Big Welsh Walk— Gelligaer Common: An Archaeological Treasure House 14 May, 11am—3pm

Gelligaer Common is one of the most remarkable archaeological landscapes in Wales and features in the Royal Commission’s forthcoming bi-lingual publication, Archaeoleg Ucheldir Gwent/Archaeology of the Gwent Uplands by Frank Olding. On Saturday 14 May, senior archaeologist David Leighton will lead an informative and fascinating guided walk over this bleak but beautiful moorland. As part of Ramblers Cymru Big Welsh Walk, held annually throughout May, this 5-mile walk will take visitors to sites dating from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. This fairly easy walk should take about four hours to complete, including a break for lunch, and will offer a microcosm of the archaeology of the south Wales valleys before the Industrial Revolution.

Along the way, particular sites of interest will include a visit to the Early Christian Cefn Gelligaer Inscribed Stone which is over 2.5m long. This once bore an inscription near the base of its northern face that read NEFROIHI – “the stone of Nía-Froích”, apparently commemorating an Irish warrior, and dating to the late sixth to early seventh centuries. The stone was first noted by Edward Lhuyd in 1693, but the inscription is no longer visible. Following this, we will visit the deserted medieval settlement known as Dinas Noddfa, which was excavated in the 1930s by the archaeologist Lady Aileen Fox. We will also visit several Bronze Age ring-cairns, including the splendid Carn y Bugail ring-cairn measuring 19.5m (east by west) by 15.8m set within a partly visible kerb of massive outward-leaning slabs and capped by an OS triangulation pillar. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, diggers here reported finds of "bones and urns" and three parallel cists.

Accompanied by Royal Commission staff, including architectural historian Richard Suggett, David Leighton will offer his historical expertise along the way sharing a wealth of knowledge gained through his many years as coordinator of the Royal Commission’s successful long-running Upland’s Project. The walk promises to be a great day out for walkers of all ages and a rare opportunity to discover more about the heritage which surrounds us!

The meeting place for the walk is the carpark of the Visitor Centre, Parc Cwm Darran: NGR SO11360345.

Many of the sites visited in the walk will appear in the Royal Commission’s forthcoming bi-lingual publication Archaeoleg Ucheldir Gwent/Archaeology of the Gwent Uplands by Frank Olding. This will be launched at this year’s National Eisteddfod in Abergavenny on Thursday 4 August in Pabell Lle Hanes at 2 pm.

Places for the walk are still available, although limited. For further details and booking please contact nicola.roberts@rcahmw.gov.uk.

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View of the Cefn Gelligaer Inscribed Stone from the south east
NPRN: 305944, DS2015_143_001

Aerial photograph showing medieval house platform on Gelligaer Common
NPRN: 15319, DD2015_009_132

Carn y Bugail: Capstone
NPRN: 301283, DS2016_005_003

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Discover the Source of the River Usk on the Royal Commission’s Big Welsh Walk: Saturday, 9 May 2015

Low clouds in mountains at the source of the Usk.

Following last year’s successful exploration of Fan Llia to Fan Dringarth led by the Royal Commission as part of Ramblers Cymru Big Welsh Walk, held annually throughout the month of May, another exciting walk has now been planned for this year in partnership with Cadw and Ramblers Cymru. On Saturday, 9 May, senior archaeologist David Leighton will lead an informative and interesting guided walk that will take in the upper reaches of the River Usk as far as its source (below the cliffs of Fan Brycheiniog and Bannau Sir Gaer), and the far eastern side of Mynydd Du. Setting off from the parking and picnic area at Pont ar Wysg at SN82002715 and slowly climbing to 2000 foot above sea-level, this 11 km circular walk will reveal a range of sites of the prehistoric, Roman, medieval and later periods along the route. This walk of breathtaking views in the beautiful Beacon Beacons National Park will include a number of Bronze Age burial cairns, the remains of a Roman marching camp and even a large nineteenth-century sheep fold with its numerous cells. Accompanied by other Royal Commission staff, including architectural historian Richard Suggett, David Leighton will offer his historical expertise along the way sharing a wealth of knowledge gained through his many years as coordinator of the Royal Commission’s successful long-running Upland’s Project. The day promises to be great day out for keen walkers of all ages and a rare opportunity to discover more about the heritage which surrounds us!

Places for the walk are still available, although limited. For further details and booking please contact nicola.roberts@rcahmw.gov.uk.

