Pen-plaenau cairns and standing stone

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

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

The monument comprises the remains of two burial cairns and a standing stone or stone setting, probably dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC). The sites are roughly aligned from NNW to SSE on the leading edge of the large E-facing terrace on the E side of Pen-plaenau, above and to the W of Afon Ceriog. The cairns and standing stone are described individually in turn from SSE to NNW. The southernmost cairn (Item A) measures 7.5m in diameter and up to 0.3m in height. It has a magnificent view down the valley to the SSE. The central cairn (Item B) is situated about 200m to the NNW of the first. It measures 4.5m in diameter and up to 0.3m in height. The standing stone (Item C) is situated about 400m to the NNW of the first cairn. It stands 0.8m in height and measures 0.9m in thickness and 0.3m in width. Several boulders and long thin stone slabs are situated immediately to the NW, E and SE of the standing stone, the whole perhaps representing the remains of a stone alignment or setting.

The monument is of national importance as an important relic of a prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape. It retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of both intact burial or ritual deposits and environmental and structural evidence, including traces of a buried prehistoric land surface underneath the cairns.

The scheduled areas comprise the remains described and areas around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive. The first is centred on Pen-plaenau cairn A (Item A); it is circular and measures 20m in diameter. The second is centred on Pen-plaenau cairn B (Item B); it is circular and measures 15m in diameter. The third is centred on Pen-plaenau standing stone (Item C); it is circular and measures 50m in diameter.