The remains of a later rectangular structure can be seen inside the curving enclosure wall. Fairbourne lies way below.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
thesweetcheat
Looking down on the settlement. Afon Mawddach is the wide river, while the dark silhouette of Pared y Cefn-hir hillfort rises jaggedly over to the right.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Looking down on Fairbourne and Abermaw/Barmouth. The coast of the Llyn peninsula is dimly seen on the left.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Looking NE across the fragmentary hut circle settlement near the row. The darkly rugged hill on the centre skyline is the terrific Pared y Cefn-hir hillfort.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Fragmentary remains of a hut circle settlement just to the NNW of the row.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Single cupmark on the second-from-SW stone.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
The megalithic ironing board of the second-from-SW stone in the row. There is a single cupmark towards the pointy end, just above the small patch of light grey lichen.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
The row from its southwestern end.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Looking north across the big cairn.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
The large cairn with its modern addition.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Very large turfed-over round cairn, now topped with a modern rectangular clearance pile.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Another shot of the small turfed-over round cairn, with an example of the dozen or so modern clearance cairns behind.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Small round cairn towards the SE of the field. It is of a very different character to the modern cairns in the field, but is not one of the two mentioned in the GAT SMR (one of which is visible extreme left of shot). Whether funerary or not, it looks like a good candidate for being prehistoric. Pen y Garn rises on the right.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
The hills of the Llyn peninsula can be seen on the horizon, left. On a less cloudy day the mountains of Snowdonia would be clear, straight ahead.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Looking southwest, with Cardigan Bay stretching away beyond.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
Approaching the stones on the footpath from the NNW.
Image credit: A. Brookes (27.7.2015)
A prehistoric trackway that could be more than 4,000 years old has been discovered on a beach in Cleethorpes.
The wooden track would have been used to cross a boggy landscape and is believed to be from the early Bronze Age, said archaeologists.
It was found during a coastal survey for a project into threatened archaeological sites.
More on BBC website:
Looking down on Llwyngwril, with the Mawddach estuary and Barmouth beyond to the right.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Looking east along the inner rampart.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Excellent stone-built inner rampart. Waun Oer rises beyond: on the other side of the hill there are multiple standing stones, cairns and settlements.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Approaching from the south along the Wales Coast Path. The outer bank is shrouded in dark gorse.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
The fort occupies the top of the prominent rounded hill in the centre of the shot. Cardigan Bay stretches away behind.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Seen from the NNW, below the intervisible hillfort of Foel Llanfendigaid.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Seen from the west. The ravages of the encroaching quarry are most obvious from this side. Llechlwyd promontory fort occupies the lower right-hand end of the hill.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Tal y Garreg from the south, across the Afon Dysynni. From this angle the Llechlwyd promontory fort is end-on to the camera.
Image credit: A. Brookes (26.7.2015)
Two pieces of red deer antler and a shin bone, found in January 2014 when storms exposed a section of submerged forest at Tywyn.
A chance conversation in a tea shop produced these.
Image credit: A. Brookes/Mark Kendall (26.7.2015)
Deer antler found on beach at Tywyn thought to be 6000 years old.
Tal y Garreg from Tywyn across the Dysynni estuary. Llechlwyd promontory fort occupies the lower plateau at the left-hand end of the hill.
Image credit: A. Brookes (25.7.2015)
One hill, two forts.
Tal y Garreg fort crowns the summit of the hill at SH57400358, while Llechlwyd cuts off the lower western promontory. Both look down on the mouth of the Dysynni river.
GAT details:
Tal y Garreg
This is a fortification in an exhilarating position, fronting the sea and exposed to all the winds that blow! Its date is very uncertain, and it may have been occupied at more than one period.
The defences are built on the very top of the narrow ridge. They consist of two relatively low earth and stone banks enclosing a rectangular space about 45m long and 22m wide. At the seaward end there is a much stronger point the base of a tower or small circular enclosure (10m in diameter) fronted by a rock-cut ditch now virtually filed with stone. If this stone comes from the collapse of the tower, it must have been quite high. Beyond the ditch is a curving bank with another deep rock-cut ditch beyond. This ditch is now right at the edge of the quarry take care! The ring of concrete pegs on the tower once anchored a shipping signal. (Extract from G. Smith: A Visitor Guide to the Main Iron Age Hillforts of Meirionnydd (2009)).
Llechlwyd promontory fort
A promontory fort enclosing 1.5 acres, situated on a spur of land projecting SW from Tal y Garreg Mountain. The artificial defences comprise an inner and outer bank, 3.6m and 3.2m high respectively with an outer ditch now only 0.8m deep, constructed across the neck of a steep sided promontory. The outer bank and ditch have been destroyed at their west end by a modern quarry road, which exposes a section showing that the ditch was originally 1.9m lower than the present day ground level. The large inner rampart is mainly of stone. And has an in-turned entrance at the junction of its W end with the natural defensive slope of the hill. There are no traces of any huts within the fort. Surveyed at 1: 2500.
Another view of the little cairn with the slabs. Looking over Cwm Aman.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
The southern group is much more overgrown than the others. This interesting little cairn has a couple of upright slabs that might suggest the remains of a cist.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
Possible kerbing on the cairn at SN9947200677.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
The cairn at SN9947200677, looking across the Cynon Valley with the Brecon Beacons prominent on the skyline.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
Cairn at SN9947200677, the biggest of the 40+ in the three groups. Looking SE towards Coed Cwm Aberaman.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
Representative cairn of NE group of 14. A number of these have been exposed by recent burning.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
Small is-it-or-isn’t-it “standing” stone a little to the north of the cairnfields.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
Another representative cairn in the NW group of eleven.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)
Representative example of cairn in the NW group, this one picked out by the course grass growing around its perimeter.
Image credit: A. Brookes (10.7.2015)