Beacon Hill, Radnorshire - Royal Commission on the Ancient and ...

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RCAHM Wales Uplands Initiative – <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong>Wern y geiniog homestead comprises a dwelling and outbuilding, both of which areshown on the 1846 Tithe map but were roofless by the time of the 1889 OrdnanceSurvey. The house (nprn 244120) was built on level ground next to a stream. Only thelower section of the walls remains standing, but sufficient to identify a two-unit plan,with offset entrance into the main room, where there is a wide fireplace. This suggestsa late-seventeenth or eighteenth-century date. The former is more likely since finds ofseventeenth-century pottery and a pipe bowl were found there (as reported in regionalSMR). The adjoining outbuilding (nprn 244121), perhaps incorporating a stable, isonly 8x4m.New Invention farmstead is uphill of, and probably therefore later, than Wern ygeiniog, from which it is separated by a deep stream. The house is a three-unit singlerange sited close to the stream (nprn 244124). Walls survive to just over 1m high,which is sufficient to determine the layout of the building. The large central unit wasthe kitchen. It has a large fireplace 1.9m wide, with later bread oven projecting fromthe rear wall (figure 13). The left-hand unit is less well preserved but is much smallerand was presumably an unheated parlour. The right-hand unit has a separate entranceand no internal doorway to the kitchen, suggesting that it was a stable.Figure 13. Fireplace and bread oven of New Invention (nprn 244124).The other homesteads are more difficult to interpret. The Tithe survey shows tworanges, set at right angles, at Black Mountain Cottage, but evidence of only one ofthem is now visible (nprn 15568), and it is uncertain whether it was a dwelling oroutbuilding. It is approximately 11x5m and of two units, but no evidence of afireplace is visible. There are two small parallel ranges at Middle Cwm Iago (nprn244285, 244286), as shown on the Tithe survey, of 7x4m and 9x4m respectively. It isunclear which of these could have been the dwelling. At Lower Cwm Iago (nprn244288) there is only one range now visible, as shown on the 1889 Ordnance Survey,13
RCAHM Wales Uplands Initiative – <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong>but two parallel ranges are shown on the 1846 Tithe survey, of which the larger hasdisappeared.Rabbit warrens were found on the eastern side of the common, which probably belongto the eighteenth century. In 1789 Fron farmstead, below <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong>, was let to askinner from Herefordshire and a butcher from Worcestershire, who sub-let theproperty to a local man responsible for digging and maintaining warrens (Silvester2004, 64). Three pillow mounds were discovered on the hill to the north of Fron (nprn244202, 244206, 244216). A group of five pillow mounds is on Warren Bank (nprn309907, 244081, 244082, 244083, 244084, figure 14).Figure 14. Pillow mound (nprn 244081) on Warren Bank.Activity on and around the common is also recorded in the large number of tracksacross the common. Many of the tracks lead on to the common from cottages justoutside the common boundary, cottages such as Dingle House and Sycamore Hall(tracks nprn 244049 and 244259 respectively). They were presumably created bylabourers crossing the common to find work at the farms. The main tracks aregenerally too narrow for a cart, although wide enough to be followed on horseback.The main tracks have numerous short parallel tracks, which appear to be alternativecourses taken when the main track became impassable, as mentioned above.14
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