CoralJackz – That History Couple

This is a Bronze Age cairn-circle in Ceredigion, Wales.
CADW/Coflein’s description of the stones at Dolgamfa is as follows:

“One of the finest small Bronze Age cairn-circles in north Ceredigion. Rather than being a true stone circle, the monument would originally have been a cairn or mound of stones encircled by a ring of upright stones. Stephen Briggs in the Cardiganshire County History notes: “An orthostatic kerb-ring of eleven, originally twelve members, 0.75-1.0m high, mostly leaning outwards, describe an oval, 5.0m NW-SE by 4.0m, within which is set the denuded cairn-mass, a slight hollow at the centre may indicate the presence of a cist.” – Briggs 1994.

To get to this site, we began at Ysbyty Cynfyn, where there is a church curiously built within a stone circle.

From there, we followed the public footpath to the stunning Parson’s Bridge, and up the valley to Dol y Gamfa.

In 1902, in the book ‘Walks and wanderings in County Cardigan; being a descriptive sketch of its picturesque, historic, antiquarian, romantic and traditional features’, writer Ernest Richmond Horsfall is thought to mention these stones:

“We are in the hwyl for ancient history at Ysbutty Cynvyn… A glimpse of a complete circle of twelve erect stones is seen on the opposite bank of the Rheidol, from the top of the rocky path to the Parson’s Bridge. [Dolgamfa, see above] The imaginative mind has in these solitudes ample opportunity to people the hills with wild-eyed, bearded race of yore, clothed in undressed skins and armed with flint-tipped javelin and arrows, stealthily dogging the steps of the black muzzled wild ox or the wolf, the deer or mountain goat ; for long past centuries seem to return again as these ancient heights impress us with their ages of loneliness, and we feel ourselves and our age quite shrunk near their majestic existence.”
Horsfall-Turner, E.R., Walks and Wanderings in County Cardigan, [1902], pp. 50-52 with sketch of the large stone.