Caer Bach Hill Fort, Hut Circle, and Cairns, Llangelynin

Caer Bach is a small prehistoric hill fort situated at the end of Tal y Fan, looking out over Dyffryn Conwy, with good views up and down the valley. It can be easily approached by driving up the road to Llangelynin Old Church and parking on the small concrete area there, then walking along the footpaths to its location. During this current lockdown, though, I walked from home up to the west end of Tal y Fan, and along the higher footpath past Pen y Ffridd to the fort at the east end of the mountain.

Often there are Carneddau ponies grazing about the fort's sides, along with the ubiquitous Welsh mountain sheep. The fort is at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7442 7297.

A very short panorama from the fort can be seen here. 

Caer Bach looks almost like an entirely human-made mound on the land, but I think it's mostly human sculpting of a pre-existing rise. Coflein lists the fort as 'prehistoric,' but doesn't narrow this date down at all. Heneb mentions that a post-Roman date may be possible, which would mean it was later than the fort at Pen y Gaer, and it would have been Pen y Gaer and Cerrig y Ddinas guarding the broad entrance to Bwlch y Ddeufaen.

Approaching the fort from the south west, the ditch and bank are more just a shallow platform and slope. 

I have grown up very familiar with the larger iron age hill fort, Pen y Gaer, on the other side of the entrance to the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen, but it was only recently that I found out this little place existed. It's not obvious on the hill like Pen y Gaer. Instead of crowning the top of a hill it sits on a tiny rise on the land between higher peaks, and is very hard to pick out on the skyline from a distance.

Looking back to the north west, the contours of rise-plateau-rise are fairly easy to see. The east end of Tal y Fan rises up behind the fort.

 

Coflein says the entrance to the fort is on the south side, and I think this is probably it. This corresponds with the entrance marked on the diagram on the Heneb site.

Standing in the fort entrance, looking towards the rocky hill of Craig Celynin in the east. A little further east, Cerrig y Ddinas is an iron age hill fort, atop another rocky hill.

The remains of the much robbed out inner wall.

The place is scattered with quite a few rocks and boulders, some of which might be the natural bedrock coming through. I wonder about the human hands that would have brushed over these rocks, the children who climbed on them. 

This single large recumbent stone gives me similar feelings. I like to sit here thinking that a few thousand years ago people may have sat here too, talking together. Perhaps the view wouldn't have been the same when the defensive wall was intact, but the stone can't have changed much. 

Looking south up the valley, with the Afon Conwy a silver line in the distance. 

 

Perhaps the larger stones in this wall have been robbed out to help build the stone walls that thread across the landscape. The wall is described by Coflein as being between 4-5 metres wide, and it must have taken a huge amount of time and effort to build. I wonder how long the wall stood after the place was abandoned. 

 

Looking across the top of the hill fort to the east end of Tal y Fan. Coflein states that a 'hut circle can be traced against the inner face of the NW side of the inner enclosure,' but I haven't been able to make it out. It is shown in the diagram on the Heneb site.

The north side of the fort is defended with a bank and ditch which are still very clear. Coflein says that the bank reaches a maximum height of ten feet.

Looking north-east, the rocky hill of Craig Celynin rises up to partly block the view of the valley. Beyond Craig Celynin is the rather smaller hill of Cerrig y Ddinas, with its iron age fort remnants. I don't know why the peoples who built the two forts decided not to use Craig Celynin for their base. Perhaps Caer Bach is less exposed. Perhaps it's more strategically placed. Cerrig y Ddinas, certainly, is in a great place looking right out over the valley, the last great hump of rock before the land plunges to the valley floor, like Pen y Gaer on the other side of this wide opening to the Bwlch y Ddeufaen pass through the mountains. 

