of Ynys Seiriol, and the latter of Caer Gybi or Holyhead,) used to meet near midway between both places, to talk over the religious affairs of the Country. The wells are called Ffynnon Seiriol and Ffynnon Gybi, i.e. Seiriol's Well and Gybi's Well, to this day."
From 'The History of North Wales' v2, by William Cathrall (1828).