Images

Image of Carn-y-Defaid (Cairn(s)) by thesweetcheat

The view northwest from the main cairn, Cefn Coch is the ridge fair left, the Brecon Beacons on the distant centre skyline, the masts of Cefn y Galchen on the right.

Image credit: A. Brookes (31.5.2021)
Image of Carn-y-Defaid (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The Mam C provides some welcome scale in supposedly quite ridiculous (-15c windchill) conditions for a mature mother of two!

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Carn-y-Defaid (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

That’ll be the first blizzard sweeping in above. Well, as Dean Martin said.... if there’s no place to go...

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

Articles

Carn-y-Defaid

A revisit towards the end of an excellent bank holiday Monday walk from Blaenavon over Mynydd Coety and Cefn Coch (31.5.2021).

It’s taken me over a decade to make the revisit I promised myself after stupidly missing the northeastern cairn in worsening weather last time. No such problems today, the sun is shining and dehydration is a greater threat than lack of visibility. Heading over the heathery moors from the WT station at Cefn y Galchen, I meet a women who has walked up from somewhere on the eastern side of this high ridge. She tells me she’s a farmer and a grandmother, and she’s obviously fitter than I am. Like me, she’s come up here to get away from everyone and everything; she expresses a vague plan to drop down to Abergavenny, but clearly intends to go where the mood takes her. I like her immensely, we chat for a while and wish each other well on our walks.

I brave the pathless heather for the yards to the big cairn that I visited last time. It’s a really decent monument, a huge pile of stones with its central scoop not really detracting. The northeastern cairn that I missed last time is not far away, slightly downhill and hanging right on the edge of the escarpment. As such, it enjoys the better views off the ridge and towards Ysgyryd Fawr. A great place to stop for a while and just let everything melt away.

At length I make myself leave, it’s still quite a walk back to Blaenavon for the bus. On the road, I catch up with a huge shirtless man, with bottle-thick glasses, who wants to chat about all the pubs in the town and slows me down greatly. I don’t begrudge him, it’s that sort of day. I’m knackered by the time I get back to the valley and the bus stop, but it’s been brilliant to come back to today’s sites, with fresh enthusiasm and a decade’s worth of familiarity with this upland landscape.

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Carn-y-Defaid

Visited 9.7.13

After visiting the nearby Carn Blorenge I had just enough time to wander over to the Carn-Y-Defaid Cairns. The going was more tricky as the ‘path’ wasn’t as good and walking through heather isn’t the easiest thing to do. The Cairns are visible from the car park so even I couldn’t get lost – for a change! It’s only about a 15 minute walk.

The clouds had now been burnt off by the strong sunshine and the temperature was quickly rising. Looking up it was clear that it was going to be another hot one.

Despite being dug into both Cairns are impressive and the views are great. There were fantastic views across to the Skirrid Mountain and all around was a ‘patchwork quilt’ of fields.

Looking inside the northern Cairn I saw (what appeared to be) the central burial chamber with (again what appeared to be) a surviving roof slab. I could be wrong and perhaps the stone had fallen by accident across the top of the ‘chamber’? – But that’s what it looked like.

I really liked it up here and would have happily stayed a lot longer but my day’s volunteering was shortly due to start and I was already running late.
Just time to collect a bag of horse manure for the vegetable patch then…….

Visiting Carn Blorenge and the Carn-y-Defaid Cairns is a good way to spend a couple of hours. Well recommended.

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Carn-y-Defaid

Walked here from Carreg Maen Taro 14.8.2009. I had intended a trip over to Blorenge cairn, but by the time I got to the WT station at Cefn y Galchen, the drizzle had become persistent and I headed straight here.

There are two cairns mentioned on Coflein. According to the OS, the named “Carn-y-Defaid” is the SW of the two. One prominent cairn is immediately visible from the WT station, being situated on the horizon. This makes navigation easy, even in the rain.

As I got nearer, it was apparent that the visible cairn is on the NE side of the path, which would not make it the named cairn but the other one. It’s a great big monument, an impressive mound of stones even though the centre has obviously been dug into. The drizzle didn’t encourage me to linger, especially as the exposed situation also added a pretty stiff wind. So, hood up and visibility restricted, I crossed the path the look for the SW cairn. I found two small-ish “cairns” both obviously much tampered with. I wouldn’t like to commit to either of these being the named Carn. Maybe I missed another larger cairn, but really didn’t fancy lingering any longer.

I headed back to Blaenavon along the footpath across Mynydd y Garn fawr, passing a couple of upright (natural?) stones on the left hand side.

[Edit 20.2.2010: Seen from Carn Blorenge on a much nicer day, it looks as though the large cairn is Carn-y-Defaid. There is another large cairn just down the slope to the NE, which was invisible to me in the mist when I came up before. A return trip to check this out is on order.]

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Sites within 20km of Carn-y-Defaid