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Freni-Fach Round Barrow is a prehistoric round barrow situated in Wales and protected as a scheduled monument by Cadw under reference PE204. The monument rises from bedrock of Ashgill rocks, a formation of mudstone, siltstone and sandstone laid down during the Ashgill age of the Ordovician period. This geological foundation of fine-grained sedimentary rocks would have provided the material readily available to the barrow's Bronze Age or late Neolithic constructors for the mound's outer layers and any stone features.
Round barrows such as Freni-Fach are characteristic monuments of the Bronze Age, typically serving as communal or individual burial sites. The barrow's earthwork mound would originally have been more prominent than its present condition, built to command visibility across the surrounding landscape. The mudstone and siltstone bedrock beneath the site would have been worked by the monument's builders, whose choice of location reflects both practical accessibility to stone and the strategic placement of burial monuments within the wider prehistoric settlement pattern.
The barrow survives today as a testament to funerary practices spanning several millennia. Its protection by Cadw recognises the importance of round barrows as key resources for understanding Bronze Age society, settlement and ritual in Wales.
Freni-Fach Round Barrow is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference PE204. View the official record →
Freni-Fach Round Barrow is a prehistoric round barrow situated in Wales and protected as a scheduled monument by Cadw under reference PE204.
Freni-Fach Round Barrow dates from the prehistoric period, and is classified as a round barrow. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Freni-Fach Round Barrow 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 PE204.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Crug Elwin Round Barrow (6 km), Inscribed Stone near Glan-Dwr Independent Chapel (7.2 km), Castell Bach (7.6 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Freni-Fach Round Barrow'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.
Freni-Fach Round Barrow stands on Ashgill Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Ashgill. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.