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Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw as a monument of national importance. The cairn sits upon bedrock of Llandovery age, a geological formation of interbedded sandstone and conglomerate that provided local building stone for its construction. This solid foundation of ancient sedimentary rock has supported the monument through millennia of exposure to the Welsh weather.
Round cairns of this type typically date to the Bronze Age and served as burial monuments, often containing central graves or cremation deposits surrounded by stone. The monument's survival indicates its substantial original construction, built by communities who exploited the readily available local stone. The cairn would have been a prominent feature in the landscape, serving both a practical funerary function and a symbolic one, marking significant individuals or family groups within prehistoric society.
Today, Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn remains an important archaeological record of Bronze Age burial practice in Wales. Its protection under Cadw ensures its preservation for future study and understanding of prehistoric communities in this region. The monument contributes to our knowledge of how ancient peoples organised their ceremonial landscapes and maintained connections between the living and their ancestors.
Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference CD254. View the official record →
Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw as a monument of national importance. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Cadw under reference CD254.
Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn dates from the prehistoric period, and is classified as a round cairn. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by Cadw — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Wales. The official designation reference is CD254.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Ty Newydd Standing Stone (7.5 km), Gelli Burial Chamber (7.6 km), Cerrig Cedny round cairn (7.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Blaen Nant-y-Rhiw Round Cairn stands on Llandovery Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Llandovery. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.