Pen Dinas Camp

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 a small hillfort, which probably dates to the Iron Age period (c. 800 BC - AD 74, the Roman conquest of Wales). Hillforts are usually located on hilltops and surrounded by a single or multiple earthworks of massive proportions. Hillforts must have formed symbols of power within the landscape, while their function may have had as much to do with ostentation and display as defence.

Pen Dinas Camp occupies the end of a spur, with a dry valley to the NW and a steep slope down to the Afon Ogwen to the E. The hillfort defences consisted of a rampart 5-6 m wide faced with large boulders and an inner core of stone rubble. The rampart is well preserved on the N side, badly robbed and disturbed along the W side and absent on the SE where the natural slope is very steep. The entrance was at the SW, just N of the present field boundary wall, with a hut or guard chamber just inside to the N. The NW corner of the rampart appears to have been of greater thickness and the N section shows a second internal face or step in places, possibly indicating two phases of construction.

The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of later prehistoric settlement and defence. The site forms an important element within the wider later prehistoric context and within the surrounding landscape. It retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of associated archaeological features and deposits relating to chronology, building techniques and functional detail.

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