With a tremendous commanding view south over a valley of multiple river confluences, the cromlech has a fat capstone on three uprights in the Llech-y-Tripedd style.
Despite Children & Nash (1997) saying there's no trace of a mound, there is the clear remains of a mound higher than the chamber, with many cairnstone-sized stones poking through the surface of the immediate surroundings.
A fat capstone sized stone lies immediately adjacent in a field wall, along with two upright-sized stones. This is thought by WF Grimes (1939) and FM Lynch (1975) to be the remains of an entrance passage.
However, Children & Nash (1997) confidently assert it is the remnants of a second cromlech, in the St Elvis double-dolmen style.
As at Mountain cromlech in Mynydd Preseli, the incorporation of material in situ in a stone wall is actually a blessing as far as preservation is concerned, as the stones and any remains they cover are unlikely to be messed about.
The house adjacent has put an outdoor light facing the cromlech!
Directions: The village of Sardis is built on a 5-way crossroads. Take the south road, Thurston Lane, out. Just after the crest of the hill a footpath is signposted left down a track with double concreted tracks. Park here if you're in a car (don't worry about blocking the entrance too much, it's not needed by farm vehicles, just cars from a house). The cromlech is a couple of hundred metres along.
visited 25 Aug 04
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Marked as the singular 'Maen Hir' on the OS maps of 1912 and 1919, on more recent editions they're marked as 'Standing Stones' either side of a house called Tremaenhir ('place of the standing stones').
The first one is easily found, right beside the road and just over 6ft tall. Batman-ear shaped bluestone, like many stones in the area it's got 3 faces. It has '1850' carved about 3ft up on one side, an act superseded 10 years and 3ft later by a tosser called CG carving their initials and year of vandalism inside a square border.
The other stone isn't obvious. It clearly must stand on private farmland behind the house. We had a poke about and found a likely candidate, a 3-faceted pointed bluestone (like many of the menhirs in the area), heavily weathered and lichened and in the right place according to the Landranger map.
Archaeologia Cambrensis (1974) says there are two stones over 6ft high, but our candidate was only about 4ft. It's been incorporated into a wall and has been drilled to hang a gatepost hinge.
The fact of the farmhouse blocking the unquestionable landscape interrelation doesn't help with the sense of place.
visited 24 Aug 04
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I can't believe I'm the first person to list this site. It's in such a megalithically rich region I felt sure other stones tourers would have visited – how can anyone stay away with a name like this?
Indeed, as we started our tour at Mynydd Preseli and are now here, by my calculations that makes it an Elvis-Preseli holiday (rimshot, cymbal, thankyou).
Located on a public footpath through St Elvis Farm, this is an utterly extraordinary site – two cromlechs side by side. Both are damaged, the east side of the eastern cromlech has been drilled to hang a gatepost in the past, and both capstones lie on the floor of the chambers, but enough of the components remain to give a tremendous sense of the monument.
A clear mound of cairnstones rises up around the base. On the presumption that it was originally covered, it must have been by a single mound.
The nearby wall contains stones possibly removed from the cromlech.
Unusually for West Wales cromlechs, the site has no sea view, being on a north-west facing slope just over the crest of the hill from the epic clifftop view south over St Brides Bay a few hundred metres away.
The landowner is now the National Trust, so the cromlech is fenced off to protect it from livestock and has a little info board.
The folklore and power here is strong. According to the present farmer, a few metres away stood the parish church of St Elvis (last wedding 1820, last funeral 1850). Just beyond the site of the church before the farmhouse is an ancient well, supposed to be used by St Elvis to baptise St David. A pagan site usurped by a Christian one, yet the Christians have gone and the older stones remain.
visited 23 Aug 04
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Not to be confused with several other monuments in the area of the same type and name, this is absolutely stunning, a dramatic monument in a huge top-of-the-world setting.
Coming round the coast path from Porth Mawr / Whitesands Bay, this cromlech stands boldly silhouetted against the sky for quite some distance.
It's placed in the lea of two outcrops high on the headland, just at the point where you can see the sea both sides.
It's thought by some to be the fallen remains of a conventional dolmen, a view supported (no pun intended) by two possible uprights lying near the edge of the capstone.
However, others believe it to be an 'earth-fast' tomb like Garnwnda, ie that it was built with one end of the capstone touching the ground and never had a covering mound.
