The Brenig 47 cairn sits apart from the other monuments in the Brenig Ritual Landscape high on the pass north east of Llyn Brenig at Tir Mostyn. It is also the oldest monument of those excavated before the Llyn Brenig reservoir was built. The carbon dating of charcoal found directly underneath the cairn gives a date of about 2600 BC which puts its construction firmly in the late Neolithic period and at least 500 years before the earliest Bronze Age barrows that lie further down the valley.

The excavation revealed the original structure of the monument - a low clay mound surrounded by a close-set circle of large boulders and a 'skirt' of smaller stones. No burials were found in the cairn suggesting that it was a territorial marker.

These days I am making the most of my visits to this area. If various pending windfarm planning applications are allowed, the field in which Brenig 47 is situated will be covered in wind turbines. The adjacent hill of Gorsedd Bran which itself has three fine Bronze Age tumuli will also be trashed and industrialised by another windfarm.

Location: Denbighshire, North Wales
Grid Ref: SH98925804