The eastern part of the settlement.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Images
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Further round houses are up the slope behind this one.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Looking SSE across the bay.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Not all the structures in the settlement are round.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
This structure has a long, curving entrance passage.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Sometimes it pays to endure a downpour.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Probably the best round houses I’ve been to outside Cornwall. The sun finally joined us.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Two large round houses at the eastern end of the settlement, with the top of hillforted Holyhead Mountain/Caer y Twr visible beyond. The last of the heavy downpour.
Image credit: A. Brookes (8.11.2014)
Fine, if damaged, saddle quern made from igneous rock. The quern was excavated in 1862 from one of the huts in the group. On display in the British Museum.
Image credit: A. Brookes (4.11.2012)
dec 07
Image credit: skins
Image credit: skins
dec 07
Image credit: skins
Image credit: skins
Image credit: skins
Image credit: skins
Image credit: skins
ty mawr hut group
Image credit: skins
Image credit: chris bickerton
Image credit: chris bickerton
Photo of an aerial shot on an information board.
Image credit: CADW
Image credit: Moth Clark
Image credit: rangzen
Image credit: rangzen
This picture shows the stunning position of this hut group – you can just see the (very choppy!) Irish Sea in the background, and in the foreground the main group of huts. A fantastic site!
Image credit: rangzen
Even without the weird colour, the mist...
Image credit: Tim Clark
...made it...
Image credit: Tim Clark
...quite eerie....
Image credit: Tim Clark
04/03. Structure with the stone sink.
04/03. Stone sink in one of the’huts‘
01/6/02
Image credit: broen
Articles
Visited 10.9.12
Another day – another CADW site.
This is a cracking place to visit.
Much better than I expected and one I would heartily recommend.
Visiting couldn’t be easier either – just across the road from a large free car park!
This site reminded me of the round houses in Cornwall – these are easily as good.
Although the houses are not visible from the car park (due to the bracken) they soon come into view as you make your way along the ‘path’.
They are all nestled together in the hillside and it is easy to imagine how cosy it must have been all those years ago.
If you ever visit Anglesey it would be a shame to not visit this site. Good one.
Parking in the RSPB car park – allowed, we were off bird watching after the huts –we crossed the road and progressed along well kept grassy paths amidst a sea of bracken on the lower slopes of Holyhead Mountain. Some mature American hippies/Bronze Age wannabees passed by, one of them wearing a very nice purpley-russet poncho. The sun shone down warmly, and rounding a corner, I was treated to my first hut remains – and was instantly enchanted. What a corker of a site. White dry stone walls, approximately two and half feet high, shone in the light, contrasting with dark green bracken fronds, vibrant purple heather, and brilliant yellow gorse flowers. The turf floors were cropped close, and despite the exposed position, the whole place looked very ‘gentle’, for want of a better word.
It was easy to visualise the low conical roofs of the roundhouses, and the people moving between the structures. Having just finished the third in Manda Scott’s Boudica series of books, I was put in mind of her Iron Age vision of life. What must it have been like living in a roundhouse on an exposed cliff face? The weather had by now broken into glorious sunshine, but winter gales must have been horrendous as they drove into the cliffs, straight off the Irish Sea. One roundhouse looked as if it would have made a snug bolt hole when the tribe gathered together for food, drinking, and story telling. Presumably though, our North Walian Bronze Age ancestors were nowhere near as nesh as a modern day Southerner – and of course, the climate was warmer in those days.
I thought of how they would have sustained themselves – fish caught from the beaches below, boar raised on the mountainside, and eggs taken by terrifying climbs on the perpendicular cliffs which are home to thousands of sea birds. Tasty! Before we left, I gazed out over the view our ancestors enjoyed. The Irish Sea stretched unbroken to the horizon, and to the south, the mountains of the Llyn Peninsula rose out of the sea in irregular, soft, misty blue silhouettes. It was, quite simply, superb.
I’ve seen a few hut circles in my time, but these are the most perfect I have yet seen. They may only be a series of small walls, but what small walls! Today up to 20 of them nestle among tall bracken and heather strung along the hillside which is bright purple. All beautifully restored, it’s not hard to imagine them with their conical wood and thatch roofs and all the activity of domestic life... smell that roasting pork and those frying guillemot eggs!
Park in the RSPB South Stack car park. And while you’re here why not teeter along those cliff tops? We saw gannets and choughs!
As Broen says try and make time to see the hut circles. It’s a good starting place to walk up to the Caer y Tawr hillfort.
The site is well signposted from the road to the South Stack. There are around 20 ‘huts’ left to be seen at the foot of Holyhead Mountain dating back to the Iron Age.
Some of the huts look to have stone benches and bowls.
....if you can afford time from your busy schedule,
Park in the RSPB car park on the left then cross the road to a stile signed to the Hut Circles.
There is plenty to look at in the main settlement but a wonder up the dirt track brings you to the huts in the image above, once seen from the right of the track there’s a bit of a tricky climb down to them via a barely visable (and at the the time) overgrown footpath.
Sites within 20km of Holyhead Mountain Hut Group
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Gogarth Bay
photo 24description 1 -
Caer y Twr
photo 22description 2 -
Gorsedd Gwlwm
photo 8description 1 -
Penrhosfeilw
photo 47description 11 -
Dinas (Trearddur)
photo 6 -
Porth Dafarch
photo 9description 2 -
Ty Mawr
photo 23description 4 -
Trefignath
photo 62forum 3description 15link 1 -
Trearddur
photo 4description 1 -
Stanley Mill
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Fynnon Gwenfaen
photo 4 -
Castell Trefadog
photo 6 -
Shop Farm
photo 1description 5 -
Llyn Cerrig-bach
photo 4description 1 -
Llanfaethlu
photo 15forum 1description 6 -
Ynys y Fydlyn
photo 10 -
Maen Hir, Tregwhelydd
photo 3description 3 -
Presaddfed
photo 29description 9 -
Treiorwerth
description 1 -
Pen-yr-Orsedd (South)
photo 12description 2 -
Pen-yr-Orsedd (North)
photo 8forum 1description 2 -
Bedd Branwen
photo 6description 5 -
Ty Newydd
photo 36ondemand_video 1forum 1description 9link 2 -
Trefor
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Bod Deiniol
photo 3description 1 -
Mynydd Bach (Aberffraw)
photo 9description 4 -
Lain Wen Farm Inscribed Stone
photo 3description 4 -
Barclodiad-y-Gawres
photo 68forum 5description 25link 4 -
Craig yr Allor
description 1 -
Porth Trecastell
photo 6 -
Foel Fawr
photo 10description 4 -
Mein Hirion
photo 40description 13 -
Llanfechell
photo 8description 4link 1 -
Kiltierney
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Maen y Goges
photo 3description 1 -
Traeth Fawr
photo 11description 4link 1