Images

Image of Gelli Hill Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Seen from near to Gelli Hill stone, with red kite hovering obligingly over the cairn.

Image credit: A. Brookes (23.10.10)
Image of Gelli Hill Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

The disturbed top of the cairn, looking eastwards towards an inevitably mist-covered Great Rhos.

Image credit: A. Brookes (23.10.10)

Articles

Gelli Hill Cairn

Despite the confusion of fences, the Gelli Hill cairn is a big bugger, so there’s no missing it. It helps greatly with orientation and perhaps it was always that way, helping visitors to find the diminutive stones of the nearby stone circle over the millennia. A proper, stone-built monster cairn this, damaged by digging and the addition of an OS trig pillar to the cairn’s top.There are big blocks amongst the smaller rubble, perhaps there was a central cist of some sort? It’s reminiscent of the cairn on Bache Hill not far away. To re-inforce the point, the top of the Whimble peeps into view briefly through the cloud.

There would be great views of the Radnor mountains from here, but sadly the tops are still enduring a deluge and are hidden within a curtain of grey. Luckily for me, the heavy rain that marred the visit to Gilwern Hill a short time earlier has mostly passed over, leaving behind light drizzle and a substantial drop in temperature.

Gelli Hill Cairn

The weather had been perfect on the way here, blue skies and golden morning sunlight and fog covered the valley floor between the hills, but it was only just the way there, there was as foggy as you don’t want it to be. No sunrise and no view, it was just Eric, me and the the foggy ancient left behinds.
The barrow is much bigger than it looked from a distance through the fog, some exposed cairn material has a couple of big stones in it, and I liked to think of them as remnant cist stones.
Erics feet are starting to get wet now so were off to find the weird shouldn’t be there circle.

Gelli Hill Cairn

About a hundred metres east from the stone circle Coflein simply states;
A cairn, 21m in diameter and 2.5m high, impinged on by an OS triangulation pillar and a sheepfold
But neglects to mention the stupendous 360 degree wonderview.

Sites within 20km of Gelli Hill Cairn