Down in the ditch behind Caer Bach, looking north-east. Probably a certain amount of the banks on either side have eroded down into the ditch, so originally the place would have been more formidable to attack. Get past the ditch and bank and you still have the stone wall to storm. In the post-Roman era, if this is the date of the fort, perhaps they would have been defending themselves against other local people, or perhaps against the first incursions of Scandinavians and Germanic peoples that began as a result of general westward migration through Europe.

Looking south-west from the same place. The ditch becomes a little more shallow and eventually smooths out as you walk around to the front of the fort. Coflein mentions a 13th-14th century mediaeval house platform in poor condition cut into the edge of the fort on the south west side, but I didn't look for evidence of this. Another mediaeval house platform is listed slightly to the north east of the fort.

 

There is a hut circle here outside the fort, on the south west side, which I have found in the past, but couldn't make out today, in the bitter cold.

Looking down on Caer Bach from a little further up the slope of Tal y Fan. 

On another walk, in August 2020, I did find the hut circle outside Caer Bach, and spent some time dotting the slightly raised remains with sheep's wool to make it more visible. The circle is marked on Coflein as being at Ordnance Survey grid reference SH 7436 7293, and classed as Roman, Iron Age, which could make it a little earlier than the fort if the Heneb date suggestion is correct. It is just visible as a faint ring in satellite photos. 

A wide angle shot of the hut circle, looking north. 

The rim around the back of the hut circle can be made out raised above the interior, in the top third of this photo, with the curve coming around into the foreground to the right.

From the edge of the hill fort, the hut circle, looking west. 

The hut circle can just be made out to the middle left of the photo, with the hill fort rising above it to the right. 

This seems to be the entrance into the hut, a distinct dip in the rim. 

Without the sheep's wool the site is much harder to see. 

To the north of the fort Coflein mentions a Bronze Age kerbed cairn, but I haven't looked for this.

 

A little way west from the fort, just to the south of the track towards Cae Coch and Bwlch y Ddeufaen, are four prehistoric cairns. They are arranged parallel to the track, three in a row, and one standing a little north of them, closer to the track, directly in front of the centre cairn. The grid reference of the centre cairn is SH 7430 7260. I think this is the Coflein reference, although the site mentions five cairns and the rather imprecise grid reference of SH 742 726 centres a little north of the track. The site dates them as Bronze Age, but doesn't specify a purpose to the cairns.

On the Megalithic Portal the cairns are named, Ddwyffrwd Cairns, and characterised as a barrow cemetery.

This western cairn is the easiest to see as a slight rise and parch mark under the grass. The second and third are just visible in this photo beyond and to the left, under patches of low gorse.

The westernmost cairn again. 

The central cairn has small gorse bushes on it but is still quite easy to see. 

The third, easternmost cairn, is the hardest to make out under its crown of gorse. 

Looking south west across the central cairn.

The fourth cairn, closer to the track, is a little like the first, bare of gorse and just visible as a little discoloured rise in the land.

The Lost Cottages - Cae Ithel, Llanbedr y Cennin

Cae Ithel is an odd little house on the slopes above Llanbedr y Cennin, under the side of Pen y Gaer. Initially in the censuses Cae Ithel Ucha and Cae Ithel Isa are mentioned, but from 1881 only Cae Ithel is still occupied. From the occupants listed, I believe it's Cae Ithel Ucha which has survived, and Cae Ithel Isa which has fallen out of use. I have explored what I think may be Cae Ithel Isa in a previous post.

Cae Ithel is various spelt 'Ithel' and 'Ithal'. Ucha is interchangeable with Uchaf, and Isa with Isaf. Ithel is a man's name, thus the houses' names would mean 'Ithel's Field, Higher,' and 'Ithel's Field, Lower.'

A note of interest. It seems that in 1920 Cae Ithel was the home of Hugh Edwards, father of Thomas H. Edwards, otherwise known as Huw Tom, the 'unofficial prime minister of Wales.' In 1911 Hugh Edwards was still living in Pen y Ffridd, on Tal y Fan, but by 1920 he must have moved to Cae Ithel. I will comment further on this later in the post, but the history of Huw Tom can be found in my Pen y Ffridd post.

