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Fieldnotes
| I don't know how this little blighter passed me by, I first saw it on Coflein and then found that Rhiannon had already added it as a site here. Good isn't she. It's been on the list for about three months. When travelling west on the B4500 you come into Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog ( or Llanarmon DC for short ) a sharp left hand turn takes you over an old bridge, just before the road takes you left turn right up a steep narrow lane. Pass Penybryn farm house, and keep going until the road leaves tarmac behind, I parked on a grass verge well out of the way and the fort visible on the hill top. Walk up the track til your just about east of the fort and a large boundary (?) stone is by a fence. Go through/over the gate and walk up hill to the trees, aptly or not called Roman camp wood. Apt or not coflein assures us the fort is definitely iron age. I skirt along the south side of the trees and shortly arrive at the eastern extreme of the fort, it's in the trees to my right as well but i'll look in there on my way out. I start the obligatory circumambulation round the fort, at its south east corner the ramparts are fairly slight and mellow. Oddly there are many large boulders in and next to the ditch, some are in lines and may be instructive in how to build an iron age fort, a chunk of the bank has eroded away exposing the interior, definitely instructive. Walking west along the southern ramparts i'm sure I came across the worn down entrance, then twenty yards on another one. Then a fence cuts the fort in two, on this side of the fence it's all farmy and agricultered, but on the other side it's more wild, rough and more Welsh, I skip the fence with glee (I wasn't singing). The banks here are higher, the ditch is deeper and there's no boulders in the ditch, I follow the rampart north. The rain is now coming at me sideways, blown into a near explosive force. I make for the quartz outcrops on top of the hill but outside the fort, they make an adequate windbreak and the position affords a great view of the fort and all the quartz running across its summit, i haven't seen anything like this much quartz since Duloe or Henblas, there is more here. I cross back over the well preserved western ramparts and make for the quartz crown at the top of the fort, it's still raining, so I sit among the giant white boulders and regard the northern aspect, the ramparts run by in front of me from left to right, and the hills beyond rise up to Vivod mountain. Back out into the stingy sideways rain (ably deflected by my new coat 'n boots) I follow the earthworks east, they are still high and defendable here. But now ive come back to the trees, so it's over the fence once more and a short snoop later and ive detected a good section of ramparts, though coflein says there is another entrance nearby. I think it must have been back near where I started, about twenty yards from where I finished. So this was a little gem of a fort, and i'm non plussed as to its obscurity, even without all the tons of quartz it would still be high on your list of North Walean hill forts. Come on a warm summers eve though ay? |
Posted by postman24th March 2014ce Edited 26th March 2014ce
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