Bancbryn cairn cemetery

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Monument.

The monument comprises the remains of an extensive burial cairn cemetery, probably dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC) and situated within open moorland on the summit of Bancbryn, a local summit on the E side of Mynydd y Betws. The cairn cemetery comprises at least 22 grass and reed covered cairns or barrows. The cairns range in size from 3m to 10m in diameter and between 0.1m and 0.8m in height.

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 buried prehistoric land surfaces. The topographical association of the cemetery with a further Bronze Age cairn cemetery (CM335) and platform cairn (CM334), situated about 0.6km and 0.35km to the SE respectively, further enhances the importance of the monument and emphasises the importance of the area in the prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape.

The area scheduled comprises the remains described and an area around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive. It is irregular and measures 300m from NE to SW by 190m transversely.