Images

Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Although damaged, with the apparent remains of a later parasitical enclosure superimposed, this remains a very substantial cairn.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

I would have said it was ‘ethereal’ here.... if it wasn’t for the bloody logger going about his business, churning the ground to liquid mud in the process....

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by GLADMAN

Weather fit for a king, too... should you happen to be a republican, that is. This is the sort of photography they don’t show in the glossy magazines....

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Despite the damage and dumping, this a substantial monument.

Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

The exhaust pipe crucifix isn’t a great addition, to be honest.

Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by thesweetcheat

After the mud of the forestry tracks, it was a relief to finally find the clearing with the cairm.

Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Image of Bedd y Brenin (Round Cairn) by postman

From over here we can fully appreciate how big and round the cairn is.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

Articles

If one were to get lost between the moon and New York City, guess one could end up here, perhaps? Is that you, Arthur?

Bedd y Brenin

Kammer found the going difficult from the road to the north west but ttTom found it easy enough coming from the east down off the mountain, can you guess which route I took.

There was room for one or two cars next to the footpaths on the road to the northwest of the cairn, but make sure your on the right path, not the big left one but the small steep single file path. I had read Kammers notes about this path but decided that it was summer now so hopefully it would be a bit drier, it wasn’t, in fact parts of the path are so worn by continuous water flow that its 5o% path and 50% stream, even though both my kids are old enough to take it, they still couldnt be bothered, so I left them fairy story style in the forest and carried on on my own. I’m not as bad as Hansel and Gretels dad though the cairn was only seventy yards away up the occasional path, I could hear them just fine messing about below me, if the trees were not there i would have been able to see them. Anyway there both children of nature so we were all ok.

The cairn is a big one, in a big clearing in a conifer plantation, the cairn isnt just the visible cairn material,( too many cairns?) its much bigger than that. The summer sun was streaming down upon me and I was just dripping in sweat, the midges were having a field day, and because of the slight chance that there may be a house made of sweets in the forest I walked around it once, inspected the exposed cist, noting the cast aside capstone which is still in one piece, then I proceeded to have a good tut about the shelter dug into its northern edge and the whacking great wall built across the cairn.
Then I made my way back down to the kids and off we went.
I told them we were just going up the road to turn round when wow would you look at that two standing stones “’ll just have a quick look”
awwwww daaaad ???

Bedd y Brenin

We visited on 24/03/05. Its an easy walk down from the mountain road/track to the east. Quite a large mound with most cairn material scattered around. A wall and a couple of shelters have been built across the middle of the cairn but the cist remains and is visible.
No sign of cows today but quite muddy because of them – they still around somewhere...

Bedd y Brenin

Attempted Visit 15th December 2003: William and I tried walking to Bedd y Brenin from the road to the north west of it, but the terrain was very difficult. The footpath runs along a gap in the forestry plantation, and it was extremely muddy. Along with the gradient and the cold, this made it heavy going and William couldn’t cope. Frustratingly close to the cairn I decided we should turn back.

Watch out for the cows. There were two bullocks in the forestry when we visited, and when we returned to the car, one of them was standing threateningly close to it. It didn’t move as we approached, but just stared at us. I ended up posting William into the car through the hatchback, and sliding into the car very carefully myself to avoid getting between the car and the bullock.

Next time I might try approaching from a different direction, and not in the middle of winter with a tired four year old in tow!

Folklore

Bedd y Brenin
Round Cairn

I suppose the king (brenin) in the name of this cairn could be Arthur, or some other nameless king lost to memory. It would be more exciting though if it were the spooky Brenin Llwyd – the Grey King of Snowdonian myth. But I suppose he’s not really mortal enough to need a grave.

Read about the Brenin Llwyd at Mary Jones’s site:
maryjones.us/jce/breninllwyd.html

Miscellaneous

Bedd y Brenin
Round Cairn

Revisited during an extended visit to Twll yr Ogof from the Fford Ddu roadside near Cyfarnedd-fawr, I had forgotten how substantial this – The King’s Grave – actually is... some c62ft across. Suffice to say, it’s well worth a primary visit in its own right.

Coflein notes:

“The mutilated ruins of a cairn stand upon a saddle between two mountains at the head of Cwm-llwyd. It is near circular, some 18-19.5m across and survives up to 1.2m high. It is crossed by a comparatively recent sheep shelter wall. The cairn was dug into in 1851, when a cist or slab chamber, 0.9m by 0.7m and 0.5m deep was uncovered. This contained fragments of human bone and had been covered by a 2.0m by 0.9m capstone. In 1851 ‘sheperd-huts’ were observed around the base of the cairn. The cairn was already robbed. The shelter wall is built over the displaced capstone and so must post-date the excavation. [Source: Wynne foulkes in Archaeologia Cambrensis New Series III (1852), 96-9] – John Wiles, RCAHMW, 22 February 2008”

Sites within 20km of Bedd y Brenin