Foel Fras: Carneddau Ponies, and an Air Crash

I wasn't specifically heading for Foel Fras on this walk, but wondering if I might make it a little further, to find an air crash site on Llwytmor, nearer the coast. I was strangely tired that day, though, and decided it was taking me too long, so I settled for Foel Fras, where an Avro Anson Mk.I. crashed during the night in July, 1944.

It was a fun walk, although the tiredness hung on me, making all my limbs feel heavy. It felt like a bit of a struggle all the way, and I was glad to be coming down again in the end. Joys along the way included a curious herd of Carneddau ponies, and a sudden descent of mist, leaving me in splendid isolation, briefly, on the top of Foel Fras.

We, Idiots No. 1 and 2™ and I, headed up the track past Pen y Gadair on a reasonably fine day, although there were some low clouds gathering over the mountain. 

Past the stile to Pen y Castell, the track continues along the side of the hill before dipping down.

Idiot No. 2™ seemed more keen on cutting down to Dulyn, but I wanted to go higher than that.

The footpath crosses the Afon Ddu (OS grid ref SH 7183 6800) next to a rather angular sheepfold, where track, river, and fences all come together as one. At wetter times of year it's just a case of getting your feet wet.

Is this a track or a stream? Technically I think it's the track - the river comes down at right angles - but the water doesn't seem to care.

The sheepfold on the Afon Ddu (Black River).

The river is well named, cutting a black gully through the peaty land.

We sat and rested for a while, after cutting up across the contour lines towards the summit of Foel Fras.

Some of the fence posts up on these slopes are things of beauty. Cracked and greyed by weather and age, speckled with grey-green lichen, with the steel fence wire making a blood-rust contrast against the cooler colours. These are the glas and coch of the Welsh landscape - blues that owe more to greens and grey, and reds that owe more to the soft orange-browns of dead bracken. No wonder so many places names use these descriptors. 

On the way up we met a herd of Carneddau ponies. Sometimes I can feel a little nervous of them (probably due to my childhood of being chased by a belligerent Welsh Mountain pony), but in the main they're curious but not that bothered about you. Just take care not to get between adults and foals or the stallion and his herd.

These ponies were on the other side of the fence, so I felt pretty easy with them. They could probably jump it if they wanted to, but they showed no desire to. 

In the far distance, behind the ponies and the falling slopes of the hills, the Afon Conwy is a little ribbon of silver heading to the sea.

The horses kept coming closer then shying away, made nervous in part by the dogs. This first video shows how wary they were, their wariness vying with their curiosity.

They kept coming back to the fence again, fascinated by our presence.

I sat down by the fence to make myself less of a threat to them. Then I thought that singing to them might calm and intrigue them. I don't claim to be a great singer, and I was out of breath, with Idiot No. 2™ choosing to lick my throat every now and then, but they did seem intrigued. This video shows them listening with fascination.

The ponies came very close, just standing and listening, then moving aside to let others come to the front.

 

There are too many photos of the horses but it's hard to decide to delete any because it's so fascinating seeing their individuality and their social relations. 

 

In the background, one of the big foals has gone to her mother, and they touch noses in greeting.

The nose touching was a prelude to suckling.

Eventually I got up and the horses ran off across the hill. I don't know how long they would have stayed otherwise.

We carried on up the hill, following the fence until it became a stone wall for a short time. We were looking for the site of a crashed Avro Anson Mk.I. 

The crash site isn't far from the stone wall, at about 900m above sea level.

The main bits of wreckage I saw were at Ordnance Survey Grid Reference SH 69622 67587. There's still a moderate amount of wreckage here but other sites show more. Possibly this site, like many others, has been plundered for souvenirs. 

 

A lot of these crashes happen during bad visibility in Welsh winters, but Avro Anson Mk.I MG804 of No.8 (Observer) Advanced Flying Unit crashed on July 12th, 1944, during a night-time navigation training flight. One man was killed, Wireless Operator Albert Francis Standring, out of the crew of five.

In other internet posts an 11' long wing section is also visible at the wreck site, close to these remains. Although I looked around quite diligently, I couldn't see it. It must have been taken away either by weather or human hands.

This site provides photos and an accurate grid reference and longitude and latitude for the crash. The 'Peak District Air Crashes' site gives the full names and ranks of those on the plane, and the circumstances of the crash.

 

I don't know nearly enough about planes to know what all the pieces of wreckage are, so I present them here without comment.

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I didn't notice as I was looking at the wreckage that the cloud had suddenly come down. Abruptly, from it being a fairly nice day, visibility was almost gone. 

I carried on up the mountain with the reassurance that I could follow the fence for guidance if necessary, since it goes right over the top of the mountain with the path following it all the way.

This bare patch of stones may be one of the burnt patches from the plane mentioned on the Peak District Air Crashes site. The plane did not set on fire, but was deliberately burnt later.

These little half-streams-half-ponds look even more dark and eerie under lowering mist.