This idea gains credence when you bear in mind that most earth-fast tombs are sited on or immediately beside a natural rocky outcrop. Your first thought for Coetan Arthur is that it's the outcrop on which it stands. However, the view is across to the outcrop of Carn Llidi, and the possibly tooled flat side of the capstone faces it in the same way others face their outcrop (eg Ffyst Samson).
Furthermore, the capstone appears obviously shaped to mimic the shape of Carn Llidi. That being so, the capstone is surely in its original position – if it were raised level on uprights, the contour emulation effect would be lost.
The considerable prehistoric remains along this little stretch of coast, from Mesolithic to iron age, show it to have been hugely important for a massive period of time.
But even if none of this were the case, it is still wonderful to climb up here and be buffeted about by the wildness of the elements and made to feel very very alive.
Today the sun shines bright and the wind blows hard, and a horse and her foal stand beside the cromlech, the waves build, smash, drop and build as they have done ceaselessly since long before the monument was here and it all combines and piles on levels of the birth-death meaning of the place.
Perfect.
visited 23 Aug 04
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Carreg Samson has a wonderful epic sense of place, a total must-visit.
The cromlech has three uprights of tough granitey stone, with three of another stone that, like the monstrous capstone, captivatingly glitter with quartz. The dumped stones that lie recumbent in the field also have quartz in them, which you can see once you move the indolent cudding cows and mellow sheep out of the way.
Like many of the cromlechs hereabouts, Carreg Samson's stones are fat and rounded, so it looks squat and almost cuddly until you realise that because the stones are fatter they are also heavier, and this means a greater weight and corresponding effort in moving them into place.
Carreg Samson stands at the head of a small valley several hundred metres long leading down to the sea and straight over to a small island called Ynys Castell ('Castle Island'). The Modern Antiquarian recounts a legend that the capstone of the cromlech was flicked into place from the island may be a garbled clue that the island was a focus for the siting of the stones. To get here we came through the village of Abercastle ('River mouth by the castle'), which runs out to a harbour protected Ynys Castell, again suggesting the island as a focal point (there is no castle here).
From up here at the stones, as well as facing north to the sea, the view extends east to the cromlech-sited outcrops of Pen Caer peninsula, and beyond to the rich megalithic zone of Mynydd Preseli. There's a clear sightline to Ffyst Samson cromlech.
Carreg Samson's chamber contains a sheep that seems unfazed by anything and lets you come in there with it, although this is thought to be a recent feature.
Children & Nash (1997) say excavation found there to have originally been a 2 metre long passage entrance, and there were three pits, two inside the chamber and one a metre outside. If there was a covering mound, it means the pits predate the cromlech, as the mound would have covered the area of the outside pit.
The stones are used as rubbing posts by livestock and as a shelter, causing the chamber ground to be continually churned up. It amazes me how many megaliths continue to be damaged by farming. At St Elvis Farm the landowner is the National Trust, so there's a small fenced to protect the monument from livestock. But at so many others, even here at the showcase, postcard model, book-cover adorning Carreg Samson, the problem continues. We bemoan the appalling losses to agriculture of the 18th-20th centuries, but the lesson hasn't been learned and the damage – so easily, quickly, simply and cheaply averted – continues. Frankly, after 50 years of the tractor it's amazing there's any megaliths left at all.
If you choose to ignore Lotty's sound advice to approach from the coast path from Abercastle and instead approach from the farm, be sure to walk on past the stones to see the amazing dramatic view from the headland overlooking the sea.
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A tad difficult to find if you've only got the map. The footpath marked is not marked or obvious on the ground. There's a footpath sign a few hundred metres further north along the road by the houses, but it points straight into a 6ft wall!
The presence of the furious gorse that grows all over so many of the cromleched outcrops was off-putting, but we persevered and it paid off.
It stands with the capstone on two remaining uprights, with such squared angles involved that it looks for all the world like a mini-Stonehenge.
As with so many cromlechs in the area, the capstone is a fat-spearhead like D-shape. The possibly tooled flat end faces the pillar outcrop. There are clear views to the same three peaks of Mynydd Preseli visible from most monuments hereabouts, to all the northern outcrops of the Pen Caer/ Strumble Head peninsula, Carn Gelli (the outcrop above Ffynnon Druidion), and a clear sightline to Carreg Samson cromlech and the peaks around Pen Caer Dewi/ St David's Head.
Glad to see that somebody's been deliberately clearing the cromlech of gorse.
