The Lost Cottages - Tyddyn Du, Rowen

This little cottage on the slopes of Tal y Fan has always had an odd, rather dour feeling for me. Maybe it's its location, so close to the Maen y Bardd burial chamber, which I used to view with some apprehension. Maybe it's the name, Tyddyn Du (Black Smallholding). Maybe it's because, at some point, it has been essentially disembowelled and turned into a large shed. There's very little sense of the personal left behind.

It's also fascinated me in equal measure. Who chose to build this house in an area full of so many solemn Neolithic and Bronze Age remains? Perhaps it was a totally practical decision. It's very close to the road up the hill leading to Bwlch y Ddeufaen, the pass through the mountains, which was turned into a Roman road but must have been used long before the Romans ever set foot in Britain. The area has been continously settled, with various settlement remains in evidence along the side of the track. Perhaps the inhabitants of Tyddyn Du were descendants of the people who have lived here for centuries. Before our reliance on cars and electricity it was probably an eminently practical place for a hafod. When farmers were driven to live year round in these places, its nearness to the track and to the village of Rowen below would have been a boon.

Coflein describes the house as post-mediaeval and 'very badly renovated,' although think a certain amount of the damage to the house occurred before the renovation. It's mentioned in parish records, assuming this is the same Tyddyn Du, as far back as 1746, although it could easily be older, as the earlier records don't seem to mention house names so often. It appears inhabited in the national register taken in 1939, by John and Anne Owen, farmers aged 71 and 86.

The house can be found at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7402 7166.

The house sits just to the south of the Roman road, in the cluster of trees at the centre of this photograph.

Very close to the entrance, the Maen y Bardd (Poet's Stone) burial chamber sits on the north side of the road, incorporated into a field boundary. When I was young I found it spooky. Now I view the place with a great affection and reverence.

The gateway to the property, with a lovely new gate installed. The footpath runs down the track and past the house.

The old gate has been left just inside the entrance. This is the gate I've known all my life, almost impossible to open, and weighted with part of a huge cog to keep it from being left open by careless walkers.

The driveway down to the house has fascinated me for many years. It's so beautifully built, so sinuous, with such tight stone walls. It's a relatively narrow track, too. 

Why put so much effort into building these beautiful stone walls but make the track so narrow? Why build it with such curves? 

The track straightens out as it reaches the yard, and the wall is in poor condition here.

The track turns a sharp right angle and leads down to the house through the trees. 

At some point the place was bought and renovations began. The local gossip was that it was bought by some people from Liverpool, who started work without planning permission. When the work was discovered, within the Snowdonia National Park and with no services or proper vehicular access, they were told promptly to stop. (Information posted on the Rowen Facebook page suggests the property was bought by the Liverpudlian Old Swan Boys' Club (now the Old Swan Youth Club), and is still in their ownership. It has also been suggested there that the place was once used for training terrorists about twenty years ago! Presumably not in association with the club, though!) 

Possibly part of a bed frame, lying on the driveway. 

The aborted extension, built on what must have originally been the front of the house. In a way, it's rather sad the house couldn't be restored and used, but I'm also rather glad this area of the mountainside hasn't become the location of a holiday cottage or similar.

A very small chimney is visible on the end of the building. It seems almost absurdly small.

A rusted but relatively modern petrol can, discarded on the ground.

This shot from the south end of the house shows the disembowelled interior, and the upper floor put in during the aborted renovation. There is something of a step up further into the room. 

Two pipes through the wall give a glimpse into the end of the building. This is looking from the north end into the abandoned new first floor. 

Another pipe in the west wall shows the tiny end room, with no interesting features in it. 

This is a photo I took later in the year, leaning in through the wide doorway at the front. I'm not sure what the large brick structure is, or if it's something to do with the fireplace that must have been knocked out to make the door. Possibly there was a bread oven here.

Part of a bed frame lying rusting on the ground. These are often used to fill holes in fences and walls.

On a visit later in the year, this is a rather lovely bed end making up part of the fence. 

At the back of the house it's easy to see how it's built into the hill. There's only one window in this back wall, but I think two others, both fairly small, have been blocked up.

Taken later in the year, this photo shows that the western side of the roof is nicely slated. It seems likely this is a new roof put on during the renovations. 

This has become the front of the property, but I assume that this wide doorway was put in when the use changed from house to barn. It sits directly under the small chimney, so there was probably a fireplace where the door is now.

I assume this was the front door of the house originally, with a window to each side. I think the windows have been opened up to the roof at a later date. 

This must have been a small house to live in, and quite exposed to the south winds that storm up the valley. On a day like this, though, it could be idyllic.

Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey

Bryn Celli Ddu is a lovely Neolithic burial chamber under a mound on Anglesey, not far from Llanfair PG. I thought I'd been here before, but it was actually Barclodiad y Gawres I'd visited, which is only open on weekends and bank holidays. Bryn Celli Ddu is a walk of about half a mile from the road, where there is a layby (you can find it on Google Maps by entering 53.2077° N, 4.2355° W into the search box) but the entire route is fenced and gravelled, with a ramp down from the road, so is ostensibly wheelchair accessible (not being a wheelchair user I can't be sure. It's at least pushchair accessible.) The one huge drawback is that to access the enclosure around the burial chamber you have to go through a kissing gate, which would be impossible to get a wheelchair and probably most pushchairs through. You could see the mound from the gate, but I daresay it would be disappointing.

It sounds as if this place was once a henge as well as a tomb, and that the mound (which was reinstated after excavation) has been bigger in the past. A carved stone just outside the mound was removed and a replica has been put in its place. The mound and chamber are surrounded by a ring ditch and kerbstones. Apparently some of the stones from the henge were later used to create the chamber. The passage into the mound is aligned with the summer solstice, with a gap in the stones opposite the passage too (although it sounds like this gap wasn't originally open to the air). It's worth reading the Wikipedia page linked to above.

The view over the fields as you walk along the fenced walkway to the burial chamber.

And here's the mound itself, with the ditch in the foreground and the replica pattern stone to the left. The scar in the hill is where it is cut away to the stones beneath, not how it would have been originally.

One of the information boards at the site. These boards are rather wishy-washy and don't tell you much.

The ditch and stones around it. I don't know if the large stone would have been been upright originally, or if it's one of the henge stones that were deliberately felled.

The replica pattern stone (I didn't notice the patterns) and a glimpse into the back of the burial chamber.

I'm wondering of the patterns have worn off this replica stone.

Coming round to the front of the burial chamber, where the stones get a bit more impressive.

The entrance itself, with a well-worn path. It's rather narrow.

Looking up the passage into the chamber. This is supposed to be one of the finest passage tombs in Wales.

People have left offerings of shells and stones on this little shelf in the rock in the main chamber.

A single pillar stands inside, which seems to be marked with horizontal parallel lines. At the top you can see a modern beam.

Looking back down the passage to the outside.

Looking through the exposed opening in the back wall to outside and the realm of the living.

Tiny stalactites are forming on the underneath of the massive capstone.

More offerings have been left in the passage to outside - a shell, some beach-worn glass, a five pence piece and tuppence.

Another view of the right front of the chamber and the farmland beyond.

And another view of the left front side.

Another rather unhelpful information board.

Here you can see round the side to the replica pattern stone.

Pretty much all of the mound in one shot.

And a quick shot of the gravel path as we walk back to the car...

Lligwy Burial Chamber, Anglesey

After stupidly missing Lligwy burial chamber on Anglesey yesterday we nipped back to find it this morning, and there it was, in all of its massive stone glory. We were treated to a lovely scent of muck spreading as we arrived as a tractor ploughed slurry into the fields and a flock of seagulls descended on what was thrown up. A small layby lies on one side of the road, big enough for one car, and the burial chamber is close on the other, through a gate into the field.

The sign tells you that the chamber was constructed toward the end of the Neolithic period, between 2500 and 2000 B.C., and was probably covered by a mound originally. A 1908-09 excavation revealed the remains of up to thirty people of both sexes and all ages, and late Neolithic pottery.

It was a beautiful crisp morning when we got to the burial chamber. Clear skies and cold March sunshine.

The chamber is at the edge of a rather lovely field of sheep. It's surrounded by metal fencing, but since the gate was open it looks like the chamber has been providing a nice shelter for sheep for quiet some time. I don't envy the farmer who finds their sheep having a difficult lambing inside...

This monument is in the care of the Secretary of State for Wales. You don't want to annoy the Secretary of State for Wales. To be honest, I don't know if we even have a Secretary of State for Wales anymore, and judging by the lichen I think the sign might be almost as old as the monument.

The capstone is absolutely massive, and it's rather staggering to think of how the people of the time managed to manoeuvre it onto the top of the supporting stones.

Inside the chamber is cramped and sheepy. That probably doesn't matter so much if you're dead.

On this side the capstone doesn't even rest on the stones beneath. It's quite something to crouch down underneath something with so much mass and see it's not even supported all around. I love the little undisturbed wall there, too.

You can see why the sheep love to shelter in here. It's dry and cosy.

I think the sign said this fallen stone in the foreground was a standing stone originally.

Tired of seeing it from different angles yet? It must have been impressive when it was covered in a mound, but I do love to see the stone.

A slightly more modern information board. In the good old days people didn't need pictures and colour and dramatic reconstructions. They just needed raised metal letters on an Armed-Services-green plaque.

I don't know if these stones just outside the enclosure were anything, but here they were...

Another angle, the side where the capstone rests on nothing.

Yet another angle? And some daffodils in the foreground that aren't in blossom.

A final look before we go...

And here's the muck-spreading tractor. What a glorious smell.