Quite a number of the houses in this area are still occupied, and are working farms, but Cae Ithel slipped through the net, and is now abandoned. The non-native planting around the house indicates a later date of occupation.

Most of these photos are from November 2020, with some from February 2021. See a short video of the place taken in November 2020 here, and a rather more comprehensive one from February 2021 here.

The house sits on the footpath, at Ordnance Survey grid reference 7575 6883.

The stile over to the property - to the left of the large pine tree - was extremely rickety. Thankfully this has now been replaced.

The place commands a rather stunning view down over Dyffryn Conwy and to the coast. The village of Llanbedr, strung out along the road, can be seen between the trees in the foreground.

The house itself is almost invisible under a tangle of growth.

A little stone enclosure near the house.

The north wall of the house is built with a lot of very large stones, perhaps roughly faced. On the whole the stones get smaller higher up, but there are surprisingly large ones high in the walls.

A massive cornerstone on the north-east corner. The bottom of the wall projects a little from the line of the wall above.

 

 

This slate slab looks like it was originally used in the building but I don't know what for.

The place is surrounded with Japanese knotweed that the landowner seems to be making a valiant attempt to control. The front of the house is barely visible through the plant growth.

Cae Ithel appears in all of the censuses from 1841 through to 1911, and was evidently still occupied in 1920. It is possible the place was occupied in the 1939 register. A property with a single occupant is redacted between Pennant and Onen Ebryd. Because the whole entry is redacted rather than the personal details of the occupant, there's no way of tell if this were Cae Ithel or another house on the slope. The nearby Cae Asaph is also missing from the register.

The window into the central cell. The layout of this house is a bit strange, as will become apparent. There are three cells, none of which have communicating doors, but two of which have apparent domestic use.

A will appears referring to Richard Jones of Cae Ithel in 1800. The will was written for W. Richard Jones of Ffynnon Bedr in 1793, but the last page of the will, itemising his property, refers to Richard Jones of Cae Ithel. He must have moved to Cae Ithel before the will was updated on 28th May, 1800, which is the earliest date I have so far found for the property. I haven't yet found it in the parish records, but a lot of the records are very faded or don't contain the house names. In this will Richard Jones is illiterate, and owns household furniture, a number of cattle, two old horses and a pony, thirty sheep, two pigs, and the implements of husbandry. He seems to have died in 1801, leaving his 'messuage tenement lands and hereditaments,' and goods variously to wife Catherine Richards, sons John and Owen Jones, and daughters Jane and Ellin. He seems to have owned a reasonable amount of property, including Vachell and Bron Bedr.

 

 

The door to the central cell, with the door to the southern cell to the left. Most of the stones in this house are faced but still rather rough.

By 1841 the house is lived in by John Roberts, 45, a farmer, and his daughter Elin, 13.  In 1851 John is listed as a widower of 55, 'occupier of 9 acres,' still living with his daughter Elinor, 22. In 1861 John is listed as a widower of 70, a farmer of 10 acres, who was born in Llanrwst. The house also contains daughter Ellin Jones, 29, now married, and children David, 8, John, 5, Jane, 4, and Evan, 9 months. Her husband is not listed, but in 1871 he is there, John Jones, 49, a farmer born in Llansanffraid, Denbigh, living with wife Ellen, 43, and children John, 16, a shoemaker, Jane, 14, Evan, 11, William, 7, and Cathrin, 3. In 1881 poor Ellen is now widowed, at 52, a farmer, and living with children Jane, 23, Evan, 20, Catherine, 12, and Joseph Henry, 8. In 1891 Ellin Jones is 63, still a farmer, living with son Evan, 20, and nephew William Jones, who is 12.

