Mynydd Troed Long Barrow

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument.

The monument consists of the remains of a long barrow. The site is located on a S-facing slope adjacent to a pass between Mynydd Troed and Mynydd Llangorse. The barrow measures 26m long by 15m wide and 1.4m high, and is orientated roughly NE/SW. It is sub-rectangular in plan, with a squared N end and a rounded tail at the S end. There are three hollows within the body of the barrow, with exposed uprights from a chamber in the most northerly hollow. Two uprights are positioned adjacent to each other, at nearly 90 degrees, while a third is located 1.5m to the S. These three uprights are thought to be the remains of an E-facing chamber. Further uprights have been recorded within the body of the barrow and may represent additional chambers.

The long barrow was first identified in 1921 by O.G.S. Crawford and was recorded by Grimes in 1926 who produced a sketch plan of the monument showing three visible uprights within an area of considerable disturbance. In 1966 two trenches were excavated into the sides of the monument to recover buried soils for environmental assessment. The trenches revealed a revetment wall on both sides of the barrow, which had been built directly onto the old ground surface. On the W side the wall had collapsed, but on the E side it was supported by a 'canted pile of slabs' and stood to 22 courses (0.43m) high. The excavation produced struck lithics and Neolithic pottery.

The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual. The monument is an important relic of a prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape and retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of both intact burial or ritual deposits and environmental and structural evidence, including a buried prehistoric land surface. Long barrows may be part of a larger cluster of monuments and their importance can further enhanced by their group value.

The scheduled area comprises the remains described and areas around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.