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Hengwm Ring Cairns is a prehistoric ring cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference CD278. The monument comprises a circular or near-circular arrangement of stones typical of Bronze Age funerary practice, when such cairns served as burial monuments or ceremonial sites. Ring cairns represent a distinctive form within the broader cairn tradition, characterised by a ring of stones surrounding an open or relatively clear central space, differing from the solid mound construction of earlier Neolithic examples.
The cairn sits upon bedrock formed from Ashgill Rocks, a geological formation of the Ordovician period comprising mudstone, siltstone and sandstone. This underlying geology has directly shaped the available building stone and the landscape character of the site. The exposure of these relatively soft sedimentary rocks across the Welsh uplands would have provided workable stone for construction, though such materials weather more readily than harder igneous rocks found elsewhere in Britain.
As a scheduled ancient monument, Hengwm Ring Cairns contributes to the archaeological record of Bronze Age Wales and demonstrates patterns of land use and belief during the second millennium before the Common Era. The monument's survival to the present day, despite its exposed upland location and the effects of weathering on its native bedrock, reflects both the scale of its original construction and the importance of ringcairns within the sacred and commemorative landscape of prehistoric Wales.
Hengwm Ring Cairns is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference CD278. View the official record →
Hengwm Ring Cairns is a prehistoric ring cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference CD278.
Hengwm Ring Cairns 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.
Hengwm Ring 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 CD278.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Carreg Wen Prehistoric Standing Stone (2.5 km), Cairns on Pen Plynlimon-Arwystli (3.3 km), Nant yr Eira Prehistoric Copper Mines & 19th Century Lead Mine (3.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Hengwm Ring 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.
Hengwm Ring Cairns stands on Ashgill Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Ashgill. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.