Din Dryfol Chambered Tomb

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The following provides a description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The monument comprises the remains of a burial chamber probably dating to the Neolithic. It is located on a narrow, rocky ledge at the foot of a steep hill.

Excavations in 1969-70 and 1980, revealed that the monument had been built in two or three stages, starting with the rectangular chamber at the west end. Its north side and entrance stones are still standing. East of this, represented now only by a fallen sidestone, was another rectangular chamber which once had wooden entrance posts – a very unusual combination of building materials. The chambers had been covered by a long narrow cairn laid between rock outcrops. This cairn once had a low stone façade running up to the wooden portal.

At a later date the whole tomb – cairn and chambers – was extended eastward, but nothing remains of that structure except the huge 3m high portal stone which is highly visible on approach to the site. During excavation pottery fragments and cremated bones were discovered. The site had been disturbed in both Romano-British times and during the 18th-19th centuries, when a road was built through the site to service the adjacent quarry.

The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual practices. The burial chamber is an important relic of a prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape. It retains significant archaeological potential and there is a strong probability of the presence of burial, ritual or structural evidence. The scheduled area comprises the remains described and an area around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.