AdrianStallwood

A revisit tonight to this great stone with customary rubbish North Pembrokeshire weather.
The stone is a good size, standing 2.6 metres high and having an impressive bulk to it. Looking downhill towards the north, it could be said to resemble a broad shouldered hooded figure. Visiting is easy if you’re doing a pitstop, as there is a big pull in place on the road next to where the public footpath leaves the road.
(NB there is still some crappy rusting old fencing dug into the ground around it, and whilst not visually intrusive could be a hazard for dogs).
The stone is both aesthetically pleasing and nicely located. The views to the north are dominated by the ‘sleeping goddess’ sacred mountain of Carn Ingli and it’s Common, with the Gwaun Valley in between. Uphill to the south, although not visible, is Waun Mawn and a collection of standing stones and pairs in the basin to the north of Cerrig Lladron (the footpath heading south will get you there via a remote hill farm with some mad looking and barky Collies). The stone, or whatever it may have formed part of, could easily have been a marker or connection between two ritual centres. We, like everyone else, have never found anything that looks like the ruined cromlech that was supposedly spotted in 1914.
There is also apparently a possible Bronze Age cairn, the nicely named Carn Wrach (Cairn of the Witch) 460m to the southeast, but all that’s visible on the ground are lots of rocks which the farmer will no doubt start JCB’ing as he’s doing in the Tre-Fach stone field.

Went out tonight for a spot of nocturnal cairn bothering on Plumstone Mountain. Access is simple as there is a large car park. Popular site with dog walkers.

The rocky tor is really impressive despite being quite small in terms of ground area. It’s an outcrop of Ordovician rhyolite born in the belly of a volcano, with the same stuff outcropping also at nearby Treffgarne and Roch. There are great all round views to the Preselis and across to the Bristol Channel (will post more images on daytime visit).

The common is a 145 hectare Site of Special Scientific Interest, with a variety of heaths and marshes. Sadly the enormous starling roost that was a winter highlight has moved off a few years ago.

Antiquarian wise, there are four barrows in very reasonable repair. Cook, writing in 2006 in the journal of the Pembrokeshire Historical Society, says that ‘there are two pairs of barrows located 400m apart from each other on an east-west alignment’. However, tonight, we could only find one of the more westerly pair, which should have been located in a very recently ploughed field.

Four barrows remain intact. There is an eastern pair right next to the rock (called Plumstone Central 1 and 2 on Coflein). One of them is on common land and has been walked, cycled and ridden over so many times it’s all smoothed over. It’s pair is just over the barbed wire fence nearby and heathered over.

Head down away from the tor on the big track to the right hand side, and follow the fence round to the third barrow which has it’s own gated enclosure (Plumstone West on Coflein).

The fourth barrow, a rocky one, is technically on Dudwell Mountain not Plumstone, and although topped with the trig point on the maps is trickier to access as it’s all covered in gorse and heather. We didn’t get there tonight so will update after returning. Interestingly, Coflein says ‘early reports speak of a “demolished cromlech” with a 2’ by 5’ chamber, however no identifiable remains of this were noted in 1966‘