Sites (2)
Images (39)
Fieldnotes (1)
Folklore (1)
Miscellaneous (1)

Sites within Craig Rhiwarth

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Images

Image of Craig Rhiwarth (Hillfort) by GLADMAN

Optically-assisted close-up of the brutal south face of the ‘hill fort’. The main summit of Y Berwyn rise beyond, Cadair Berwyn prominent.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Oct 2, 2024

Craig Rhiwarth and Y Berwyn are resplendent looking across Bwlch y Main from Carnedd Das Eithin to the south.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Oct 2, 2024

The great hill fort from the head of the Nant Buarth Glas

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 1, 2018

Craig Rhiwarth features its very own natural cloaking device.... software’s a bit unpredictable, apparently.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 3, 2017

Ariel view from the summit ridge of Glan Hafon.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 3, 2017

The hill fort seen from the approx. north-east ascending to the summit of Glan Hafon, Y Berwyn.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 3, 2017

Western flank

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Western flank, looking approx north... Nature does is best.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

North-western defences... not much need of artificial intervention here, to be fair.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Toward the wondrous Cwm Rhiweirth... A brace of cairns crown Foel Cwm-Sian Lwyd overlooking the head of the valley

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Possibly the main entrance to north-west, facing the easiest topographical approach. The dry stone wall is correspondingly thicker at this point.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Northern flank...very approx west

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Northern defences, very approx north-west. Post Gwyn rises across the cwm... incidentally reached by a (recommended) walk following the Afon Digynfa back into the hills to Rhos y Beddau from the top of the magnificent Pistyll Rhaeadr

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

The main defences of the hill fort protect the northern flank... the north-western corner of which accords the only practical ascent – here we look east.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Approx north-east to Moel Crynddyn... the only relatively manageable ascent route curves around to the north; needless to say I only realised after making the brutal, full frontal climb.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Approx eastern flank....

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Southern flank, looking approx west. More-or-less impregnable, it has to be said.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Nov 14, 2016

Image of Craig Rhiwarth (Hillfort) by postman

From the north west, showing the only ......easy? way up to the fort, ie; from the north, already up the hill.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Feb 3, 2014

Craig Rhiwarth center stage from on Craig y Castell

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Feb 3, 2014

Looking over the main entrance towards Bedd Crynddyn barrow by the trees

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

Looking over the main entrance towards Glan Hafon.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

A good stretch of ruined wall

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

looking over the ruined fort wall towards Bedd Crynddyn

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

Here comes the weather, and a subsidiary entrance.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

round house next to summit cairn.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

Round house glimpsed through some extreme weather.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

Round house and some truly shitty weather.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

Blurry round house, sorry but apparently I do not control the weather.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

Hafod, for comparison like, also it’s the only place out of the wind and the sleet.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Jan 5, 2014

From just below Glan Hafon cairn.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Dec 12, 2013

You can just see the ruined flattened wall on the right side of the hill top.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Dec 12, 2013

Close up of the best part of the wall.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Dec 12, 2013

From on Y Cloggyd, and the Tanat valley below and behind.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Dec 12, 2013

From between Moel and Bedd Crynddyn

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Dec 12, 2013

From below Moel Crynddyn en route back to the car.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton

postman Dec 12, 2013

A landscape perspective of the strategic siting of the hillfort (extreme top right), dominating any movement through Cwm Rhiwarth, the natural route through the Berwyn.

The viewpoint is above the waterfall at the head of the cwm, the Afon Eirth.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Jan 16, 2013

Looking SE along Cwm Rhiwarth towards the hillfort. The river – just visble in deep shadow, below right – is the Afon Eirth.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone

