Twas the eve of 2011's summer solstice, the weather was never going to be kind so I weather proofed up and headed for the western slopes of the Berwyn mountains. My main objective was to find some interesting cairns south of llandrillo, so I opted for the comfort and safety of a night in the car, but before that I went back up to these two obscure little circles.
The sun never came out at all but it didnt rain much, low lying clouds were moving through the valleys below giving it an air of mystery. The nearby hillfort was visible when I got here but it soon dissapered behind the thin mists swirling all around, never to be seen again (tonight).
The ring cairns innermost circle is remarkably intact
but only three or four stones remain of the outer circles, surrounding its circumference. The kerb cairn is only eight feet from the circles stones, and is less well defined but to the tutored eye it still retains some self respect.
After the obligatory tidy up (sorry I just cant help myself) and much sitting around interspersed with sporadic photography, I concluded that the sun had indeed gone down by now, so I jumped the low fence and waded and squelched back down to the conifer plantation, where I sat for another half hour hoping to see some wildlife, (inspired as ever by springwatch), I crouched near a freshly dug burrow of some sort and waited, but nothing came out, I only saw flying things out of the corner of my eye, but then a rustling produced a quick glimpse of some reddy brown fur passing from behind ferns to behind a tree. I really must stop singing that lumberjack song from Monty Python when ever I'm in a forest.
I parked with room to spare by the footpath next to Cwm cottage farm. Heading north, amongst the trees was nice, then came the hills proper but with neatly cropped grass, then it got swampy and the gorse and dead bracken really hampered me , I decided to just go to the nearest hill top, I stepped over a low fence and there were the stones, without knowing exactly where it was I had almost unswervingly walked straight to it. Cool.... This is a really nice little stone circle with what looked to me to be an entrance at the north of the circle, The two outer rings are nearly all gone leaving not even an impression of their former selves. Good views to the north when it's not raining, a nice place to revisit in better weather, like the man Greywether said before easter (but not in the rain)
There are plenty of footpaths in the area near the circles but, once there, they were difficult to see in the long October grass. A visit before Easter would be better.
An interesting feature of the site is the three concentric circles of the ring cairn (of which only the centre one remains complete).
"A local tradition records that the larger ring was used as a cockpit in the 18th century, when cock fighting was very popular in this region."
Frances Lynch, Gwynedd
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