Directions: From the road at the western side, head up the hill towards the rocky outcrop. Once above it, you see a dramatic towering pillar of outcrop beyond – head towards this. The cromlech is in the same fence boundary as it, 60metres below, SW toward the houses.
visited 22 Aug 04
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Another of this region's triangular stones, this solitary menhir stands on a public footpath with a clear line of sight to the site of Ffynnon Druidion cromlech and the significant outcrops of Carn Gelli and Garn Wnda.
No sea view here, but here's the same horizon of Mynydd Dinas and Mynydd Preseli that is common to the majority of megalithic sites in the area. For this part of the world, the megaliths are all about Mynydd Preseli.
Here, as at most of the Pen Caer/Strumble Head sites, the design of the three outcrops on Mynydd Dinas is repeated to the right as the three peaks of Mynydd Preseli.
This menhir stands on a level plateau (as with the Ffynnon Druidion standing stone), with the hills cosily close in to the West and South and a feeling of expanse to the North and East.
A tumulus stands adjacent only a few metres away to the south, showing the prolonged importance of this landscape to the ancients.
visited 21 Aug 04
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Around 7ft tall and 3ft wide, this is another of the area's 3-sided standing stones. Standing on level ground – a rarity in this landscape – the views are up to Carn Gelli and Garn Wnda. Just a couple of hundred metres north is the site of Ffynnon Druidion cromlech.
There's a possible sightline to Rhos y Clegyrn standing stone and its tumulus approx 1km SW, on the side of the hill that bears the Ffyst Samson cromlech. The view also includes, as per 95% of the monuments round here, Mynydd Preseli and the sea.
With the tumulus, two standing stones, cromlech, and Garn Wnda this stone sits at the centre of a landscape bowl filled with monuments built over several millennia.
visited 21 Aug 04
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Just the other side of the outcrop from the spectacular Garnwnda cromlech, this solitary menhir is a bizarre shape.
Sporting five different triangular faces, it stands abut 7ft tall and 3ft broad. Triangularity is a common theme with menhirs in this region, a serious proportion have three faces.
The view east is Bae Abergwaun/ Fishguard Bay and the open sea, Mynydd Dinas and Mynydd Preseli, the view north is the nearby rocky outcrops of Y Garn and Garn Folch, but it's set just far enough down the slope that the sea to the north and west and Garn Fawr and Penmaen Dewi/St David's Head are out of sight.
It's in a level field, four-fifths of the way from between the abandoned Hennen School (we went into a detailed daydream about moving in there) to the Garn Wnda outcrop.
visited 21 Aug 04
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This is an absolutely staggering place. It's not just the fact that the rain's abated and we're in the first glorious sunshine of our tour, there is something a lot more, a solid, strident magnificence to this place and its view.
Our theory that the burial chambers with names on the OS map (Gwal-y-Filiast, Pentre Ifan, etc) are generally in better nick than the ones merely marked 'Burial Chamber' is once again confirmed here.
Our other theory of the Pen Caer cromlechs being Calanais-style orientated on rock outcrops is rammed home hard – this cromlech is literally sticking out of the outcrop!
Looking up the hill from the south there's a weird flat slab of capstone jutting out. Get up here and it's resting on a single upright, 12ft long bluestone at a 45 degree angle, facing out at a rugged horizon around Garn Fawr. There was some encroachemnt from ivy and bracken., which we removed.
It's an 'earth-fast' cromlech, one side of the capstone resting on the ground. It can clearly never have had a covering mound as it's so hard against the outcrop. Children & Nash (1997) say these cromlechs came later than the others.
In The Modern Antiquarian, Cope refutes the idea given by some (such as Chris Barber) that those others were never covered, and suggests a later cult of uncovering the mounded tombs. Could the earth-fast builders, with their belief in cromlechs of stone open to the sky, be that later cult?
Climb the extra few feet to the top of the outcrop for the most amazing panorama. To the west the outcrops of Garn Fawr, Garn Fechan, Garn Gilfach and Garn Folch form a serrated skyline; scoop clockwise past the Pen Caer lighthouse; Carreg Wastad Point where the French invaded in 1797; the sea coming in to the village of Llanwnda (whose churchyard apparently has an ancient holy well); round to look east with the foreground showing the outcrop by the Penrhiw cromlech, the background being the view from those cromlechs of Bae Abergwaun/ Fishguard Bay and the mountains of Mynydd Dinas and Mynydd Preseli. Turn further to see Carn Gelli outcrop, which presides over the Ffynnon Druidion burial chamber, then the sacred mounds along Penmaen Dewi/ St David's Head and two islands in the open sea.
