Trellyffaint

Nearest town:
Cardigan (10km ENE)
OS reference:
SN083425
OS sheet:
145
Latitude:
52° 2' 49.94 N
Longitude:
4° 47' 45.19 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Trellyffaint (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by Mammoth

A closer view of the heart-shaped capstone of Trellyffaint burial chamber with. 75+ cupmarks have been recorded, and may represent the night’s sky. (Taken in 2018)

Image credit: Oliver Heppell
M
Mammoth Aug 13, 2021
Image of Trellyffaint (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by Mammoth

From up high – a farmers tractor – overlooking the heart-shaped capstone of Trellyffaint burial chamber with oblique lighting. 75+ cupmarks have been recorded. (Taken in 2018)

Image credit: Oliver Heppell
M
Mammoth Aug 13, 2021
Image of Trellyffaint (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by Mammoth

Unearthing a pottery sherd from a trench a few feet away from Trellyffaint Burial Chamber, containing lipid samples that have since been radiocarbon dated to 3,100BCE. This is the oldest evidence of Neolithic dairy farming discovered in Wales.

Image credit: Oliver Heppell
M
Mammoth Aug 13, 2021
Image of Trellyffaint (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by Mammoth

Stones arranged – likely a stake or post-hole for a Henge monument – taken at the dig by the Welsh Rock Organisation in 2018. The pottery sherd was found at the base, containing lipid samples that have since been radiocarbon dated to 3,100BCE. This is the oldest evidence of dairy farming discovered in Wales.

Image credit: Oliver Heppell
M
Mammoth Aug 13, 2021
Image of Trellyffaint (Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech) by Merrick

The mound is clear in front of the remains of the cromlech. That fat boulder Annwen’s leaning on does seem somewhat odd for a cromlech, though.

Image credit: Merrick
Merrick
Merrick Sep 10, 2004

Articles

In this video we delve into the archaeology and folklore of this important monument..

CoralJackz
CoralJackz Jan 17, 2025
Trellyffaint

Trellyffaint: Proof unearthed of Neolithic dairy farming in Pembrokeshire

ryaner
ryaner Aug 12, 2021

Dairy farming could have been happening in Wales as early as 3,100BC, according to new research.

Shards of decorated pottery taken from the Trellyffaint Neolithic monument near Newport, Pembrokeshire, were found to contain dairy fat residue.

The residue could only originate from milk-based substances such as butter, cheese, or more probably yoghurt.

George Nash, of the Welsh Rock Art Organisation, said it was the earliest proof of dairy farming in Wales.

More: bbc.com/news/uk-wales-58174481

Trellyffaint

postman
postman Nov 22, 2015

Just a mile or two west of the better known Llech y Drybedd, Trellyffant is not a middle earth megalithic beast but rather just a muddle of large stones.
I parked the car on the small lane to the chambers east, but it would probably be easier coming from the north after asking at the farm, if it is a farm, it has no living space. Either way it is only a five minute walk.

It was beginning to get dark, and after a long day stone watching this was the last place on my list. It had stopped raining, but low mists still clung to the distant Preseli hills, and the day long mugginess persisted.
But a new site is a new site and I was excited to finally get here, despite the site being more or less a pile of large stones.
The capstone is still held aloft, but is it being held up by the right stones? Two large boulders are still I think in the right place, but the rest is pretty much a confusion.
My camera has had a long day as well, it doesn’t like the wet conditions, and it’s never liked working in low light, so I put it away, don my cloak of invisibility
and walk back to the car wondering where will my next outing be to, an old favourite?, or a new site, near or far, soon or again far away.

Trellyffaint

Merrick
Merrick Sep 7, 2004

Barely a mile west of Llech-y-Tripedd lies this crumbling cromlech. And here too the Mynydd Preseli arcs to the south and the tiniest V shape of Bae Trefdraeth/Newport Bay is showing.

The stones are a sorry jumble and a bit difficult to make sense of at first. There’s a grassy mound at the northern edge with cairnstone-sized stones and two thin upright-sized ones that feel like the original site, though most of the stones are piled a metre away. Children & Nash (1997) confidently suggest this is because it was a double-chambered dolmen (a common design in North Wales but a rare thing in this part of the world).

There are a couple of bulky boulders that feel wholly unlike cromlech stones, and I’d suggest they might be field clearance. Proper orientation is gone, but we still have the site and the constituent stones.

The one on top is clearly a capstone – about 7ft x 6ft, flat-topped, sheer-ended and fat-spearhead shaped. It has over 30 pits on it, which many credible researchers credit as cup marks (the more straight-laced Welsh Commission on Ancient Monuments says that as the marks are of varying size and randomly distributed they are natural. Perhaps they’ve yet to understand the nature of cup marks).

The site is clearly visible from the road, but it stands some distance away on private farmland with no right of way, so do ask permission from Trellyffant Farm. We did, and despite being very busy the farmer was gracious and generous.

visited 19 Aug 04

Folklore

Trellyffaint
Dolmen / Quoit / Cromlech
moss
moss Aug 19, 2010

Trellyffant apparently means Toad’s Town, and I had come across a story some time ago that said a chief had been buried at the cromlech who had been eaten by toads.

Well there is a different version of the story and the man eating toads. In this version Giraldus Cambrensis tells of a young man called Cecil Longlegs who “during a severe illness, suffered as violent a persecution from toads, as if the reptiles of the whole province had come to him by agreement; and though destroyed by his nurses and friends, they increased again on all sides in infinite numbers; being wearied out, he was drawn up in a kind of bag into a high tree, stripped of its leaves; nor was he there secure from his venomous enemies, for they crept up the tree in great numbers, and consumed him to the very bones”

Poor old toads no wonder the witches were always boiling them up! taken from

Myths and Legends of Wales; retold by Tony Roberts

Sites within 20km of Trellyffaint

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