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Morfa BychanChambered Cairn
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Do not walk from Pendine with its fantastic beach unless your into the coast path going up and down, instead turn right to Marros before you get to Pentywyn then turn left by a campsite and drive through a long thin wood and you'll get to a lovely little beach between Ragwen point and Gilman point. the burial chambers are on the cliffs to your right/west. If we had started here, it still would have been an ordeal getting up to them and then finding them amongst the rocks and ferns, unfortunatly we started in Pendine and my daughter only had on her imperfectly fitting wellies because her always tired dad forgot to find her boots. Boooo ! We headed for the rock stack as it looked like it was in the right place and was visible from quite a distance, I was uncharacteristically bang on the money as at its foot was what looked like a badly damaged chamber I had a quick look and followed the cliff top ( with only a ten foot drop I hesitate to call it a cliff) down towards the sea, untill we came upon the chamber featured by coflein. The chamber orthostats were taller than I anticipated, the capstone was bigger too and the view more inspiring than I'd thought possible. We cleared some of the ferns to get a better look at the place and we found it to be perfect in almost every way. Going back up the hill to the rock stack we pass two big rocks and the next chamber arrives on the conveyer belt of antiquity. The upright stones of the chamber are more skewed and broken and the capstone lies broken but identifiable at their feet. Then just ten feet from the rock stack is the most forlorn of the four chambers only three stones of the chamber survive all the others lie around broken indistinguishable from the light smattering of cairn material that is also here. I was about to give up on the last chamber, we had ascended the cliff top and were walking along looking for anything likely, when I spotted a long flat stone and I went down to have a look and nearly fell in. I had stumbled upon what seemed to be the fourth and most intact of the chambers. The capstone was at floor level and at one corner was an opening going underneath the heavy looking capstone, after clearing the ferns we discovered a step going down which is what I nearly tumbled into. I peeked the camera through the opening and took a photo with the flash on, it revealed all the uprights in place and the cairn material peeped through the orthostatic windows, it was indeed the other chamber, or first one depending on which way you came ? The walk back to the car was nice but the little one needed bags of encouragement and bribes |
Posted by postman19th August 2009ce Edited 30th November 2013ce |
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CofleinFour of the five (Neolithic?) cairns here have chambers. There are three photos online here. (not to be confused with the Morfa Bychan near Porthmadog) |
Posted by Rhiannon26th April 2006ce |
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