It's an utterly amazing view, a total must-visit of a place irrespective of the great megalithic value. The sun is out now, the sea a rich grey-blue and I wouldn't be anywhere else.
A few people have had problems finding it, so here's directions: Just before you descend into Llanwnda you see the outcrop above you on the left. Then there's a turning marked Garn Gron and Garn Fach on the left, and a wooden public footpath sign. Take this and keep going till you run out of road at the last house, Garn Fach. The footpath runs in front of you to the left of the house. Look up to your left and there's an obvious flat slab just below the summit. This is it!
Take the footpath 30 metres or so, then there's one that goes straight up to the cromlech. If you're coming by car, go beyond the Garn Gron turning to the village, park by the church and walk back up.
Incidentally, the footpath loops right round the outcrop, and in a field off the south side is Parc Hen standing stone.
visited 20 Aug 04
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This battered and patched-up cromlech stands barely 600 metres from the treble cromlech of Carn Wen to the east and 900 metres from Carn Wnda to the west. All these monuments are clearly sited at the foot of a natural rock outcrop.
GE Daniel (1950) says the capstone was only resting on two uprights. A third upright has been put in place since then.
The capstone rests on uprights that are wider than they are tall, like menhirs lying on their side. The tooled flat end of the capstone faces the outcrop (now hidden behind a small copse).
Capstones are generally assumed to be orientated towards where the pointy end faces; but if there's the effort gone into tooling an end flat, perhaps that side is a 'facing' direction. The fact that this capstone has the possibly tooled flat end pointing toward the obviously significant outcrop certainly suggests this.
Barber & Williams (1989) report there being an 1865 photo of this cromlech in Carmarthen Museum. Anyone fancy hunting a copy and seeing what state it was in then? They also say that the Royal Commission of Ancient monuments No.458(a) of Pembroke reports the capstone of 14ft x 8 ft was overthrown. This is certainly not the stone I see in place here, which I'd guess is roughly 8ftx5ft. Has it been broken? Replaced entirely?
There is a ragged, botched feeling to the state of this cromlech. But it's an essential part of the composite picture of the fantastic array of Pen Caer cromlechs.
The three outcrops over the bay on Mynydd Dinas constantly draw the eye, with the three peaks on Mynydd Preseli right behind. The sea is just out of view.
The monument stands on organic farmland just off a public footpath. Ask permission from the farm and give them big respect for their organic status.
visited 20 Aug 04
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Despite being marked on the OS map as 'Burial Chamber', it is in fact three, in the 'sub-megalithic' design of a chamber half above and half below ground level. They stand in dogshit-ridden semi-municipal paths and gorse and heather with an astonishing view to the sea.
Although clearly sited to look across Bae Abergwaun/ Fishguard Bay to Mynydd Preseli, they are not bluestone. The view is obscured by a development of houses, and all three are only just over the fence from back gardens.
However, from the Penrhiw cromlech 600 metres away there's a clear version of the view. The three outcrops over the bay on Mynydd Dinas constantly draw the eye, with the three peaks on Mynydd Preseli right behind. Could this somehow tally with the decision to build three cromlechs here?
The southernmost (yet another place known as Carreg Samson) is the largest and best-preserved of them. The capstone is a white quartzy rock, 10ftx6ft, with edges so sheer they're surely tooled. It stands on three sidelong uprights, while two more lie beside and another serves as a gatepost. The back-of-the-houses vibe of the site is present here in force. We removed the binliner of domestic rubbish that was in the chamber of this cromlech.
About 50 metres north, the middle one is propped 2ft off the ground, again crumbled but not destroyed. The capstone is the same white stone, slightly smaller than the southern one.
The northern one lies only 6 metres from the middle one. This one's the smallest, a 6ft x 8ft capstone (white stone again), all overgrown with ivy. These two stand at the very foot of a prominent rocky outcrop; all the cromlechs on the Pen Caer/Strumble Head peninsula seem to be - Calanais style – focussed on a rock outcrop that was perhaps the original temple predating the cromlech.
Rhiannon's note that they were covered by a single mound is highly doubtful – they are spread over about 50 metres!
Children & Nash (1997) say they were individually covered by round mounds. They also suggest the remains of a fourth cromlech lies to the north, in line with the other three. The Pembrokeshire Archaeological survey (1897-1906) reported nine! There are many natural slabs that look like capstones, so their confusion is understandable.
