Cefn-Brynich is a Roman fort located on the Usk valley terrace just east of Brecon, in Powys, mid-Wales. It is generally interpreted as a pre-Flavian or early Flavian auxiliary installation, part of the network of marching camps and forts established during the Roman conquest of the Silures and the wider subjugation of south Wales in the AD 50s–70s. It lies a short distance from the later, more substantial fort of Y Gaer (Brecon Gaer), suggesting an earlier phase of military occupation in this strategic stretch of the Usk.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The site forms part of the chain of conquest-period military works guarding the Usk corridor, an important east–west route through the central Welsh uplands, and helps illuminate the staged Roman advance before the consolidation represented by Brecon Gaer under the Flavians. Its proximity to the later auxiliary garrison fort makes it a useful comparator for understanding shifting Roman dispositions in the region.
The site is known primarily from aerial photography and cropmark evidence revealing a rectilinear ditched enclosure of fort-like proportions; substantive excavation has been very limited, and the dating and internal arrangements remain poorly resolved. No significant published finds assemblage is associated with the site, and its precise relationship (sequential or contemporary) with Brecon Gaer has not been firmly established.
Cefn-Brynich is a Roman fort located on the Usk valley terrace just east of Brecon, in Powys, mid-Wales. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Cefn-Brynich is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including ‘Cicutio’ (7.3 km), Pen-y-Gaer Roman fort (10.9 km), Three Cocks Roman fort (13.9 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
Aubrey Research generates detailed historical reports for any location in Britain, incorporating Roman heritage, Domesday Book records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and much more. Enter a nearby address to begin.
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any address in Britain — drawing on Roman heritage, Domesday records, scheduled monument data, archaeological finds and medieval history to reveal the complete story of a landscape.
Research the area around Cefn-Brynich