Y Foel Cairns

Also known as:
Y Gors
Nearest town:
Betws-y-Coed (6km NNW)
OS reference:
SH80125056
OS sheet:
116
Latitude:
53° 2' 18.66 N
Longitude:
3° 47' 17.36 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Northern cairn... without the cist this would have been arguably a matter of conjecture.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The remaining slabs of the northern cist still in situ.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Contrary to expectations the northern cairn also possesses the remains of a cist... in most other places, save here upon Y Foel, it would surely have top billing?

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Approaching the northern monument... centre right.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The southern slab of the cist struck a chord with me.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

As Postie infers, the southern cairn really couldn’t be more unobtrusive. One has to more-or-less quite literally stumble across the cist.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Hard to believe that, after millennia, this still stands here. Marvellous.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

The fine cist within the southern cairn. A great place to spend the hour ‘given back’ by the clocks prior to the long journey home.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by GLADMAN

Chris’s visit couldn’t have been better timed... a fortnight before my own trip. Penmacho, more specifically the short cut route across The Migneint, occupies a place in my heart that I assume time will never erase. Never thought there were gems such as this here so happy to follow in his footsteps. This is the southern cairn.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Nov 19, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by postman

Looking north west towards Moel Siabod.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Oct 9, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by postman

I’m really rather surprised to find such a good cist in such an easily overlooked cairn.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Oct 9, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by postman

The cist within it’s grassed over cairn.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Oct 9, 2016
Image of Y Foel Cairns (Cairn(s)) by postman

The cairn and it’s cist is dead center on the other side of the wall.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Oct 9, 2016

Articles

Y Foel Cairns

postman
postman Oct 9, 2016

Three or four miles south of Betws Y Coed is the small but nice village of Penmachno, and about a mile east of Penmachno amid a profusion of footpaths and low walls is a duo, or trio of cairns, one with a cist.
I parked on the road south of the cairns and followed the path through the back yard of Foel house, where a nice old man pointed out the way the path went, but beyond that he couldn’t help, we went off the way he’d pointed.
The 1:25000 map says there are three cairns, but one is represented on the map only as a dot, it’s not mentioned on Coflein, and we couldn’t find it, so either it’s not ancient, or it’s not there.
So ignoring the dot cairn we rove and roam in what I hope is the direction of the other two, but I’m struggling to orient myself in this maze of paths, farm tracks and low hill tops.
It doesn’t help that I did not re look over Coflein to make sure I know what i’m looking for, I just know there is a cist here somewhere.
Whilst i’m looking over towards Snowdonia and pointing out Moel Siabod to anyone who’ll listen, ie: talking to myself again, I turn around and there, plain as day is a good large cist, I giggled slightly but no one noticed, a cist with a view of a well known becairned mountain, I’d hoped Id be able to see it but you never know till you get there. There are more cists in cairns much closer to Moel Siabod, I wondered if there was a link, further than the rocky mount.
The good large cist has all four sides, but one end has fallen outwards a bit, and all contained in what we must presume to be cairn, there are no stones, no cairn material showing, just a few lumps and bumps that are scarcely any higher than the cist.
Looking for the other cairn was a futile and fruitless concern, how far from the other cairn is it? don’t know, in what direction precisely? don’t know, What does it look like? don’t know.
There are several low knoll’s between the cist and a farm track, one of them must be it, but then, who’s interested in maybe cairns, cairns are definitely one thing where size matters.

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