The multiple-cromlech is not unique to this site. There are several double cromlechs around West Wales (such as St Elvis Farm), a possible triple one at Eithbed, and a quadruple at Morfa Bycham.
The nearby info board is not particularly good, giving a load of West-Kennet style 'burial of VIPs' guff.
visited 20 Aug 04
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Barely a mile west of Llech-y-Tripedd lies this crumbling cromlech. And here too the Mynydd Preseli arcs to the south and the tiniest V shape of Bae Trefdraeth/Newport Bay is showing.
The stones are a sorry jumble and a bit difficult to make sense of at first. There's a grassy mound at the northern edge with cairnstone-sized stones and two thin upright-sized ones that feel like the original site, though most of the stones are piled a metre away. Children & Nash (1997) confidently suggest this is because it was a double-chambered dolmen (a common design in North Wales but a rare thing in this part of the world).
There are a couple of bulky boulders that feel wholly unlike cromlech stones, and I'd suggest they might be field clearance. Proper orientation is gone, but we still have the site and the constituent stones.
The one on top is clearly a capstone – about 7ft x 6ft, flat-topped, sheer-ended and fat-spearhead shaped. It has over 30 pits on it, which many credible researchers credit as cup marks (the more straight-laced Welsh Commission on Ancient Monuments says that as the marks are of varying size and randomly distributed they are natural. Perhaps they've yet to understand the nature of cup marks).
The site is clearly visible from the road, but it stands some distance away on private farmland with no right of way, so do ask permission from Trellyffant Farm. We did, and despite being very busy the farmer was gracious and generous.
visited 19 Aug 04
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This is a cromlech in the Carreg Samson style – an outrageous fat capstone on tiny uprights about 3ft tall. The northern upright has a serious crack in it, apparently from recent-ish fire damage.
The capstone, like many in the area, has a sheer flat (tooled?) end to it, giving it a fat spearhead D-shape. Although the underside is roundedly level, the top is a sheer flat face tilting at 45 degrees.
Ten inches or so of discernable mound surrounds the monument.
The site has a tremendous high-up feeling. The view out is of the huge sweep of Mynydd Preseli to the south, a glimpse of Bae Trefdraeth/Newport Bay to the west, the imposing whoop-up of Carn Ingli between the two and just in view to the north is the shimmering expanse of the open sea.
Children & Nash (1997) say that a 1693 description reports the nearby fallen upright as still in place.
The Modern Antiquarian's note that it's 'difficult to find even when you've been there several times' is just plain wrong. On the coast road between Trefdraeth/Newport to Trewyddel/Moylgrove, follow the concrete track on the south side signposted Penlan Farm. After it turns to gravel, keep going for 500m, then it turns sharp left. The cromlech is about 200m further on over a stile in a field on your right.
Penlan Farm also offers B&B facilities, by the way.
visited 19 Aug 04
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As with Eithbed, you'd not know there was a public footpath here if OS didn't tell you so. About 100m in from the road and lay-by, the enormous capstone lies over its chamber, built into a field boundary wall. Five fallen uprights, all about 6ft tall, lie around, four on one side of the wall and one on the other.
There are other smaller stones around and under the stone that are very likely to have been part of the construction. The capstone is a monster, about 10ft across and like many in the area there's a notable flat end (tooled?) giving it a sort of filled-in D shape, like a fat spearhead.
Although it's in a sorry state, it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to get a vibe for its basic orientation and structure.
Although the siting in a field wall gives you problems in fully appreciating this massive cromlech, it might actually be doing us a favour – it is unlikely to suffer the usual farmer assaults, either being moved or ploughed, and so the archaeology and any burial contents may well be being preserved.
visited 18 Aug 04
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Standing on boggy land at the foot of the basin of mountains you see when looking north-west from Gors Fawr, Cerrig Meibion Arthur is two tall stones barely 6ft apart on an east-west axis. One 6 and a half ft high, only 1ft thick and two and a half feet broad, the other the same depth, marginally taller but much fatter.
Both stones have deep puddles of water at the base, more so with the thin stone, which is now leaning over.
There's probably a sight line on Glynaeron 1 & 2 standing stones if they weren't buried in hedges. Didn't check it out due to the furious drenching we've received thanks to being here during Pembrokeshire's monsoon season. Droplets of rain jumping several inches back out of the puddles as we huddled behind the stones!
