Gwern y Cleppa Burial Chamber

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The monument consists of the remains of a chambered long barrow, dating to the early Neolithic (c. 4000BC - 3000BC). A long barrow is a roughly rectangular or trapezoidal mound of earth and/or stone, usually between 25m and 120m long, with a length exceeding twice its greatest width. The mound may be edged with a timber or stone revetment, and they contain one or more stone or wooden burial chambers at one end.

The long barrow lies in a permanent pasture field on ground sloping to the south-east. It consists of a group of seven stones of varying sizes standing in a slight hollow on a low mound. The mound is c. 1m high to the east and west, of negligible height to the north and c. 1.5 - 2m high on the south. Its sides slope gently. At the east end is a conglomerate upright c. 1m high, 0.8m wide and 0.6m thick. To the west of it are two small stones 0.4 and 0.5m high and 0.6m wide. West of these is another conglomerate stone 0.8m high and south of it the large capstone which rests on a smaller stone and is tilted towards the south - it is 1.8 x 1.5m. To the west of it is another smaller stone measuring 1 x 0.6m.

The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual practices. The features are an important relic of a prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape and retain significant archaeological potential. There is a strong probability of the presence of both intact ritual and burial deposits, together with environmental and structural evidence. Chambered 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.