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Cefn Llechen cairns is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference CN353. The monument sits upon bedrock of Ordovician felsic tuff, part of the unnamed extrusive rock formations that characterise this region's ancient geology. These volcanic rocks, formed during the Ordovician period over 450 million years ago, would have been exposed as weathered stone when the cairn builders chose this location.
Round cairns of this type typically date to the Bronze Age and served as burial monuments for individuals of status within their communities. The construction of such cairns involved the deliberate stacking of stone gathered from the surrounding landscape, creating a distinctive mound that would have remained visible across the Welsh terrain for centuries.
The monument's survival to the present day, despite millennia of exposure to weathering and land use, reflects both the substantial labour invested in its original construction and the relative stability of upland locations in Wales. Its protected status recognises the archaeological and historical significance of this Bronze Age burial tradition and the insights such monuments provide into prehistoric Welsh society.
Cefn Llechen cairns is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference CN353. View the official record →
Cefn Llechen cairns is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference CN353.
Cefn Llechen cairns 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.
Cefn Llechen cairns 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 CN353.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Carnedd y Ddelw Cairn (5.6 km), Pen y Gaer Camp (5.7 km), Hut Circles North of Afon Anafon (6.3 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Cefn Llechen cairns'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.
Cefn Llechen cairns stands on Unnamed Extrusive Rocks, Ordovician, bedrock that formed in the Ordovician. The rock here is felsic tuff.