Newly discovered stone row in South Wales

Looking north along the lower part of the row © Alan Richards.

In 2013 whilst out walking in the area Alan Richards found a row of stones at Graig Fawr. Recently he approached us to see what we thought about them. A site visit on the 12th August 2021 confirmed the presence of at least 96 small and medium sized stones leading away from a ring cairn towards Twyn Tyle – a prominent hill. The row measures 1049m long and has a very similar character and plan form to its nearest neighbour at Bancbryn. The most convincing aspect is the pronounced shift of orientation at the upper end to incorporate three conjoined cairns into the alignment. The relationship between the cairns and row indicates that the row was built after the terminal cairn. The row forms the focus of a ritual complex including a large numbers of cairns, a henge and probable standing stone. Some of the stones (as at Bancbryn) are loose whilst most are firmly bedded in the peat and some may survive as buried features. The sinuous character of the plan form is entirely consistent with long rows. Preliminary investigation of visual links indicate very precise relationships and “reveals” with the Loughor Estuary, Hartland Point, Exmoor, Bristol Channel, Preseli Hills and Pen y Fan. Future work should reveal more details on the row itself and its landscape context.

We would like to thank Alan Richards for bringing this site to our attention.

More information on this row can be found here.

Preliminary plan of the Graig Fawr stone row. From a GPS survey by Sandy Gerrard and Alan Richards.