The house in the middle is called Glynsaithmaen – 'glen of seven stones'.
visited 18 Aug 04
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Marked on the OS map as Burial Chamber – just as the pristine Gwal-y-Filiast is – there's not only no cromlech there, but we also failed to find any clue as to the whereabouts of the public footpath promised by OS.
Eithbed was either two or three cromlechs; nobody's really sure which, and there are examples of double-dolmens in the region such as St Elvis Farm, and triple ones such as Carn Wen.
According to Children & Nash (1997), in 1871 Gardner-Wilkinson reports two out of three cromlechs as 'fallen', and in 1911 Done-Bushell recognised three capstones.
The northern Cornel Bach stone – another probable cromlech - is clearly visible downhill.
Many of the fields have large stones lying around their boundaries, however the biggest cluster is, surprise surprise, where the burial chambers should be.
An astonishing stone identified by Children & Nash as a capstone - 10ft x 5ft x 1ft and shaped like the Pentre Ifan capstone - is here looking very recently moved, and a few metres away to the east is one likely site, a jumble of stones about 6ft long, covered in weeds and the remains of farm product plastic.
Another stands in long grass a few metres further along in the next field.
Utterly destroyed, disrespected and fucked over. Fucking farmers.
visited 18 Aug 04
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Here we are now, right at the foot of Mynydd Preseli. Yet another menhir site near Maenclochog (the village pub, despite being called the Globe Inn, has a painted sign showing a standing stone in a field).
The stones lie on an NNE/SSW axis, although they do not seem to be oriented towards each other.
The northern stone has four faces, yet feels triangular when viewed from any angle. It's about 5 and a half feet tall, oriented NNW/SSE and, like the other, has some smaller field clearance boulders dumped beside it including a startling great white quartzy one.
The south stone lies on a parallel axis, a big fat boulder of a thing. About 80 metres separates them.
It has a clear line of sight to the Eithbed burial chambers.
visited 18 Aug 04
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In a field behind Prisk Farm (anglicised spelling of Prysg), about 40m from the road east out of the village stands this solitary stone, shaped to a pointed tip in that Batman's ears/ Aberdeenshire flanker style. It's about 6ft tall, 3ft thick at the base and nearly 2ft thick.
Marked as Standing Stone on the OS map, Children & Nash (1997) list it as a the remains of a cromlech.
Erected a little way down from the crest of the hill, the vertical edge faces SSW down the valley, the curved edge NNW over the crest of the hill to Cerrig Meibion Arthur and the Western end of Mynydd Preseli.
That side has a 2 inch circular hole bored in several inches, surrounded by a 10 inch circle of tooled appearance. This is modern (although old enough to have a hefty build-up of lichen) and I'd guess the 'tooled' bit is where a chunk of stone came away when whatever was anchored in the hole got pulled out.
As with many stones, it's been seriously utilised by livestock as a rubbing post.
The stone's influence shows in the names of the houses; the main house in the village is called Temple Druid, the new one that backs on to the field is Maes-y-Carreg (Field of the Stone).
visited 18 Aug 04
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Having done a minimum of research beforehand (always like to do a first visit to an area 'blind' with just an OS map, it encourages more wandering and pondering), I'd no idea what to expect. The OS map marks it with that little crown logo used for tumuli, but this site is the remains of a stone circle unlike any other I know of.
The stones were of varying height, with an entrance avenue of four stones a side, side on and touching as a wall. The circle was surrounded by a bank 3ft high and 120ft in diameter, but with no ditch. There was a stone curb leading away from the entrance round the bank for about 30 foot each side.
According to the 1938 excavations, the stones were all placed not vertically but leaning inwards. The field boundaries are full of massive bluestones, surely including some of the fifteen missing circle stones.
This is a major complex built and used over a very long period – there are a dozen round barrows, another stone circle, several standing stones, a henge and a cromlech all originally within a few hundred metres.
We're only a mile or two from the Gors Fawr megalithic landscape and just beyond that the source of the Stonehenge bluestones.
The richness of the Glandy Cross megalithic landscape, the scale, effort and sustained time period of focus here, and the arresting unique design, make it an essential visit. It seems utterly ludicrous it wasn't included in the TMA book.
Props to Dyfed Archaeological Trust Ltd for the fine info board at the entrance, detailing a lot of the monuments now destroyed and/or not listed on the OS map.
visited 17 & 18 Aug 04
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