GLADMAN
Previous day I was upon the great summit cairn of Bryn Rhudd to the east... Banc-y-Gwyngoed’s companion monument tantalisingly just out of reach. For once, a good decision to hold the nerve and return to give these magnificent places their due.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Looking south upon the great summit cairn.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
West to Banc-y-Gwyngoed, crowned by another massive cairn. I’d intended to visit, but was forced to concede the additional distance was too great.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Battered, bruised and showing the adverse physical effects of many years upon the hills. As for the cairn......... together with its brood of confusing associates, well worth the considerable effort demanded upon a hot Ceredigion day.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Summit cairn from the approx west...
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
The massive dimensions of the summit cairn are not immediately apparent upon arrival from the south... what with a lot of stone having been commandeered for a bizarre ‘Mohican-stylee’ drystone wall (according to the farmer) before present memory. However, there is a LOT more cairn beyond.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Southern ridge... outcropping, or remains of cairn?
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
SN7005656251. Garn Felen is (apparently) subsumed within the forestry beyond. Couldn’t locate it last year...
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Small satellite cairn at SN7005656251 to the east..
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Approaching from the approx east (at SN7006156248) it would appear two monuments crown an apparently unnamed minor top. Bryn Rhudd’s massive summit cairn can be seen beyond.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Quite a substantial upland cairn.... although dwarfed by the not-so-distant Carn Wen, it has to be said. These hills are really a cornucopia of such monuments.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
No sign of any goats, to be fair. Lot more sense, probably.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
The Blaen Bedw mound (SO1402954405) to the immediate north. I must admit the existing shape didn’t suggest a prehistoric providence... however who’s to say it’s not a burial mound later adapted for some other purpose? The ‘gibbet’ hypothesis is intriguing, if somewhat grisly.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
I wouldn’t term myself a giant (of anything, to be fair)... but then one can’t credibly deny this is a pretty hefty monument.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Cyclists and pedestrians – or those who enjoy driving 4x4s at 1mph for whatever reason – can follow the byway towards Blaen-bedw and Cwm Shenkin should they so wish. I was happy enough to chill out upon the great barrow.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Looking more-or-less west towards The Carneddau, chock-a-block with hillforts and cairns...
A group of middle-age rambling muppets arriving from the summit of Little Hill were – for some reason – rather vocally perturbed to see me ‘taking the sun’ here... Throwing their questions back at them confused them utterly, which said it all, to be fair.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
I wasn’t prepared for the sheer scale of this fine barrow...
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Coflein (J.J.Hall, Trysor, 26 March 2) has this to say concerning the much smaller mound (Blaen Bedw) at SO1402954405, just north of the great Giant’s Grave round barrow:
“A earthen mound, measuring 6m square x 1m high, sub-rectilinear in plan.... Its date and purpose are unknown, but it has been suggested that it may represent a prehistoric funerary monument or even a gibbet mound.”
Incidentally – having watched both a tractor and (old-style) Land Rover Defender struggle up the byway – I would highly recommend leaving one’s car at the entrance track to Ty’n-y-coed (just possible upon the verge) unless you are a complete loon.
As for the Giant’s Grave itself... suffice to say I should have come here much sooner. But hey, there are so many upland sites to be savoured around these parts....
The northern cairn of the northern Carneddau....
The more ‘grassy’ northern cairn upon northern Y Carneddau, near Builth Wells, Powys. SO0665055430
A return to Glan Fedwen...
Now I can – and will – forgive the wondrous OS anything. However, for such a sublime cairn to not be featured upon current mapping is rather odd.......
A pretty obscure ‘odd couple’ of cairns upon the south-western flanks of Mynydd Mallaen.
Looking south – funnily enough towards South Wales’ Great Escarpment. Surely one can never tire of seeing those upon the horizon?
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
I couldn’t make out whether the additional small cairns were prehistoric in origin... in the same manner as, for example, those beside Pumlumon’s great Carn Hyddgen cairns? Coflein doesn’t appear to mention anything, however.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
The cairn has been ‘hollowed out’ – as, sadly, you would expect – containing an OS trig station within. Nonetheless, it remains a substantial monument with far-reaching viewed towards the wilderness of Cwmdeuddwr.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Despite the hill’s relatively modest height, this took a bit ascending. Worth it, though.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Despite being somewhat ‘re-arranged’ this great cairn was clearly once more than a match for the pair crowning Garreg Las (to the east) and those upon Y Mynydd Du’s western-most flanks.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone