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

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RCAHM Wales Uplands Initiative – <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong>The survey area falls within the 250m and 550 contours and an estimate has beenmade of the area in each 50m contour band (table 1). The general trend is for sitedensity to decrease above 450m, where bracken and grass give way to heather.Altitude is an important factor in the distribution of some sites. Sites at the highestaltitude are Bronze Age funerary monuments, where the high ground was exploited toobtain commanding positions within the landscape. Agriculture and subsistenceaccounted for the majority of sites above 400m, but they are grouped around theedges of the common or in sheltered valleys, and show the upward advance andretreat of settlement and agriculture over time. Quarrying sites were less determinedby altitude.The following synthesis is primarily a discussion by period, although not all sites lendthemselves to absolute dating (table 2). Post-medieval sites dominate, but some of thefields and field systems dated to the post-medieval period might be late medieval. Thecomparatively low incidence of modern sites, only 6%, shows how <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong> hasbeen largely unaffected by twentieth-century activity. Agriculture and Subsistence isthe broad class with the largest number of entries, followed by Transport (table 3).The high incidence of tracks and paths demonstrate the importance of access on to thecommon and across it. But the number has been inflated by numerous instances whereit appears that a track has become impassable and a short diversionary route has beenchosen. This is especially apparent with the long track between <strong>Beacon</strong> Lodge andBlack Mountain (nprn 244289). Only one recreational site was discovered, anineteenth-century fish pond (nprn 244303) associated with a former hunting lodgeknown as <strong>Beacon</strong> Lodge.PeriodNo. SitesBronze Age 6Iron Age 1Early Medieval 1Medieval 25Post Medieval 362Modern 27Total 422Table 2: Sites grouped by period3
RCAHM Wales Uplands Initiative – <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong>Broad ClassNo. SitesIndustrial 45Water Supply and Drainage 11Agriculture and Subsistence 167Transport 144Religious, Ritual and Funerary 6Domestic 33Recreational 1Commemorative 1Civil 2Monument by Form 9Unassigned 3Total 422Table 3: Sites grouped by Broad ClassBronze AgeThere are few prehistoric sites on <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong> common. No new Neolithic or BronzeAge sites were discovered. The barrows conform to a general pattern in <strong>Radnorshire</strong>whereby barrows occur east of the River Ithon and cairns occur further west. A line offour round barrows (nprn 306147-306150) on <strong>Beacon</strong> <strong>Hill</strong> is one of only two suchgroups in <strong>Radnorshire</strong> (the other is at Cwm Difwg). Pairs of barrows, like those onRhos Crug (nprn 306164, 306165), are more common (figure 2), examples of whichin <strong>Radnorshire</strong> are also at Cwm Bwch, Cefn Wylfre and Carneddau (Jones 2004, 164-65). On Rhos Crug there is also an outlying barrow (nprn 306163, but outside thepresent survey area), which is on lower ground to the south east, beyond a deepstream valley. This configuration of an outlying barrow separated from the main pairby a natural obstacle, is also replicated at two other sites in <strong>Radnorshire</strong> (Dunn 1988,38).4
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Page 3 and 4: AbstractThe Beacon
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