Fan Nedd (Northern summit)

Nearest town:
Brecon (16km NE)
OS reference:
SN91381887
OS sheet:
160
Latitude:
51° 51' 26.51 N
Longitude:
3° 34' 38.67 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Landscape context from Fan Gyhirych to the west. The cairn is at the lefthand end of the ridge of Fan Nedd.

Image credit: A. Brookes (4.4.2010)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 2, 2020
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking towards shadowed Yr Allt. The upper Senni valley lies below.

Image credit: A. Brookes (17.11.2017)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 4, 2017
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

With Fan Gyhirych to the left, Y Mynydd Du hidden by the modern cairn.

Image credit: A. Brookes (17.11.2017)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 4, 2017
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Showing the cairn’s footprint. Looking towards Corn Du and Pen-y-Fan.

Image credit: A. Brookes (17.11.2017)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 4, 2017
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Fan Nedd in the centre of shot, seen from Fan Gyhirych to the east. The cairn is at the left hand (northern) end of the long summit ridge.

Image credit: A. Brookes (17.11.2017)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 4, 2017
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

The walker’s cairn does its job... as a marker... and is much preferable to a muppet shelter. In my opinion.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

The northern prow of Fan Nedd is a much better location that the actual summit to the south..

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Looking approx north across the cairn footprint... Fan Frynych rises to the right, again with its own monument.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Corn Du... complete with excavated cist... can be seen upon the skyline across the footprint.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

My mama told me, there’d be days like this. Actually, come to think of it, it was Van Morrison. Looking from the south.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

The pretty substantial footprint of the cairn looking approx east toward The Brecon Beacons

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Boxing Day 2016. Looking approx west across Fan Gyhirych to Y Mynydd Du... all these mountain tops bear Bronze Age cairns of some description.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Dec 29, 2016
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

The ethereal Bronze Age upland cemetery of Fforest Fawr seen from the western flanks of Fan Fawr. Fan Nedd, with two monuments, forms the western flank of a wondrous valley cradling the mighty Maen Llia and associated monuments.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Sep 24, 2015
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Looking from Bwlch-y-Duwynt (the aptly named ‘windy pass’), the wind ushering in a new front kicking up powder snow. The northern cairn sits upon the prow of the mountain, centre left. Maen Llia sits within the valley far left, overlooked by another cairn upon Fan Nedd’s eastern, lower shoulder. Fan Llia, extreme top left, mirrors the arrangement.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 1, 2015
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

A mantle of snow accentuates the low-yet-wide form of the surviving original monument. To be fair, however, I reckon the modern marker cairn has a certain wonky charm of its own?

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Apr 6, 2013
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Reposted this better scan to include reference to the northern cairn, set in a more interesting spot than on the north-eastern shoulder, to be fair. Looking towards Fan Nedd from near Bwlch-y-Duwynt.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 17, 2013
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Easter 2010 – Toward Fan Gyhirych from the cairn at Fan Nedd’s northern prow...

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Feb 14, 2013
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Easter 2010 – The site affords a superb view of the Senni valley, Fan Frynych peeking around to the left.... interestingly, the summit of Fan Nedd (without cairn) does not. Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du do their usual sentinel thang top right.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 12, 2011
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Easter 2010 – The modern cairn surmounting the ancient footprint is rather well built for a mere ‘marker cairn’ (the summit of the mountain is some way to the south, therefore placement, not simply marking the ‘highest spot’ was clearly key) invoking comparison with Carn Pica some way to the east..... Fan Gyhirych and Y Mynydd Du can be seen beyond.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 12, 2011
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Fan Nedd from Bwlch y Duwynt. The northern summit cairn lies at the left hand end of the ridge. Another cairn lies on the eastern slope of the mountain out of sight.

Image credit: A. Brookes (12.2.2011)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 13, 2011
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking towards the western mountains of Fforest Fawr (Fan Fraith and Fan Gyhirych) and to the sunlit Y Mynydd Du beyond.

Image credit: A. Brookes (12.2.2011)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 13, 2011
Image of Fan Nedd (Northern summit) (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Perched at the northern end of the summit ridge, topped by the most ludicrous modern cairn you ever saw. But beneath is the real deal (or what’s left of it). What a location. Looking towards the cloud-shrouded central Beacons peaks.

Image credit: A. Brookes (12.2.2011)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 13, 2011

Articles

Fan Nedd (Northern summit)

thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 12, 2013

A ladder stile leads onto the tussocky lower slopes of Fan Nedd. There is no obvious path and so I’m left to pick a route that is reasonably direct to the summit. Due to time constraints after the lengthy stop at Maen Llia, I’ve decided to abandon a visit to the two cairns on the eastern slopes of the mountain and to concentrate on getting to the top of the mountain. I confess to a certain feeling of unfinished business here. A couple of years ago I came here a matter of hours after Gladman had been (small world). On that occasion the slopes were snow-covered and going was slow. My friend and I made it to the pointy cairn on the ridge in a hailstorm (what is it with these tops and hail?) and very stupidly mistook it for the summit trig point marked on the map. As such, we didn’t reach the summit and I’ve been keen to come back and rectify the error. So today I head straight up the mountain’s eastern flank. This proves to be very hard going, the slope is very steep and the vegetation is ankle-knee deep. Only the occasional stops to look back at Maen Llia, dwindling into a black dot below, and the unfolding view of Fan Llia across the valley, make the ascent anything other than a trial.

But reaching the ridge, close to the trig, the views to the west make up for the aching knees. Once at the summit (663m OD), the views to Fan Gyhirych and Y Mynydd Du are magnificent and far-reaching, clear of the clouds of earlier.

From the summit it’s a fairly easy stroll north along the ridge towards the “pointy” cairn. About halfway along the ridge I come across a recumbent slab, unworked but with a hole drilled in it. No-one is likely to have ever put a fence up here, so perhaps a fallen boundary stone? The pointy cairn is every bit as ludicrous looking as the last time I came here. But what’s this? It rests on a turfed over mound of much greater diameter, with stones protruding through the thin covering. Suspicions start to grow and I get the feeling that the walker-made pyramid conceals something much, much older. The positioning is typically clever, allowing the maximum panoramic view, particularly northwards, absent at the mid-ridge summit. It is certainly similar in construction to the cairn on neighbouring Fan Gyhirych.

[A post-visit Coflein check suggests that the instinct was correct and that these are the remains of a bronze age cairn, positioned with the usual fine attention to detail.]

Miscellaneous

Fan Nedd (Northern summit)
Round Cairn
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Feb 13, 2011

Actually, it turns out that the ridiculous walkers’ cairn (SN91381887) on the north summit is probably built on top of a “proper” one as well. From Coflein:

On a natural shelf on the north side of Fan Hir, overlooking Blaen Senni to the north and the Llia valley to the east, lie the remains of a probable prehistoric burial cairn. Located at around 645m it is now the site of a recently erected marker cairn, 1.8m in diameter and about 2.5m high tapering from base to tip. Beneath and around it is the stony base of an earlier cairn out of which the modern one was built. It measures 7m in diameter and no more than 0.2m high. No structural features are apparent. On OS maps the site is marked simply as ‘Cairn’ in non-antiquity typeface.

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