As part of the Ramblers’ 80th anniversary celebrations, this year’s Big Welsh Walk will be bigger than ever! For further details see their website at http://www.ramblers.org.uk/go-walking/big-welsh-walk.aspx.

A list of heritage walks planned by Cadw can be found on the events page of Cadw’s website at http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/events/?lang=en.

Ponies and stone circle in the upper Usk Valley: one of the sites on the walk.

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Walking into history – completion of the fieldwork stage of the Welsh Uplands Archaeology Initiative

Peter Schofield and Hannah Leighton from Oxford Archaeology North (OAN), on fieldwork in Snowdonia with David Leighton (centre) of the Royal Commission.

Field archaeologists have been making history by completing the final surveys in the 28-year long Uplands Archaeology Initiative.

The Uplands Archaeology Initiative has been in progress since 1987, and sponsored by the Royal Commission since 1991. Wales is essentially an upland country and this project is a programme of archaeological investigation designed to promote a wider and deeper understanding of Welsh upland heritage through survey, research and publication. Its core activity has been the exploration of upland above about 244m (800 ft) with teams of archaeologists recording sites and monuments they find there.

Exploration has focused on the unimproved moorland component of the Welsh landscape. Although some parts had previously been investigated to a greater or lesser degree and monuments identified, no systematic programme of reconnaissance had been carried out and vast areas remained entirely unexamined. This immense exploratory stage of the project draws to a close this year. By the end of March 2015 a little more than 2500 km2 of moorland will have been surveyed since the inception of the project. This work has taken place in all weathers, in some of the most exposed and extreme environments in Wales.

The final surveys are now being completed and the last covers upland to the south of Trawsfynydd, around Craig Aberserw in the Snowdonia National Park. Fieldwork here is being carried out by Peter Schofield and Hannah Leighton from Oxford Archaeology North (OAN), one of several organisations to have participated regularly in the project, through grant aid, over many years. OAN has now spent nine seasons working in the project in the uplands of North Wales since 2002. They have investigated 350 km2 of moorland and recorded some 4500 sites and monuments.

Hannah Leighton from Oxford Archaeology North (OAN) making a detailed record of an abandoned cottage settlement on moorland near Trawsfynydd.

Peter and Hannah have been looking at a broad range of ancient structures including abandoned settlements, burnt mounds, burial monuments, old peat workings and sheepfolds, many of which were entirely unknown. This diversity is typical of upland environments which are generally conducive to monument survival. By the close of this season it is anticipated that the entire programme of exploration will have resulted in the recording of around 42,000 previously unrecorded archaeological features, and the updating and enhancement of existing records for about 6000 more.

This dataset is a rich resource of information on past land use in the Welsh uplands. The Royal Commission will now begin to examine the legacy and achievements of this long running project. The future analysis of nearly three decades of survey data should lead to a deeper and richer understanding of the part played by the uplands in the history and culture of Wales.

By David Leighton

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Summer drought in south and west Wales reveals new archaeological sites

There were more archaeological surprises this year for the Royal Commission’s aerial archaeologist, as  widespread hot weather in June and July parched grasslands and showed ‘cropmarks’ in ripening fields of wheat. 



Figure 1: Right place, right time. Known cropmark of an Iron Age defended enclosure (upper centre) north of Cardigan, photographed from the air as it is harvested. In an hour or two the site will be cropped, and will disappear until the next dry summer (Crown Copyright RCAHMW, 23 July 2014).

Dr Toby Driver explained:  ‘Despite the hot weather, frequent rain showers in many parts of Wales meant that cropmarks and parchmarks did not develop everywhere. Only in the south and west, across Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and Glamorgan did the persistent drought reveal scores of prehistoric and Roman sites. Parchmarks of the Roman road running west of Carmarthen, as far as Wiston in Pembrokeshire, were seen for the first time since 1994 showing just how dry it got in the south-west.’

Dr Driver continued. ‘At the Royal Commission we have to be responsive to changing weather and crop conditions each summer. As the photo of the enclosure north of Cardigan shows, an hour either side of a flight can make the difference between obtaining a permanent record of a cropmark, or missing it completely.’

Figure 2: The Roman road west of Carmarthen, showing as a parched line approaching Whitland for the first time since 1994 (Crown Copyright RCAHMW, 30 July 2014).

Pembrokeshire held the most surprises, which was astonishing given the number of discoveries made across the county in the 2013 summer drought . As the dry summer of 2014 wore on, this coastal landscape yielded yet more unrecorded prehistoric sites. Close by the Rhoscrowther oil refinery in south Pembrokeshire a splendid concentric prehistoric defended enclosure was discovered in a field of ripening wheat. New defended enclosures of Iron Age or Romano-British type and plough-levelled Bronze Age barrows were recorded near Dale, near Broadhaven, and along the north coast near Carreg Sampson chambered tomb, Trefin.