Another stile on my route, although not one I had to use since I was carrying straight on along the wall. I just like taking photos of stiles.

The flat top of Foel Fras is an odd place, scattered with stones like the top of Carnedd Llewelyn, but with the occasional rock spiking up as if thrown down by a tantruming giant. In this kind of mist, caught out of the corner of the eye, at first they can look like a person standing motionless on the hill.

These mountains seem even more ancient when you consider the incredible length of time necessary for cycles of frost and rain and heat to split and fracture these great rocks into shards and leave them scattered like this on the mountain top.

I reached the trig point, and a little cairn just next to it. At 944 metres, Foel Fras is the eleventh highest mountain in Wales, and, apparently, is a good place to watch the spring and autumn migration of the dotterel. There weren't so many birds visible today, though. 

Things got a little strange here. I was listening to an audiobook as I walked, but then I became aware of voices in the mist. A person appeared, and then another couple of people, the first I'd seen on the entire walk. They didn't speak or acknowledge my presence at all on the summit of the mountain. So I carried on walking, feeling vaguely uneasy. Perhaps it was the mist unsettling us all.

I was struck by this lovely symmetrical tear-drop of grass.

We carried on walking down the other side of Foel Fras towards Drum, the strangely non-communicative walkers ahead of us.

As we got lower we came down below the cloud, and views became visible again, with a glimpse of Ynys Mon over the Menai Straits. It was nice to find the rest of the world still existed.

The Conwy Valley appeared on the other side as we got down towards the saddle between the mountains.

Llyn Anafon became visible over the edge of the slope. The lake has been a reservoir since 1931, but it seems that Dŵr Cymru plan to reduce the disused reservoir back to its natural capacity.

We were deliberately hanging back a little so as not to catch up the recalcitrant walkers, but they stopped for a break.

Instead of going up towards Drum, we took the stile over the fence and cut to the right, down between Foel Fras and Drum and back towards Pen y Castell.

A beautifully shaped sheepfold on the edge of Foel Lwyd - that being the Foel Lwyd on the end of Drum, not the one on the end of Tal y Fan.

We headed around the edge of Pen y Castell rather than gaining elevation that we'd only have to lose, to get back to the track we came out on, running from the Pen y Gaer car park, past Pen y Gadair. From the stile in the distance we were back on ground already covered. Tired, I put my phone away and concentrated on getting home.

Drum - A WWII Air Crash, and a Sheepfold

There was a mixture of history on this wet walk from the car park at Pen y Gaer, past Pen y Castell, and along the side of Foel Lwyd and Drum. My aim was to find the impact scar of the WWII Avro Anson Mk.I AX583, which crashed on the slopes where Foel Lwyd and Drum meet on the 25th April, 1944. The Avro Anson was a twin engined light bomber, used frequently for training, and there seem to be quite a few of these crashed in the Carneddau. That's probably more an indication of their ubiquity than their safety record. At the present time there is only one remaining Avro Anson Mk.I in flight, the 'Gentle Annie,' based at Omaka Airfield in Blenheim, New Zealand.

The light rain turned to low cloud and heavy mist as I passed Pen y Castell; similar conditions to those in which many of these planes crashed. When on foot it can be hard to see where to go, so it's no surprise that planes crashed in these conditions, often with men on board who hadn't been flying for long, with poor instruments compared to what planes have nowadays. In the case of this crash, however, the plane had been on a night navigation and bombing exercise. Five men were killed, one of them being a Canadian officer. You can read more about the crash here.

After leaving the crash site I walked on down the hill, getting wetter and wetter, through marshy ground, until I reached a rather wonderful sheep fold. I passed through the sheep fold to eventually emerge on Ffordd Mynydd, for a walk on tarmac the mile or so home.

The Two Idiots™ towing me towards Pen y Castell. Pen y Castell is the rather subdued craggy lump to the right centre. The little peak at left centre is Craig Cefn Coch.

 

 

The stile by Craig Cefn Coch, on the way to Pen y Castell. Pen y Gadair has its top just lost in mist on the left, while Pen y Gaer, centre, is low enough to escape the cloud.

A Carneddau pony which almost seemed to be posing for me. If only I'd had a proper camera with a zoom lens.

 

 

This was the best I could do, with the zoom on my phone.

Every now and then there were little glimpses of fine weather through the cloud, but the rain didn't let up.

 

The cloud was rolling in heavily. My view was doubly obscured by glasses covered in rain. Short sighted as I am, it was still easier to just take my glasses off.

The Two Idiots™ attempt to lure me over a cliff. I decided to take the gentler option of the slope to the right.

I always love these old fence posts with their thick lacework of lichen clinging to them. They seem to be trying to revert back to the trees they came from.

 

 

Making my way along the side of Foel Lwyd and Drum, trying to keep to the 600m contour line where the crash site would be. It was hard going through tufty grass, bilberries, and heather.