 

Son William, not the nephew, has a slightly more interesting history since he appears in the newspapers in 1889 accused of embezzling money gained as a 'country traveller' while working for a Llanrwst draper. He is quoted as writing, 'I don't know what to do with my mother. She is quite broken-hearted owing to my dishonesty. I wish I had listened to you, but it is too late now. It is my illness that was the net that caught me.' When William entered the employment in 1886 he was paid £15 a year, rising to £20 by 1888. His brother Joseph Henry, now a shop assistant in Conwy, gave evidence.

 

In the northernmost cell, which seems to be the main house, a window has been blocked up with stone.

The doorway into the main house.

 

Interestingly, the 1846 tithe shows the land being farmed by Anne Owen and John Roberts, 18 acres 20 perches of arable and pasture land owned by Thomas Asheton Smith, Esqr, with a tithe value of £1.14s. This roughly ties in with the occupation and land area of both Cae Ithel Isa and Ucha put together; in 1851 both farms are described as having 9 acres. In the 1841 and 51 censuses Cae Ithel Isa is occupied by Anne Williams and Anne Owens, but I believe these are the same woman. The name confusion may be to do with Anne swapping between her father's name and her husband's surname. The implication is that these two properties have always been linked.

 

From inside, the window seems to reach almost right down to the ground.

The bottom of the window is level with the top of this iron stove plate. The floor level inside the house is probably some way below current ground level.

There was probably another window on the first floor above this one.

Possibly a piece of window glass, although the glass is very thin.

In 1901 the house has at last changed hands. Often these houses change tenants more frequently. The house is lived in by Evan Jones, 41, his wife Margaret, 42, born in Capel Curig, daughters Elenor, 8, and Elizabeth, 5, and John's widowed mother in law Elizabeth Owen, 80, who was born in Trefriw. They are all bilingual apart from 5 year old Elizabeth and grandmother Elizabeth Owen. According to various newspaper articles, Evan Jones seemed quite community spirited, being involved in parish meetings, and judging the flowers in a the Vale of Conway Horticultural Show in 1905, as well as repairing a footpath in the same year.

 

In 1911 the house is lived in by Evan Roberts, 38, wife Elizabeth, 32, and children Elizabeth Anne, 8, Robert, 6, and Jane Alice, 1. Evan is a farmer, and both parents are bilingual. Elizabeth Anne won a prize at a Tal y Bont chapel competition evening for a composition on 'When the Fog Leaves,' in 1917. Evan Roberts was also involved in parish meetings.

A plate from the fireplace lies against the wall.

 

It has been seen that by 1920 the house was occupied by Hugh Edwards, father of Huw Tom. A rather damning letter was sent to Hugh in December of that year, concerning his son: 

 

C. H. Darbishire, Penmaenmawr & Welsh Granite Co. Ltd, Head Office, Penmaenmawr, to Hugh Edwards, Cae Ithel, Talybont, Tal-y-cafn [Huw T. Edwards's father]. The recipient's letter arrived on the 10th in which he noted that he was one of the witnesses in the law suit with J. E. Jones of Bryn-mor. The writer is always pleased to assist his neighbours and his working colleagues. But he outlines his reasons for refusing to engage Huw T. Edwards. His place is already taken by someone else, he refused to re-join the Quarryworkers and Settmakers Union on 24 August 1920, and he has displayed a 'cowardly and mean' spirit in preventing twenty-five fellow workmen on the Quay from earning wages for their families. There are, as a result, doubts about Huw T. Edwards's sincerity. 'I have submitted your son's case to his fellow workmen, and I find that they are against allowing him to return to work after the disloyalty he has shown to their interests'.

The doorway to the northern cell, which is so overgrown outside with ornamental planting run riot that a photo cannot be taken. A little bit of plaster survives on the right side of the doorway. The line where it stops might indicate the position of the door frame.

The view out through the doorway, with some massive stones on the ground which must have fallen from the wall above.

Looking out through the front doorway, with a garden shrub blocking the view.

The whole place has a rather exotic feeling, with tendrils of plants cascading down the walls. Stranger still is this little division at the back of the main room, with a doorway at the centre.

