Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey
As I left the small car park, I glanced at the colourful information sign in the car park…. Bryn Celli Ddu, ‘the Mound in the Dark Grove’ – it is probably the best-known prehistoric monument on Anglesey, and is one of the most evocative archaeological sites in Britain. Like other prehistoric tombs on Anglesey it was constructed to protect and pay respect to the remains of the ancestors…..or was it?
I’ve been to this place many times and I’m always entranced by it. On my first trip up to Anglesey in 1984, I commented on the landscape around the ‘tomb’, remarking that it seemed like other tombs should be here. Amazingly, just a few years ago, with the aid of LIDAR and ground penetrating radar, archaeologists did discover another tomb right next to Bryan Celli Ddu.
The landscape around the previously known site is rich with antiquities and is very clearly a man made landscape, albeit an ancient one.
Anyway, I crossed the road, following the path and the small stream towards a wooden footbridge. Crossing the bridge the footpath becomes particularly muddy….I trudged through the leaf mould and crushed blackberries, avoiding the ‘reaching’ brambles. The local farmer has planted a hedgerow of beech and now that it’s fully matured you can’t see the tomb until you reach the end of the hedge….. and then, there it is.
It’s a simple mound surrounded by its henge ( a ditch). For some reason, it’s always a ‘happy’ mound.
I walked around it and doing so gives me the first glimpse of its entrance. Open to the public these days, it was first excavated by antiquarians in 1865 and then again in 1929 and it’s been accessible ever since.
Walking inside the supporting upright stones and unremarkable…..in fact the whole tomb is except for its age.
The henge was dug around 5000 years ago, followed by a number of standing stones that were placed on the inside of the ditch. Another phase of construction saw the stones being moved into the centre of the henge and turned into a passage grave. I walked through the ‘passage’ and entered the polygonal chamber at its end.
This chamber is what fascinates me. Human and animal bones have been found here, as one would expect….. but what was supporting the roof of the chamber is astonishing.
The ‘pillar stone’ looks as though it was once a tree trunk and was then petrified. It is scored and marked and the top of it has been sheared off…..or at least it appears to have been so.
Was the pillar stone here when the original stone circle stood, only to be encased within the tomb…… we don’t know, but it’s a lovely tease !
When on Anglesey, pay it a visit, and sit, and think…… about the past and about what once was.
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