Sites within Cairn, upon a woodland saddle

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Images

Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Small cairn to the north of the main monument, which can just be seen over the top of the reedy grass.

Image credit: A. Brookes (9.11.2022)
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking south to the rocky hill of Craig y Castell. This prominent hill blocks the views of Cader Idris from the cairn.

Image credit: A. Brookes (9.11.2022)
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking towards Tyrrau Mawr (left) and Pared y Cefn hir (right).

Image credit: A. Brookes (9.11.2022)
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Toward the main escarpment of Cadair Idris. Not that you can see it. Craig y Castells to the left and right...

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Impressive, substantial cairn. A fabulous kerbed cairn lies beyond the near outcrop.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by postman

Looking across the sea of grass to the “cairn on a woodland saddle”.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by postman

Looking north west over the round cairn to the kerb cairn.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by postman

Looking over the cairns hollowed interior, to I think Craig Las, part of the Cadair Idris Massiff and itself crowned by two Cairns.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
Image of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle (Round Cairn) by postman

One of the smaller somethings, probably a cairn but has a tad of hut circle to it dont ask me why.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

Articles

Cairn, upon a woodland saddle

We head back to the kerbed cairn, passing a small clearance cairn, then over to the cairn on the saddle. Like its kerbed sibling, it’s been mutilated in the usual way, with a large scoop missing from its centre. It is another large cairn though, occupying a slightly more prominent position than the others in the group (and visible from the nearby trackway).

There is a final cairn shown on the OS map, at the southeastern end of the semicircular group. We head off for a look at this, but only find some apparent clearance cairns. One is slightly bigger than the rest, but we couldn’t hand on heart say that this was the one on the map.

Cairn, upon a woodland saddle

After parking near Gellilwyd farm in a one car layby follow the path west between two conifer plantations, the cairns are to your right and unmissable.
Some cairns are more famous than others, they somehow attain a name be it a Giantesses apronful or a Greyhounds lair and so on but some cairns remain unnamed and unseen, then when it comes to being added to an ancient monument record and no name is known who gets to name it and how do they choose its name to be handed down through the generations, spreading further than anyone could guess, what if anything was going on in the mind of these cairn namers. The Cairn upon a woodland saddle, it does sound kinda nice, evocative of summer playtimes maybe, but there are no trees here now, just spikes and hay.
What exactly the hay is I dont know, its all over the place and can be picked up so its not growing, it doesn’t half cling to dog fur and obscure stones.
The cairn is twice as big as it looks the stones dissappearing under the hay and gorse, several miles south is Cadair Idris, just 80 yards to the north west is the kerb cairn and twenty yards east is what looks like a smaller cairn though it doesnt really look llike a cairn, it has a whiff of hut circle to it.
The mountain views are breathtaking, as are the views down into the valleys, I wondered for a while why they are sited here, alright there are good views but that wasnt the reason i’m sure, the best I could come up with is, the folk lived down hill from here but were so totally awed by the landscape they wanted to get close but not too close to the mountain so this was a half way
measure, they didnt even dare to build the cairn in site of the summit instead making sure a small closer hill obscured it, but the summit of Craig Las was considered less of a blasphemy(?).
Just 100metres further west and the whole mountain would be in view, but for some reason this little place in a woodland saddle between two small hills was just right.
I hope ive made no sense what so ever, as this is just how the ancients make me feel, they had a big space to play with yet chose the least inspiring corner of it. I dont know, I just dont know.

Sites within 20km of Cairn, upon a woodland saddle