Looking out through the doorway of the stone partition. This partition at the back makes a room which is about four foot nine inches deep. The doorway is 2'6" wide.

There seems to be a line of stone on the ground at the north end across the width of the chamber, which may be a trough or a small platform. Perhaps this was a tiny, long scullery.

At the back of this little room is a ground floor window which is completely covered in growth and seems to be buried in the land at the back of the house.

 

Above the lower window is a first floor window, indicating that the house was two storeys and that the second storey reached across this odd little partition. It's possible that the partition wall never extended the full height of the house. If it did, it would make another odd little room upstairs. The walls are so overgrown it's impossible to see joist holes.

A short piece of wood leaning up by this narrow doorway.

 

Another bit of wood on the floor by the doorway.

The narrow doorway into the back room, with ground and first floor windows beyond.

The main fireplace is, like the rest of the house, completely overgrown with ivy, tendrils, and roots. It's not a huge fireplace, but it does seem to be where the main oven was, and that would put it at the heart of the home.

In the wall above the main fireplace is this small first floor fireplace.

The scant remains of an oven in the main fireplace, rusted and broken.

Another piece of the cast iron stove is lost under these ivy vines. 

A piece of clinker, maybe fallen from inside the chimney.

The beam above the main fireplace is in quite bad condition.

To the right of the fireplace a beam can be seen in the wall, at first floor level. Some of the first floor stone comes out over the beam.

Back outside, this is the window into the second, central, cell, which may have also been blocked up at one time.

The doorway into the central cell has lost its lintel or beam. The doorway is quite wide, at 3'8" wide.

Perhaps this is the beam from the doorway, on the ground in front of the entrance. 

Another bit of wood with nails in it. Perhaps the doorframe? 

Inside, the place is overgrown, damp, and fecund with tiny ferns sprouting from the walls. There are few features in this cell. The walls are quite low and perhaps it was single storey.

The floor is covered with fallen slates.

The single notable feature in this cell is the bread oven, which is built into a square stone surround in the north west corner. It seems that sometimes the bread oven was separate to the main fireplace. I've seen this previously in Eilio, near Llyn Eigiau, where the bread oven is in a massive brick surround in the corner of an outbuilding. In Tyddyn Du, on Tal y Fan, there is a similar cuboid structure which I've wondered could be the remains of a bread oven.

The opening to the bread oven, with a small bar of rusted metal across it, and a brick surround.

Inside, the oven is rather beautiful.

The roof of the bread oven. Most of the bricks still have mortar between them. 

The oven is a horseshoe shape a little over two feet wide inside.

The mortar is still very tight and fresh looking between the bricks. I was intrigued as to why bread ovens don't have chimneys. Wikipedia tells me that these types of ovens are known as 'masonry ovens' and typically don't have chimneys, but just vent the smoke out of the oven door, either up the chimney of a fireplace they're built into, or simply into the room. The masonry - in this case bricks - soaks up enough heat to release it slowly for hours, cooking the bread in the oven. This page has an informative piece on bread ovens and how they were used.

A better look at the opening to the bread oven. Perhaps a brick has fallen out from above the metal rod. Presumably a door would have been fitted across here.

The window in the room looks rather more precarious from inside, but perhaps this is just the effect of all the tumbled stone behind it.

The doorway to the southern cell seems to have retained some of the door frame, clung to by thick ivy. The stones on the ground in the doorway give one pause on entering. The splintered wood above may be the remains of the beam over the door.

Looking out through the doorway.

I'm not sure it this is a part of the original roof, or just a very straight bit of pine that's fallen so neatly as to look like a roof timber.

The wall of this cell is quite neatly built and retains some render, but, like the other rooms, the place is covered in creeping ivy.

Again, this seems to be a single-storey outbuilding, in contrast to the two-storey house. The walls are so covered with ivy it's hard to make out features.

At the back of this cell is a window, roughly on a level with the high ground behind the building.