GLADMAN Aug 21, 2010

Articles

Craig Rhiwarth

Hillfort

postman Jan 6, 2014

The drive into Wales was mostly sunny and I was thinking it would be a very nice day indeed, plus the chance to walk off the sciatic pain in my leg was a bonus. I parked down the road from where I parked last time when I was here for Glan Hafon cairn a few weeks ago, that trip inspired this one. I set off up hill in good spirits and very little pain.
The river had much more water in it than last time and on the way here sandbags were piled up outside houses and shops, flood warnings very much in effect. I carried on.
I finally reached the old shepherds hut at the bottom of the waterfalls immediately north of the bulk of Craig Rhiwarth, from here on in the up would be much steeper and much harder going, take that Sciatica. I followed the small but very pretty waterfalls up hill then broke out across rougher ground. It is times like these that I feel my age and wonder how long I can last on this lush rock we call Earth.
Eventually I reach the long front wall that stuck out so much last time I was up here. It is a long straight wall running west to east cutting off the higher ground on Craig Rhiwarth from the rest of the southern Berwyn mountains. About half way along the wall is a fairly well preserved entrance that opens onto a steep bit of hill but the track through the entry curves round to the left avoiding the steepness. A hundred feet west from the main entrance is a smaller less well preserved entrance, for foot traffic perhaps.
From the wall I staggered manfully up to the summit cairn just as the drizzle set in, but as I reached the top the drizzle turned into hail and the wind which was as ferocious as I’ve ever seen it whipped the hail hard against me, trying to stop the hundred mile an hour hail from hitting me in the face became an all consuming game.
The cairn is mostly flush with the ground, except for a modern walkers cairn on top of it. It isn’t Wales’ most interesting cairn, but just a few yards down hill are the best preserved round house hut circles, Coflein says there’s a hundred and seventy but I couldn’t see any more than a dozen. But then the wind and the hail were seriously curtailing my searching efforts. I took as many photos as I could, over a hundred in all, but over half were wet and blurry, it was not a good day for hill walking let alone photography.
I sought some out of the wind place to sit and ponder for a bit, I found some near a rectangular Hafod, a farmers summer hilly hideout. I took stock of myself and my stuff, it was wet, me coat aint waterproof anymore nor are my trousers. I tried to take another picture of where I was but the camera said replace the battery, crap, I thought, already dead? that was quick. So I started to make my squelchy way off the mountain. The 532 meter high hill, or is it a mountain, isn’t a uniform flat topped hill its full of nooks and crannies pinnacles and troughs. In better weather I imagine someone in less pain than me would stay up here for longer.
After leaving the summit cairn area on the west of the hill top I didn’t see any more hut circles, why are they all clustered around that area, even the obviously better sheltered areas were free of hut circles or are they buried. There was none on the east side of the hill either.
The way down I took was slightly different from on the way up, steeper harder and more dangerous, but quicker, I really needed to get off this mountain, so I carried on.
Then as I got to the bottom of the hill the wind dropped, the rain and hail subsided and the sun shone down upon me, I looked up to the sky and opined my lot in Wales, really ?
If anyone ever says the weather has no mind and isn’t watching me continuously, well, they’re just wrong.
Back in the car the camera had changed it’s mind and now told me the battery was fully charged. Eh ?
And the day after, the sciatica that has so plagued me all week had now got worse and started on the other leg as well, now that really hurts.

Craig Rhiwarth

Hillfort

Rhiannon Aug 18, 2006

Some folklore about a cave under Craig Rhiwarth, recorded in ‘Celtic Folklore – Welsh and Manx, by Rhys (1901). Cwm Glanhafan is on the mountain’s eastern side.

Take for instance a cave in the part of Rhiwarth rock nearest to Cwm Llanhafan, in the neighbourhood of Llangynog in Montgomeryshire. Into that, according to Cyndelw in the Brython for [date missing on STA], p. 57, some men penetrated as far as the pound of candles lasted, with which they had provided themselves; but it appears to be tenanted by a hag who is always busily washing clothes in a brass pan.

Online at the Sacred Texts Archive
sacred-texts.com/neu/cfwm/cf202.htm

Craig Rhiwarth

Hillfort

Rhiannon Aug 18, 2006

According to Cofleing, this hill-top enclosure has several entrances in its tumbled stone walls, “running through precipitous crags”, and inside are about 170 circular structures which one imagines were round houses (and some rectangular ones which were last used as a hafod (summer shelter) in the 19th century).