Figure 3: The ghostly outline of a new Iron Age concentric enclosure near Rhoscrowther, south Pembrokeshire (AP_2014_3228, Crown Copyright RCAHMW, 22 July 2014)

AdFigure 4: Spectacular colours accompanied further discoveries of enclosures and hillforts close to Dale in south Pembrokeshire (AP_2014_3294, Crown Copyright RCAHMW, 22 July 2014).

A number of new sites were also discovered in south Wales, and included an unexpected prehistoric enclosure on a rocky headland at Oxwich on Gower, just south-east of the famous Oxwich Castle.



Figure 5. General view of Oxwich Castle, Gower, with cropmarks of the new defended enclosure in the right foreground (Crown Copyright RCAHMW, 23 July 2014).

Work back in the office to catalogue and record these discoveries will continue at the Royal Commission well into the winter months.

See our online gallery of aerial photographs for further images from our collections.

                                                                                                                             Toby Drive

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Uplands Dayschool 2014 at Sennybridge Training Area, Powys

This year’s Royal Commission Uplands Archaeology Forum and Dayschool, on the theme of Upland Military Landscapes in Wales, was held at Sennybridge Training Area in Powys, in collaboration with the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) and the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO). The requisitioning of the upland landscape of Mynydd Epynt, or the Sennybridge Training Area, and its military stewardship since the second world war, unwittingly preserved a massive block of upland Wales against the effects of post-war and recent farming methods and upland improvement, making the range a haven for preserved landscape archaeology. For this reason it was fitting to hold our 2014 dayschool and fieldtrip in this remarkable upland landscape.
 

Delegates outside the Epynt Visitor Centre with Major Eddie Mahoney, Commandant of Sennybridge Training Area.

The event was held over two days. On Friday 9th May we held our dayschool of talks at the Red Kite Centre in Sennybridge Camp. The day was opened by Colonel Richard Howard-Gash, Commander Wales and West, and Major (retired) Eddie Mahoney, Commandant of Sennybridge Camp, who briefed 50 assembled delegates on the requirements of the training estate. The programme began with a talk by Richard Osgood, the Senior Archaeologist for the DIO, about archaeological priorities for the UK training estate. This was followed by papers from the past year’s archaeological walkover surveys funded by the Royal Commission’s Uplands Archaeology Initiative. Over lunch delegates had a rare opportunity to view preserved Prisoner of War (PoW) alpine scenes painted on the Cookhouse walls in the mid 1940s.

Delegates admiring in-situ Prisoner of War alpine murals on the walls of the Cookhouse at Sennybridge Camp.

The afternoon saw a splendid range of talks on the theme of Upland Military Landscapes in Wales with papers by Dr Bob Silvester and Jeff Spencer (CPAT), Jon Berry (Cadw), archaeologist Dr Stephen Briggs, military historian Mark Kahn, and Dr Bob Johnston from the University of Sheffield. On the following day, two minibuses of delegates braved the sunshine and showers on Mynydd Epynt to see how the military stewardship of this block of upland moorland has preserved prehistoric, medieval and twentieth-century sites.

Experiencing typical Epynt weather on the Saturday field trip at Hirllwyn enclosure, a scheduled ancient monument protected from military activity by a ‘no digging’ star.

By kind permission of the Commandant, we were able to visit famous sites of the Epynt, like the enigmatic defended enclosure at Clawdd British, together with relatively recent discoveries of national importance like Pant y Blodau medieval deserted settlement, and twentieth-century military monuments including drainage culverts built by German and Italian Prisoner of War. A highlight of the trip was a visit to the restricted German training village or FIBUA (Fighting in Built Up Areas), an urban training facility, guided by Mark Kahn.

Visiting the restricted FIBUA village (Fighting in Built Up Areas), a purpose-built training facility for urban combat, modelled on a German village.

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Exploring Fan Llia to Fan Dringarth with the Big Welsh Walk 2014!

