Mynydd y Gaer 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 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.

The SE entrance has the appearance of a more modern breach in the bank, similar to another breach in the bank approximately 18m NE - both having been used as accesses for modern tracks. However, a broad internal ditch approximately 12m wide and an internal bank approximately 1.7m high begins within this SE entrance and extends part way along the east side, cut by a modern field bank. Beyond this it may have been spread, erased by recent ploughing.

The whole of the east half of the interior has been cleared to its shaley subsoil and bedrock. One of the small fields in the west half is improved pasture.

The outlying bank to the S of the SE entrance is indistinguishable from field banks in the area, although it merges with the counterscarp of the defences on the south side of the hillfort. A track leads along the ditch to the midway point and may have modified the counterscarp.

The ditch is incomplete - evident as a continuous dip varying in depth from 0.7m to 2.5m deep below the varying height of the counterscarp, or as a series of quarry ditches, more irregular and incomplete. There is little trace of internal stone defences, the interior being raised considerably over the perimeter defences. A spread of shale roughly parallel to the defences in the east half may be connected with this. Bedrock outcrops within the ditch and most noticeably N and E of the centre.

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

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