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Nant y Gangen Ddu Round Cairns is a prehistoric round cairn situated in Wales and protected as a scheduled ancient monument under Cadw reference MG301. The monument occupies terrain underlain by Ordovician extrusive rocks, specifically felsic tuff deposited during volcanic activity in the early Palaeozoic. This geological foundation of ancient igneous material reflects the complex bedrock geology of central Wales and would have been visible to the prehistoric communities who built upon it.
Round cairns of this type were typically constructed during the Bronze Age as funerary monuments, comprising mounded stone heaps raised over cremated remains or burials. The construction methods exploited locally available stone resources, with builders gathering material from the surrounding landscape to form the characteristic mound. The presence of Ordovician tuff at this location indicates that cairn-builders worked with bedrock substantially older than the monument itself, quarrying or selecting suitable stones from the weathered surface of these volcanic deposits.
The monument's survival into the modern period, despite millennia of exposure to the Welsh climate and changing land use, reflects both its solid construction and the protective designation now afforded to it by Cadw. Its location within the landscape of central Wales places it within a region containing numerous Bronze Age funerary monuments, testament to patterns of prehistoric settlement and ritual activity across this terrain.
Nant y Gangen Ddu Round Cairns is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference MG301. View the official record →
Nant y Gangen Ddu Round Cairns is a prehistoric round cairn situated in Wales and protected as a scheduled ancient monument under Cadw reference MG301.
Nant y Gangen Ddu Round 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.
Nant y Gangen Ddu Round 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 MG301.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Cil Haul Barrow (5.4 km), Clawdd Mawr (5.4 km), Bwlch Sych round cairn (5.8 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Nant y Gangen Ddu Round 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.
Nant y Gangen Ddu Round Cairns stands on Unnamed Extrusive Rocks, Ordovician, bedrock that formed in the Ordovician. The rock here is felsic tuff.