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Darren ring cairn is a prehistoric ring cairn located in Wales, protected by Cadw as a scheduled monument under reference BR302. Ring cairns are circular or near-circular stone monuments built during the Bronze Age, typically comprising an outer bank of stones with an open or low-lying central area. This form of funerary monument is concentrated in upland regions of Wales and the Welsh Marches, where stone is readily available and the open moorland provides suitable topography for their construction.
The cairn sits upon Upper Devonian sandstone and conglomerate bedrock, which outcrops across much of this part of Wales. These interbedded rocks, formed in ancient marine environments during the Late Devonian period some 370 million years ago, would have provided weathered stone and scree for the monument's builders to gather and incorporate into the cairn structure. The local geology thus shaped both the availability of building materials and the landscape character that made such upland locations favoured for burial monuments during the Bronze Age.
Darren ring cairn remains an important archaeological monument of the Bronze Age heritage of Wales, contributing to our understanding of prehistoric burial practices and settlement patterns in upland Britain.
Darren ring cairn is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference BR302. View the official record →
Darren ring cairn is a prehistoric ring cairn located in Wales, protected by Cadw as a scheduled monument under reference BR302.
Darren ring cairn dates from the prehistoric period, and is classified as a ring cairn. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Darren ring 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 BR302.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Disgwylfa Tramroads (7.5 km), Iron Furnace SW of Clydach (7.8 km), Clydach Ironworks (remains) and Smart's Bridge (8.3 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Darren ring 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.
Darren ring cairn stands on Upper Devonian Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Late Devonian. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.