A cairn of roughly piled stones measuring 13m E-W and 14m N-S, averaging 1.2m high. The cairn is located at 580m above sea level, on a west facing slope below the main summit of Moel Gallt / Craig y Llyn at the western end of the Cader Idris Ridge. It is is set above Llyn Cyri and the Ordnance Survey also notes the place name Twll yr Ogof adjacent to it.

The cairn is much disturbed and modified and has a large hole in the centre, 6m across and 1.2m deep which has exposed the natural ground surface. A stone boundary wall lies close by.

The cairn was opened by W Wynne Ffoulkes and reported in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1852. He notes that it had previously been opened ‘some years ago by an old woman, goaded by nightly visions and dreams, became so impressed with this idea, she made a vigorous attack upon it, but the wished for prize was dashed from her thirsty lips by an avenging storm of thunder and lightning, as she herself affirms’. Wynne-Foulkes excavated the centre of the cairn but found nothing.

Louise Barker, RCAHMW, August 2022.

Sources

Smith, G., 2001, Survey of Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual Monuments in Wales: Meirionnydd, 2000-2001 (Gynedd Archaeological Trust)

Wynne Ffoulkes, W., 1852, Carnedd Llwyd on Moel Gallt y Llyn. Archaeologia Cambrensis 3 (99-100)

Site Record

Carnedd Llwyd (Cairn), Summit of Moel Gallt, Craig y Llyn; Twll yr Ogof