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Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw as a scheduled ancient monument. The site occupies ground underlain by Llandovery Rocks, a geological formation of the Llandovery period comprising interbedded sandstone and conglomerate. This bedrock composition would have influenced both the availability of stone for cairn construction and the natural drainage of the upland location.
Round cairns of this type are characteristic monuments of the Bronze Age in Britain and Wales, typically serving as burial markers or ceremonial structures. Their construction involved the deliberate accumulation of stone gathered from the surrounding landscape, a labour-intensive undertaking that indicates their significance within prehistoric communities. The cairn's position on Esgair Wen places it within a landscape shaped by the underlying geology, where exposed stone would have been readily available for building.
The monument's survival to the present day, despite millennia of exposure to Welsh weather and potential agricultural use of surrounding land, testifies to the robustness of cairn construction. Its formal protection reflects the importance of such monuments in understanding prehistoric settlement patterns, burial practices and the ritual landscape of Bronze Age Wales.
Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference MG087. View the official record →
Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw as a scheduled ancient monument.
Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen 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.
Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen 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 MG087.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Cistfaen barrows (2.1 km), Ffos Gau Ring Cairn (2.4 km), Nant y Gafod Deserted Rural Settlement (2.5 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen'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.
Carn Bwlch y Cloddiau, Esgair Wen stands on Llandovery Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Llandovery. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.