Throughout May, Ramblers Cymru is holding its annual event, the Big Welsh Walk. The event aims to encourage people to get out and about walking, with a programme of group-walks around Wales. Last Saturday (3 May) the Royal Commission provided the historical expertise for an 8.5-mile walk on the Brecon uplands planned by Cadw. 25 walkers and 4 Royal Commission staff members assembled near a Roman camp on the slopes of Fan Llia, some 400m above sea level. We were led on the walk by David Leighton, the Royal Commission’s Uplands Project coordinator. This long-running project aims to survey and record archaeology on all moorland over 244m above sea level. Although some 2380 square km have been surveyed to date, this area has yet to be covered. The 8.5-mile circular walk revealed the extent and variety of archaeology existing in upland areas such as this, from prehistoric cairns through to nineteenth-century sheep folds!

The walk proceeded along the western side of Fan Llia, where we saw a group of circular and oval platforms representing the remains of a prehistoric settlement which could date to as early as 2000 BC. This is an exciting site, as there are few examples of platform groups such as this in Wales: they are better-known in the north of Britain where the majority of those excavated are Bronze Age in date.

A short distance to the north-east lie the remains of a Bronze Age burial cairn. Its centre has been robbed out and a slab on the edge of the mound is thought to have been the capstone.

David Leighton explains how the burial chamber would have looked, with upright stones defining a stone-lined burial pit and supporting a larger capstone.

We continued north, crossing the Afon Llia at Rhyd Uchaf, a ford over the Sarn Helen, an old Roman (and post-medieval turnpike) road. We then headed towards Maen Llia (NPRN 84541), one of the largest standing stones in Wales.
 

Walkers fording the Afon LLia on line of the Roman road.

Although Maen Llia reputedly bears traces of a Latin/Ogham inscription, its precise geometric relationship with nearby bronze-age monuments suggests that it is prehistoric in origin. We paused exactly 320m south-east of Maen Llia at the remains of a Bronze Age burial cairn (NPRN 84539). David Leighton explained that the cairn forms the apex of an isosceles triangle whose other two corners are formed by Maen Llia and a multi-banked Bronze Age ring barrow (NPRN 84544). Distances between the three sites have been measured by the Royal Commission and the cairn was found to be equidistant from the other two sites. Intriguingly, a platform (possibly for a structure of some kind) sitting inside this triangle of sites is equidistant from the ring barrow and Maen Llia.
 

Platform lying precisely equidistant from ring barrow and Maen Llia.

More recently, a possible recumbent standing stone (NPRN 409642) has been identified projecting from a field-bank at the current roadside to the south-west of Maen Llia. GPS readings indicate that the stone is also at the mid-point between the ring barrow and Maen Llia.

Walker standing on possible recumbent standing stone, positioned at an equal distance between Maen Llia and the Bronze Age ring barrow.

Maen Llia, measuring 3.61m high and 2.75m wide, is located at the head of a pass between Fan Llia and Fan Nedd. According to legend, at Midsummer’s eve the stone walks to the river to drink. This story could refer to the stone’s shadow, whose evening shadow reaches towards the nearby river and is, according to local people, the shape of a forked tongue.

Maen LLia, one of the largest standing stones in Wales.

Lunch was eaten overlooking the Llia Valley and much fun was had flying kites kindly supplied by Ramblers Cymru!

Looking south down the Llia Valley.

After negotiating the 500m+ upper slopes of Fan Dringarth, we made our way down to the eastern slopes of Fan Llia and followed the line of the Nant y Gaseg stream towards Ystradfellte Reservoir. There are numerous abandoned post medieval dry-stone sheep folds and other tumbled stock enclosures in the vicinity of the reservoir.

One of many abandoned folds known to have been used from the medieval period up until at least the nineteenth century, possibly built on an earlier structure.

The reservoir, constructed in 1907-14 to provide water for Neath, has the remains of a number of probable later medieval or post medieval building platforms close to its northern and western shores. Some are thought to represent seasonal dwellings, occupied in summer when cattle grazed the upland pastures.

The Royal Commission’s David Leighton and Richard Suggett (Buildings Investigator) discuss the interior layout of a probable longhouse on the reservoir’s northern shore.

Given the close proximity of the reservoir, it is likely that further remains lie under the water itself.

Remains of medieval or later longhouse bisected by the western shore of the Ystradfellte Reservoir.

From the reservoir it was a short walk back to our start-point. We all agreed that the walk was invigorating, informative and fun!

Ramblers Cymru’s annual Big Welsh Walk continues throughout May. See their website at http://www.ramblers.org.uk/wales/what-we-do/events-index/2014/may/big-welsh-walk.aspx for details.

A list of heritage walks planned by Cadw can be found on the events page of Cadw’s website at http://cadw.wales.gov.uk/events/?lang=en

 By Nikki Vousden.


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