Landscape context from the east. The cairn is next to the mast, centre skyline. The viewpoint is Cefn Merthyr, south of the Mynydd y Capel stone and cairns. The valley below is the Taff, the river running from the slopes of Pen y Fan down to join the Hafren at Cardiff.
There’s a great view of the Cynon valley from rocks close to the cairn, but the monument itself is set back on the summit and fails to take advantage – something that’s true of many Bronze Age cairns in South Wales.
A modern mast intrudes into the setting now.
Looking SSW towards the Glamorgan coastline, with the Severn/Hafren and Somerset beyond.
The edge of the cist. I foolishly stuck my foot into the narrow opening and went in up to my thigh.
The cairn, looking NW. The rising ground to the left of trig pillar is Craig y Llyn (Neath).
Snow-covered Twyn Bryn Bychan rises above the forest. Seen from Mynydd Merthyr to the north. There is a cairnfield in the forest as well.
Description from GGAT:
A low mound with traces of a kerb on the W side and a cist in the middle. The mound is well marked on the N side as an earthwork but less so on the other sides. It consists of a slightly raised rim and a raised centre with a more depressed area in between.
It is not possible to determine without excavation whether this is a ring cairn with internal structures, or a badly robbed ordinary cairn. The possible kerb consists of four stones (up to 0.9m across) of which the two middle ones are on the line of the outer side of the rim and therefore probably in situ; the two end stones look as though they have been displaced outwards, especially the N one. The cist is represented by a slit-like hole measuring 2.0m N-S x 0.3m, the E and W sides of which are lined by slabs; only the W side can be clearly seen, and here the lining is a single slab not quite as long as the hole.
In a clearing in forestry at the top of a hill, with a trig point on it and a radio mast immediately to its NE. A N-S path crosses the mound and has eroded slightly into it. Dimensions: Diameter 18.9m, height c0.8m max.
