© Mapbox · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Boundary data © Cadw
Rhossili Down Round Cairns is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference GM194. The monument sits upon bedrock of Upper Devonian sandstone and conglomerate, geological formations laid down in the Late Devonian period. This ancient stone foundation provided the raw material readily available to the builders of the cairn, who would have incorporated locally gathered rock into their construction.
Round cairns of this type typically date to the Bronze Age and served as burial monuments, marking high-status graves within their communities. The elevated position of Rhossili Down would have afforded visibility across the surrounding landscape, making the cairn a prominent territorial marker visible to populations moving through the area.
The monument remains an important archaeological record of prehistoric funeral practices and settlement patterns in Wales. Its survival to the present day, despite millennia of exposure to the Welsh climate and landscape use, testifies to the substantial nature of its original construction using the durable local stone.
Rhossili Down Round Cairns is a scheduled monument protected by Cadw under reference GM194. View the official record →
Rhossili Down Round Cairns is a prehistoric round cairn located in Wales and protected by Cadw under reference GM194.
Rhossili Down 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.
Rhossili Down 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 GM194.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Old Castle Camp (1.3 km), Lewes Castle Promontory Fort (1.6 km), Thurba Camp (1.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 13 strands of Rhossili Down 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.
Rhossili Down Round Cairns stands on Upper Devonian Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Late Devonian. The rock here is sandstone and conglomerate, interbedded.