Bwlch Cairn

Also known as:
Cefn Moel cairn I
Nearest town:
Crickhowell (8km E)
OS reference:
SO15462291
OS sheet:
161
Latitude:
51° 53' 52.15 N
Longitude:
3° 13' 43.68 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by GLADMAN

The foreground plaque, incidentally, commemorates (appropriately enough) a Mr Robert Moor who died in 2021. Now, just as I was pondering who this chap was – and why here? – who should turn up en-masse... but his family. Me: Any idea who this man was? Young girl: Yes. My grandad! Quite bizarre. It appears the former gentleman was a local and said family had no idea they had placed his ashes at the burial site of another village ‘elder’... albeit one who lived millennia before. Continuity, right? “Great Love Lives On”, to quote from the dedication. Indeed, so it does.

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Apr 12, 2025
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by GLADMAN

Highlighting how one should ALWAYS look beyond the obvious modern marker cairn....

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Apr 12, 2025
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by GLADMAN

Not the finest of weather/light... but hey, a pretty good cairn

Image credit: Robert Gladstone
GLADMAN
GLADMAN Apr 12, 2025
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking northeast towards the Black Mountains ridges, Waun Fach and Pen y Gadair Fawr are snow-capped above a high snow-line. Sadly there is evidence of a small fire being lit on the cairn itself.

Image credit: A. Brookes (8.12.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 28, 2012
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking southwest towards the snow-capped central Brecon Beacons.

Image credit: A. Brookes (8.12.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 28, 2012
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking southeast along the Usk valley. Be-cairned Pen Cerrig-Calch rises on the far left, the conical peak of Sugarloaf/Pen y Fal beyond. The Usk Valley is lined with various standing stones around the wooded hill of Myarth (below, right), Blorenge fades to blue on the skyline.

Image credit: A. Brookes (8.12.2012)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Dec 28, 2012
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by cerrig

Looking North, towards Llangorse lake, and to the North East , the Black mountains.

Image credit: cerrig
C
cerrig Dec 1, 2010
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

The central excavation damage, with Pen y Fan and the central Beacons on the horizon.

Image credit: A. Brookes (10.4.2010)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 19, 2010
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

Looking ENE, to the Black Mountain summits of (l-r) Waun Fach, Pen y Gadair Fawr and Pen Allt-mawr.

Image credit: A. Brookes (10.4.2010)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 19, 2010
Image of Bwlch Cairn (Cairn) by thesweetcheat

The flattened round cairn, with modern cairn on top. Looking SE.

Image credit: A. Brookes (10.4.2010)
thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 19, 2010

Articles

Heading north from Bwlch...

A walk to the ‘Bwlch Cairn’... and on to Pen-yr-Heol Las, via Ffynnon Las.

GLADMAN
GLADMAN Apr 15, 2025

Bwlch Cairn

C
CARL Jun 7, 2010

Visited 5.6.10.
Parked in the handy small parking area provided, I assume, for walkers and headed north along the Beacons Way. The first 30 yards or so are very steep but then the ground levels of a bit and it is a long, slow walk up hill – at least it is if you are mainly carrying a two year old! After 30 minutes you reach the top of the hill and the cairn in right next to the path – can’t miss it. The cairn is quite large and has a pile of ‘modern’ stones placed on top of it. Next to this is a hollow in the cairn where I assume it has been dug into in the past. There isn’t a great deal to see but the views are spectacular, making the long hot walk (just about!) worthwhile. I will be happy when Dafydd is a bit older and I don’t have to carry him so much!!!

Bwlch Cairn

thesweetcheat
thesweetcheat Apr 19, 2010

Visited 10.4.2010, on a gloriously sunny spring day. The site is within a short but steep walk of Bwlch (served by the Abergavenny-Brecon-Cardiff bus service) along the Beacons Way footpath. I wish I’d had a look at Coflein before coming, as there are a huge number of monuments here on the slopes of Cefn Moel, many not marked on the OS 1:25000 map. A repeat visit is clearly required.

From the south-west, the first cairn encountered is Bwlch Cairn, easily visible because of the small modern cairn that has been added to its top. The original cairn is much bigger in diameter and has been dug into at some point. From here views start to open out over Pen Allt-mawr to the east and the central Beacons to the south-west.

The path continues on across easy grassy terrain. To the east there is a whole complex of unmarked monuments, which sadly I knew nothing about! The next cairn encountered on the route I took was Ffynnon-las round cairn I, which is grass-covered and fairly low. Again there are excellent views of Pen Allt-mawr – Coflein indicates that there may still be intact burials to discover in this one (speculatively of course).

The next cairn Pen-yr-Heol Las lies to the west of the path, on the other side of a drystone wall – it is on access land but I didn’t go over to investigate further as I had other places to get to.

As the path continues in a northerly direction, still gaining height as it approaches the 380m mark the largest cairn of all comes into view, Cefn Moel round cairn. This is a huge thing, 14m across on its largest axis. It is an irregular oval shape and has been greatly disturbed. Coflein mentions a “stone setting” on the SE, but as I hadn’t read about this before going I didn’t give it the attention it deserved.

Crossing the grassy summit of Cefn Moel, the path descends to the most northerly part of the cemetery complex, a group of round cairns known as Blaen-y-Cwm Uchaf. They sit on saddle between Cefn Moel and the higher Mynydd Llangorse (the summit of which is out of sight), with views along the shallow cwm to the south-west. The southern cairn has been much disturbed but again these are massive cairns, all 10m + in diameter.

There is clearly much more going on here than my passing visit allowed me to see and a return is definitely required, not least to check out the further monuments on the eastern part of Cefn Moel. But unlike these ancient structures, my time is fleeting and I was off to Mynydd Troed.

Sites within 20km of Bwlch Cairn

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