Rowen Roman Road - Rowen Youth Hostel to Cae Coch

I thought would be interesting to feature the antiquities along this section Roman road along the side of Tal y Fan, stretching from the start of the track at the Rowen Youth Hostel, and ending at Cae Coch, where the track meets the road again. I hope to cover the other section, over Bwlch y Ddeufaen to the crossroads at the end of Drum, in a later post.

To reach this end of the Roman road, walk up from Rowen to the Rowen Youth Hostel at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7466 7210. Alternatively, get a kind person to give you a lift up!

This part of the hillside is strewn with prehistoric remains, not to mention the Roman road which provided a route for the Roman invaders to pass from their fort at Caerhun over to Caernarfon in the west. 'Caer,' of course, means fort, and although there's now a church on the site of Caerhun fort down in the valley, the banks of the enclosure are still quite visible in the ground.

These remains are far higher up, though. The mettled road turns to rubble and mud at about 260 metres above sea level, and this section of the road takes you to about 380 metres at Cae Coch. It's a steep hike up to the end of the mettled road, with the hill being extremely steep not far before the youth hostel, Rhiw, the last house on the road, but the steepness levels out a lot at that point. The road doesn't exactly bear distinct signs of being Roman. It's been used by people ever since, and perhaps was used before the Romans were here.

I have featured the visible prehistoric remains, ones that are very easy to see. There are many other antiquities that are a lot harder to photograph, since some are almost invisible in the flesh and those that are visible, being no more than depressions and rises in the ground, don't really show in photographs. These are mainly the sites of homesteads and hut circles, which I could give grid references for, but if you have an Ordnance survey map to locate the references then you'll also have the sites noted on the map, and then you'll know as much as me about them.

The approach to where the tarmacked road turns into a rocky track. This road leads up through Rowen before splitting in a Y shaped junction. You need to take the right turning, and then keep heading roughly westwards up the hill, ignoring the next right turning.

Rhiw is a lovely old farmhouse that's now a Youth Hostel. This is the highest house on this end of the Roman road, before it becomes a rough track. Cae Coch, at the other end of this unmettled stretch, is higher, and used as a holiday home.

The tarmac ends abruptly and the road turns into a track used by farmers for vital access to their land, as well as by walkers and occasionally mountain bikers.

Some parts of the way are grassed over, but if you come up here in winter prepare for a lot of mud and water. Since this photo has been taken some parts of the road have been repaired with rubble, after a flood washed away part of the track.

The first prehistoric site is a burial chamber a little way to the north of the track. I've been told by the farmer who used to farm this land that this one is called Cwt yr Ast, the 'Bitch's Kennel,' but I've also seen people calling the nearby burial chamber, Maen y Bardd, by this name. I do think that this little chamber looks much more like a dog's kennel and prefer to go with the farmer's opinion. The name 'Cwt yr Ast' may connect the chamber with a legend about a giant, which will be told later. This burial chamber is at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7412 7188.

This burial chamber is still quite covered by earth and grass, at least around the sides and back, and seems to have retained a few small upright stones around it too. Coflein notes the burial chamber simply as 'prehistoric.' Frances Lynch's book A Guide to Ancient and Historic Wales: Gwynedd suggests this chamber is Bronze Age, dating it as some 1,200 years younger than the nearby Maen y Bardd. If this is so, to those constructing Cwt yr Ast, Maen y Bardd would have been like us looking at a grave from the era of the Anglo-Saxon invasions.

The shape of the front of the capstone makes it look rather like a house's - or kennel's - peaked roof.

The chamber is just large enough to get inside, if you're not too big. It certainly serves as a shelter for sheep at times. The sides of the chamber are mostly made of large slabs, but there is a small amount of wall built of small stones, too. It's rather fascinating to look at them and imagine the hands building them up thousands of years ago.

Just above this burial chamber is a flat platform cut into the land in a roughly oval shape. The Ordnance Survey map just defines it as an 'Enclosure.'

Very near the Cwt yr Ast burial chamber, down near the road, are two standing stones that I had never seen before. It surprised me to learn about them, because I've walked along this road many times, but usually only as far as Maen y Bardd before cutting up to the north to see Cwt yr Ast, missing these stones completely. They're known as the Caerhun Stones, despite being not that close to Caerhun! Coflein has little to say about them, but assigns them to the Bronze Age.

This stone is quite small, and easily missed from the path, which is by the wall in the background. The stone is at grid reference SH 74158 71845.

The second stone is behind this one, built into the field wall.

Looking west towards the lowering sun, this is the second stone, used as a useful part of the dry stone wall. The other burial chamber, Maen y Bardd, is just visible on the ridge behind and to the right.

Slightly less blinded by the sun, but the burial chamber isn't visible in this shot, and I think it's important to see these megaliths in context of the other ancient features around them.

Looking back towards the first stone from the stone embedded in the wall. This one seems to have had a hole drilled in it.

