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Earthwork and Platform Houses North of Nant Fadog is a medieval platform house situated in Wales on bedrock of the South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation. This geological foundation comprises mudstone, siltstone and sandstone interspersed with coal and ironstone seams, typical of Westphalian-age deposits that underlie much of the South Welsh coalfield. The platform itself represents a common medieval settlement strategy in upland terrain, where sloping ground was deliberately levelled to create a flat building plot, with surplus soil and stone forming a visible earthwork around the margins.
Such platform houses are characteristic of rural Welsh settlement from the later medieval period, when dispersed farmsteads became the dominant pattern across the landscape. The construction technique—cutting into hillside and building up the downslope edge—provided both a level foundation and improved drainage for timber or stone dwellings. The stone-rich Coal Measures geology would have offered suitable building material locally extracted from surface outcrops and quarried from the bedrock itself.
The monument is protected by Cadw, the Welsh heritage body responsible for safeguarding archaeological sites of national importance. Its preservation enables study of medieval settlement patterns, building practices and land use in upland Wales during a period when such dispersed homesteads formed the backbone of rural society.
Earthwork & Platform Houses N of Nant Fadog is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference GM340. View the official record →
Earthwork and Platform Houses North of Nant Fadog is a medieval platform house situated in Wales on bedrock of the South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation. It is designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument by Cadw under reference GM340.
Earthwork & Platform Houses N of Nant Fadog dates from the medieval period, and is classified as a platform house. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Earthwork & Platform Houses N of Nant Fadog 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 GM340.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Dan-y-Graig Roman villa (7.9 km), Pre-Norman Stones in Churchyard (8.5 km), Candleston Castle (8.5 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Earthwork & Platform Houses N of Nant Fadog'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.
Earthwork & Platform Houses N of Nant Fadog stands on South Wales Upper Coal Measures Formation, bedrock that formed in the Westphalian. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone, sandstone, coal, ironstone and ferricrete.