Nant Maden

Nearest town:
Aberdare (8km SE)
OS reference:
SN97091059
OS sheet:
160
Latitude:
51° 47' 2.36 N
Longitude:
3° 29' 31.4 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Nant Maden (Kerbed Cairn) by postman

Taken from next to the fence by the roadside, prior to jumping over said fence for the closer look.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Jul 14, 2019
Image of Nant Maden (Kerbed Cairn) by postman

The disheveled interior and that odd standing stone part of the cairn.

Image credit: Chris Bickerton
postman
postman Jul 14, 2019

Articles

Nant Maden

postman
postman Jul 14, 2019

Lured into the area by loves young dream and a splendid ring cairn, as is often the case, I thought I’d pop over the fence for a closer look at this rather interesting cairn than the roadside proffers.
Like Carl I didn’t see the point of bothering the landowner for permission to see his cairn, but then a look at it from the roadside is anathema to me, I implore you to get as close as you can at all times, no matter where you are, roadside indeed.
The cairn is as Carl says a large mound, but not built of grey stones, they are more or less white, especially where the quartz glitters in the sunlight.
The interior of the cairn is well messed up, dug up, broken and moved about. Some of the kerb stones look like they’ve been dumped in the scooped out interior. That standing stone on top of the cairn is quite perplexing, the coflein people do mention the cairn contained a rectangular pit covered by a capstone, a cist? I was ready to scoff at the standing stone being this cist capstone, but it really could be, it’s mostly rectangular except where broken, it’s quartzy like the kerb stones, so, who knows. You don’t get facts like that by hanging around the roadside.

Nant Maden

C
CARL Feb 19, 2014

Directions:
From Pendaryn take the minor road east sign posted Cwm Cadlam You will shortly come to a house on the left with a fence surrounding the field at its front. The Cairn is easily spotted the other side of the fence.

I didn’t see any advantage of going to the house to ask permission to visit the Cairn as it is easily seen from the road. The Cairn is a large mound of grey stones (very similar to the other Barrows/Cairns along this road further east).

The one difference on this site is that there is a large stone is standing on top of the Cairn. I wonder if this is the capstone referred to in the COFLEIN report?

Well worth a view when visiting the other sites along the quiet road.

COFLEIN states:
‘In a uniformly south-sloping field lies a large turfed-over cairn extensively damaged by excavation. It measures about 15m in diameter and 1.5m high and is composed mainly of sandstone medium-sized rubble and small boulders. The cairn is surrounded by a roughly 17.5m diameter kerb of mostly quartz conglomerate boulders measuring up to 1.2m long and 0.7m high.
The cairn was excavated in 1959-60 and found to have affinities with a nearby cairn (nprn 84641) which was also excavated.
A D-shaped enclosure, set within a massive kerb, contained a rectangular pit covered by a capstone but without significant deposit. Beaker sherds, secondary cremations with sherds of Overhanging Rim urns, food vessel sherds and flint implements were also recovered’

Sites within 20km of Nant Maden

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