There is a suggestion on some sites that there may be a third stone, fallen over. The upright stone is to the left, with the eastern one to middle right, and I think that may be this horizontal stone to the right in front of the eastern stone.

Next, moving westward, is the beautiful Maen y Bardd burial chamber. Maen y Bardd means the 'poet's stone.' This burial chamber is at grid reference SH 7406 7178. Coflein dates the chamber as Neolithic. Frances Lynch's book puts this in figures as '4th/early 3rd millennium BC.' Coflein also lists the names 'Cwt-y-Bugail (shepherd's hut) or Cwt-y-filiast (greyhound's kennel)' for the place. Originally the chamber probably would have been covered by a cairn.

I have been in love with this burial chamber since I was a child. It feels very special to me, and I enjoy walking up the hill just to visit it and touch the stone.

Looking north-east, and the other burial chamber is almost within site, near the trees in the background to the right.

I have taken too many photos of this burial chamber, but I love how it looks so different from different angles.

 

 

 Moving westward but looking back to the south east, these trees surround the abandoned farmstead of Tyddyn Du. The track down to the cottage starts very near Maen y Bardd, and I've always wondered what the inhabitants thought of having this ancient tomb on their doorstep.

 

Looking westward from the same spot, a standing stone is visible just on the other side of the wall. If you're down on the track you're unlikely to see this stone behind the high wall. Frances Lynch's book dates these stones to the 2nd millennium BC. This one stands at grid reference SH 7392 7170, and, curiously, is dated as 'Early Mediaeval' on the Coflein site.

The stone is known as 'Ffon y Cawr' (the Giant's Stick) or Picell Arthur (Arthur's Spear). This slim, leaning stone looks as if it has been thrown into the ground like a javelin. The tale is that a giant sitting on nearby Pen y Gadair (Pen means 'top', Cadair means 'chair') was directing his dog to herd sheep way over here on the slopes of Tal y Fan. But the dog, like sheepdogs through the ages, was ignoring his instructions. In his frustration the giant plucked up great stones to throw at the dog, and they landed on the hillside over here. They have stood in the ground to this day. The 'Cwt yr Ast' burial chamber is the sheepdog's kennel.

From quite a different walk, this is Pen y Gadair as it appears from the iron age hill fort on Pen y Gaer. A good place for a giant to sit while directing his sheepdog.

This is a rather more obscure landmark along the track, and not easy to find without precise coordinates, because essentially it's just a featureless rock at the side of the track. This is the 'Rowen Cross' incised stone, and is supposed to have been incised with a Christian cross by early Christian worshippers in the mediaeval era. Coflein has little to say about it beyond it being Early Mediaeval.

Even looking in different directions, shadowing it, letting the sun strike it, trying everything, I couldn't make out anything that looked like a cross.

Perhaps there is something scratched on the centre of the stone, but nothing that can be deciphered.

A wider shot of the small stone, to place it better in context. It sits on the north side but very close to the track, with this stone wall behind it. The stone is at grid reference SH 73620 71620.

One of the wetter parts of the track, heading westwards.

A little way north of the track, the next, and last, ancient landmark is another standing stone. The Megalithic Portal site names it the 'Cae Coch Standing Stone.' Coflein has very little to say about it, apart from assigning it to the Bronze Age.

I really love this broad, substantial stone, which is at grid reference SH 73550 71640.

There is something of a notch partway down the face of the stone which an archaeologist friend thought could have been cut to help with grip for manoeuvring the stone into place.

I'm not sure if the ring of earth around this is anything to do with its erection, or just a natural result of rain constantly pouring down the stone onto the land. Coflein does say the stone is 'set on a low mound or platform.'

The north face of the stone, looking south towards Pen y Gadair. 

Birds evidently use this place as a perch. 

The final little leg of the track, which leads past the small cottage of Cae Coch, out of shot to the right.  Reportedly the children living at Cae Coch in the past used to walk down to the school in the village and back every day.

 

The rough track now turns back to tarmacked road, with the Roman road cutting occasionally alongside and sometimes on the same route.

 

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As an addendum, on the way to the car park for Bwlch y Ddeufaen there is a little stone circle in the field on the south side of the road, but no other megaliths until the road ends and the track begins again. The following photos of the circle, known as Cerrig y Pryfaid (roughly 'Stones of the Insects' - perhaps flies), were taken in December 2020.

The snow helps these little stones stand out against the ground. They're not very large, no more than about two feet high, and the circle is quite widely spread. It's uncertain if some outliers on the west are stones on their own or the remains of a second circle which is more destroyed. Coflein lists the site as prehistoric, and its location as grid reference SH 72400 71300.

A wider shot showing many of the stones. The slopes of Drum rise behind the site to the south.

The circle is relatively close to the wall along the road, on the left here, and there is a stone stile in the wall, although the stile is hard to see until you're almost on top of it.

The view along the circle towards the valley. The peaks of Pen y Gaer and Pen y Gadair can be see to the right.

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.