 

The impact scar of the Avro Anson Mk.I was just visible, although most of the landscape was lost in mist. The Ordance Survey Grid Reference is SH 71689 69781.

 

 

 

 A lot of the scar must have grassed over, but it's astounding that there's still bald earth after 76 years.

 

 

Looking down the hill, along the impact scar. Although short grass has recolonised the edges, the rushes still haven't managed to come closer.

There follow a number of photos of small, unidentified scraps of wreckage lying on the impact scar. I don't know enough about aircraft to attempt to identify them. There are a lot of photos in this blog entry, which may feel repetitive, but my aim in these posts is to record as much as possible of what still remains, since time and circumstance continue to erase these pieces of history. A lot of the pieces of aluminium appear to be melted. I assume that the aircraft caught fire on crashing.

 

 

 

 

 

This small, delicate filament is a strand of copper wire, perfectly bright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This almost looks like a hammer head. Maybe some kind of handle or joint?

 

 

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A series of photos of what seems to be a battery, badly damaged and corroded.

 

 

  

 

 

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There follow some of the larger parts of the remains. It seems that some have gone in the last ten years, if one compares these photos with ones taken in April 2010. Perhaps some remains have washed away down the slopes, but it's also possible they've been taken by people seeking souvenirs. If you do visit sites like this, please treat them as you would a grave site, and leave what you find where it is. Men died here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The bottom of the scar on the hill.

Rabbits or other burrowing animals seem to have made the bottom of the scar their home. I hope there aren't too many toxins in the soil.

Leaving the crash scar behind. Perhaps the absence of rushes either side show how wide it used to be?

 

Five men were killed here:

Sergeant Reginald William Thomas Smith, Pilot.

Pilot Officer, RCAF John Marshall Polomark, Navigator.

Pilot Officer George Williams, Passenger.

Sergeant Norman Valentine Neville Robson, Wireless Operator

Sergeant Wilfred Jackson, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner.

 

These details are taken from the Peak District Air Accident Research site, which has comprehensive details of many of these accidents, although it doesn't tend to include grid references.

Continuing on down the mountainside, through wet, marshy land.

Great areas around me were still swathed in low cloud. The path of streams further down can be seen by the trees along their banks, taking advantage of the small shelter afforded by the channel cut through the land.

 

 

A small structure on the way down. Rather stupidly, I didn't take a grid reference for it.

 

 

The possible structure closer up. It could also just be stones from field clearing.

The first of two structures marked on the Ordnance Survey map. This one is at SH 7240 7031.

 

 

The second structure, very close to the first, at SH 7243 7033. Both structures are right on the edge of a small mountain stream.

The second structure is more substantial than the first.

Coming down onto the river, which later flows into the Afon Roe.

A first glimpse of the sheep fold. There are a number of these amazing, flower-like sheep folds across the hills, much more impressive than the more usual one or two celled ones that can be seen. From the air they look rather like blossoming flowers, with petals coming out from a central hub. This description of another similar fold on the Coflein website gives a good explanation for the reasons behind these complicated, elaborate folds, and paints a wonderful picture of community on the mountainside: "There is no clear record of when these complicated structures originated. [Their] size and complexity attest to construction and continuing maintenance by generations of farmers from at least the eighteenth century. Sheep belonging to many farms and sharing a common sheepwalk would be gathered in through the funnelled entrance and sorted, on occasions such as shearing, into the small cells belonging to particular farms."

 

A superfluity of gates.

 

 

A pair of rather magnificent gate posts.

The fold is set right against the narrow mountain stream, the presence of which is indicated by the low willow trees along its edge.

This image from Google Maps shows the shape of the sheepfold much more clearly.

 

Standing in the wide end of the fold entrance, looking out.

 

 

 Looking down the funnel entrance into the fold.

 

 

One of a number of repurposed garden gates.

A narrow entrance from one cell to another.

 

 A little sheep hole with a wooden door.

 

 

 

 Another repurposed garden gate.

 

 

 

 An exit through to the river. Idiot No. 1 inspects.

 

 

Either this is another repurposed gate which has fallen over, or this is the entrance to the fold's underworld cell.

 

 Outside the fold, a clever little split pier has been built, so as to be able to bridge the river without having to build a bridge.

 

 

 The gap was a bit scary for Idiot No. 2, but to be fair, she does have short legs.

 

 

 A view of the fold from across the river. In the distance, Tal y Fan is still shrouded in cloud.

 

 

 From across the little river, the structure of the sheep fold is easier to see.

 

 

 The fold makes a picturesque sight, and the sky is just starting to clear, too.

 

 

 The weather cleared up so well it was hard to believe I had come out of low cloud and constant drizzle, with my feet so wet they squelched at every step.

 

 

 My route took me past Y Stabl, a mystery little building that I've spoken about before, here.

 

 

 The front of Y Stabl, with its lovely faced stones.

 

 

The long, dry, road home down Ffordd Mynydd. Too late for my soaked feet.