Maen Llwyd (Rhos Dyrnog)

Standing Stone / Menhir
SH827006

Also known as:

Rhos Dyrnog Standing Stone

Nearest town:

Machynlleth (9km W)

OS reference:

SH827006

OS sheets:

135, 136

Latitude:

52° 35' 24.35 N

Longitude:

3° 43' 54.3 W

Added to TMA by

Kammer

Images (3)
Fieldnotes (1)
Folklore (1)

Images

Image of Maen Llwyd (Rhos Dyrnog) (Standing Stone / Menhir) by Kammer

Taken 9th February 2003: From the road, looking south west towards Bryn-y-Brain.

Image credit: Simon Marshall

Kammer Feb 12, 2003

Taken 9th February 2003: Looking approximately north west towards the stone, with Fron Goch in the background (complete with Iron Age fort on top of it).

You can see how the hill gots it’s name. Translated from the Welsh the word Fron means both hill and breast. The word Goch means red, which makes a lot of sense on a sunny day when the dead bracken catches the light.

Image credit: Simon Marshall

Kammer Feb 12, 2003

Taken 9th February 2003: This is a very boring photo of the stone, taken from the south west (approximately speaking).

Image credit: Simon Marshall

Kammer Feb 12, 2003

Articles

Maen Llwyd (Rhos Dyrnog)

Standing Stone / Menhir

Kammer Feb 12, 2003

Visited 9th February 2003: Maen Llwyd is marked on the Landranger map so it’s easy to find. There’s no public footpath to the stone, but you can see it from the road/track.

The stone is relatively large, especially in girth. Based on a photo I took of Louise standing next to it (unpublished because she’d kill me if I posted it), I’d say Maen Llwyd is about 5ft 10 high. It doesn’t really taper towards the top as is usually the case in the smaller stones further south. It’s a beautiful lump of rock, and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.

The RCAHMW records date Maen Llwyd as post Medieval, but this seems rather unlikely to me given its size. I’m not alone in doubting this date, because Cadw and the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust both date the stone as Bronze Age.

Maen Llwyd (Rhos Dyrnog)

Standing Stone / Menhir

Rhiannon Jan 16, 2014

“In the parish of Darowen is the township of Noddfa, the name of which implies a place of refuge or a sanctuary, its limits probably being described by three stones – one called Carreg y Noddfa, standing about a mile to the east of the church, another large stone standing about one mile to the south of the church, and a smaller one about the same distance north-east of the church.” (Lewis, Top. Dict. of Wales, 1833, s.n. Darowen’).
These stones, which may have served in medieval times to have marked off an area devoted to the right of sanctuary or some other ecclesiastical purpose, appear to be at present reduced to two in number.
One is placed at the spot indicated above, at the cross roads 1/4 mile of Talyweren, and in the centre of the field called ‘Cae yr hen eglwys,’ ‘old church field’. The stone is of mountain grit, 6 feet above ground and 12 feet 6 inches in circumference.
The farmstead is called Rhos Dyrnog, and Arch. Camb. 1856, III, ii, 193, notes the presence of “two erect stones at Rhos Dyrnog,” but the tenant of the neighbouring farm of Caerseddfan has always known of only one. It would, however, appear that there must have been two stones in the field, as the Tithe Schedule [...] gives its name as ‘Cae Meini Llwydion.‘
-- Visited, 27th May, 1910.

From An Inventory of the Ancient Monuments of Wales and Monmouthshire: 1 – County of Montgomery, p31.

This is the stone ‘about one mile to the south of the church’. But then if there was more than one here, how does that fit into Lewis’s description with three in total in different places? It’s all a bit tangled. (The stone ‘to the north east’ must be Maen Llwyd (Commins Coch).)

The Inventory goes on:

Cae yr hen Eglwys, ‘Old Church Field’ [...] the field within which the larger of the two meini hirion called ‘Cerrig Noddfa,’ ‘sanctuary stones,’ still stands.
Mr Edwards Hughes, Rhos Dyrnog, who has 40 years’ personal experience of the field, stated that when ploughing it about ten years ago, he struck on some masonry to the east of and very near the maen hir, and about 6 inches below the surface. He uncovered all he could trace, which then showed foundations of a solidly constructed building, 25 feet by 18 to 20 feet, with the foot-stone of a door, “very deeply foot-worn,” in situ at the north corner. To the east of the foundation stones, and close to them, his plough struck a roughly circular boulder, beneath which was an empty cavity, 2 feet wide by 3 feet deep. All the stones were removed and taken up, “so as to plough easier.” Local tradition affirms an old church to have stood close to the sanctuary stone. -- Visited, 27th May, 1910.

The Plot Thickens. What can it all mean. (Not that we’ll ever know now. but at least it’s easier to plough, tch).