Behind the house, the top of the walls are covered in grass and plants.

Looking into the southernmost cell from behind.

The end of the house outside is covered in ivy too. 

At the south end of the platform in front of the house is this little outbuilding, possibly the toilet.

 

A photo taken in February 2021 shows this is a quite narrow outbuilding.

The east face of this little outbuilding.

The bottom of the south face of this outbuilding. I was looking to see if there were any drainage holes in the wall, but none are visible.

 

Looking up towards the the little outbuilding from below.

A closer view of the east wall of the outbuilding.

Looking along the face of the house in February 2021, when the vegetation is a little more died down.

In September 2020 it was harder to see the face of the building. This photo is from a little lower down. The house sits on a kind of plinth, raising it a few feet above the height of the slope below, which is very muddy.

There are a number of pieces of domestic rubbish scattered around the house. This little blue bottle neck is one.

This seems to have been a china handle from something.

A small piece of plain white pottery, probably from a food jar.

This beautiful piece of glass was lying near the house. It looks like part of a wine glass or something similar. It seems to be pressed rather than cut, and is quite coarse.

Three little items. A glass bottle, blue and white pottery, and the aforementioned piece of jar.

The glaze on this piece is very faded, but it looks like an organic design of blue on a white background.

The bottom of the bottle reads 'Grenvilles Llanrwst.' I haven't been able to find many references to this company, but it would have been very local, just a few miles up the valley. This page shows some rather lovely stoneware bottles from the same place, Grenvilles Vale of Conwy Sodawater Works, Llanrwst, using Crafnant water. This page shows a bottle from the same company with the date, 'Estb. 1896.' This bottle looks a little later than that date, though.

A piece of rather more modern looking pottery. 

A bit further down the slope was this bottle. 

A little further down the hill, between Cae Ithel Ucha and what may be Cae Ithel Isa, is a small outbuilding that is probably associated with the house. Of course, it is also possible that this was originally Cae Ithel Isa, rather than the ruin further down the hill. Both buildings could have been lived in even if they might not have been very comfortable. This one, though, retains its roof line with no sign of a chimney, whereas the other property has a tumbled wall which could have contained a fireplace.

The barn makes a low profile against the slope of the hill. A curved beam is just noticeable in the structure of the end wall, directly in line with the roof ridge and a few feet down, which goes all the way through to the inside.

This is a humble little barn with the remains of a corrugated iron roof which has replaced a slate roof. The two wide doorways at the front do make it look like a barn rather than a dwelling. The two apparent doorways in Cae Ithel's main cell seem barn-like, too, though.

An old bottle was slotted into the wall under the eaves (replaced after the photo), but an old slate is also visible, still with a nail in it, built into the wall.

Inside is an old sheep feeder, and other rubbish.

In the corner by the door, a bit of old machinery.

There seems to be some cobbling inside the left hand doorway.

The south wall of the barn from the inside, with that curved wooden beam clearly showing, apparently as a beam over an opening, possibly a window.

The roof is extremely damaged.

Another blocked up opening is at the back of the building behind the sheep feeder. Do these two blocked up openings suggest the building could have been a dwelling? If it were, there's no sign of a fireplace, unless the curved beam is supporting wall where a chimney used to be. No fireplace isn't necessarily a sign that the place wasn't inhabited, because earlier houses wouldn't have had fireplaces, but since Cae Ithel Isa was occupied well into the nineteenth century it seems likely it would have had one. And the two doors at the front are very barn-like.

A closer look at that curved beam. This whole bit of wall looks as if it may have had more recent work done to it.

The beam above this south doorway has attenuated to almost nothing.

The northern door also seems to have a very damaged beam. The whole place is filled with brambles, though, and hard to approach. The two doors are separated outside by a tumbled stone wall.

The north end of the barn, with a crazy hairstyle of brambles over the top.

A last look at the view down the valley, which may not have changed much since the house was occupied.