Britnell, W. J. and Silvester, R., eds. (2012). Reflections on the Past: Essays in Honour of Frances Lynch. Cambrian Archaeological Association.

An appreciation

Petrographic investigation of a sample of 9 Early Neolithic sherds recovered from the western periphery of the Great Mound of Newgrange. Three distinct groups are recognisable according to the dominance of the filler used

This article provides a résumé of the significant advances that have been made in our understanding of the complex of Neolithic enclosures in the Walton basin in eastern Radnorshire since the pioneering work carried out by Alex Gibson in the 1990s.

Meini Gwyr is a relict circular embanked stone and earthen monument, probably raised for burial and possibly for ceremonial during the Bronze Age. Sited in south-west Wale, it lies within a complex of prehistoric features in fields centred upon though mostly lying to the west and north of Glandy Cross, straddling the Carmarthenshire/Pembrokeshire boundary. A stone circle was first noted here in the late seventeenth century and though all but two of its stones are now lost. Using all available data and paying particular attention to antiquarian sources, it is here intended to evaluate the long-term destruction and excavation of the monument; to consider its relationship to Bronze Age burial and ritual monument typologies and briefly to relate the site to theories about Wales and Stonehenge in British later prehistory.

The Bronze Age barrows and cairns of the south west peninsula form one of the largest concentrations of prehistoric monuments in Britain. However, perhaps due to the lack of rich grave assemblages, their character has often been overlooked. More recently, there has been renewed interest in regional approaches to archaeology. Modern excavation and the re-examination of archived materials has resulted in new information and made new interpretation possible. The paper considers the origin and development of monuments and the complexes in which they are found. Artefactual and radiocarbon dating is used to propose a chronology for the changing character of barrow use in the region during the second millennium cal. BC. Finally, the evidence for a broader south west identity is assessed and interpretation is put forward to explain the similarities and contrasts between the region’s barrow complexes

Needham's discussion of landscape and the flows of ideas and materials leads to the proposition that Mold lay within a thriving region in the Early Bronze Age, the seeds of its prosperity probably sown during the Neolithic. A strategic position within exchange skeins facilitated the passage of stone axes from Graig Lwyd in the west and flint from the east, followed by copper and gold once metal was introduced. A further contributory factor was doubtless the combination of fertile low- and medium-altitude ground with accessible upland zones for summer pasture and relevant spiritual pursuits. The discovery and subsequent exploitation for some centuries of local sources of copper added greater diversity to the regional economy—a material with high exchange value to aid procurement of agricultural products, external materials and elite marriage partners. In this sense then, the Mold cape, undoubtedly the apparel of a very distinguished person, could also be the distinguishing insignia of a particular social group centred on the north Flintshire plateau, the flanking coastlands, the Alun and lower Dee valleys. Thus, in all its radiant glory, it would represent their success, prowess and identity.

A reconsideration the burnt mounds in north-west Wales, focusing on excavated sites in the region covered by the Historical Environment Record (HER) maintained by the Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, within which a total of over two hundred examples are currently known from fieldwork and from recent excavations: the list of excavated examples is growing rapidly and although many of these have been published they are frequently considered in isolation, whereas numerous comparisons are now possible. Burnt mounds are often an under-appreciated site type—‘among the most boring sites with which a field archaeologist must deal’. This paper, seeks to overturn this view, however, and to show that this common site type holds a mine of valuable information and deserves much more interest from the archaeological community at large. Their function is still hotly debated; their relationship to settlement remains obscure, and their dating in Wales is only just becoming clarified.

Craig Rhiwarth is a site of superlatives. At over 530m, it is the highest hill-fort in Wales; at about 34 hectares, it is the second largest fort in Wales; and it has a very large number of internal structures. It is also one of the most enigmatic of hill-forts, almost every aspect of it being unusual, with a consequent difficulty of interpretation. This article reports on the results a number of survey and excavation projects dating from the later 1970s and early 1980s. The report includes a detailed contour plan of the hill, ramparts and interior structures - mostly circular or sub-circular stone-rings / 'hut circles'. A table gives the dimensions, door-orientation and a brief description of each of 172 stone-rings.

The focus of this article is the contribution made by aerial archaeology to our appreciation and understanding of Montgomeryshire’s hillforts and smaller defended enclosures in terms of their landscape setting, form and relationships, as seen in images from the collection of the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust. Despite undoubted advances, many questions remain unanswered about these fascinating monuments. One is left with the feeling that if we could investigate them, selectively, just a little more fully, we might open up a rich fund of evidence about events, social organisation and economy in the fifteen hundred years or so between the later Bronze Age and the end of the Roman period (and perhaps even beyond).

Around 150 inscribed stones are now known from Wales and the English border, some fifty of these from the north. The roman-letter and ogam inscriptions on these monuments commemorate the elite of post-Roman Wales, mainly men but also a small number of women, and can help us to piece together their complex and changing identities. Indeed, the interplay of and tension between these various identities, Roman, British and Irish, as well as pagan and Christian, are likely to have been a catalyst for the erection of these monuments which were not only grave-markers but also indicators of power and authority and, in some instances, were visible reminders of the ownership of land or an expression of that aspiration. In this paper, focusing mainly on the evidence from north Wales, the author uses the testimony of the early inscribed stones to address aspects of the process of kingdom formation and alongside this questions of Roman continuity and reinvention.

This study is concerned with the lower watergate at Harlech Castle and the need for navigable access to the castle. Harlech Castle, perched 50 metres above sea-level on a rock outcrop, could never have sustained a bustling harbour in the manner of the other Edwardian castles, although the vast quantities of building materials and resources required to keep a work force of some 900 men busy during the heyday of construction must have necessitated considerable use of the sea for transport. At Rhuddlan, the river Clwyd was canalised to improve navigation and it is probable that improvements were required at Beaumaris also. No similar works have yet been found at Harlech, but it is the intention here to review the evidence for navigable access to the now land-locked castle, and to provide a suggested sequence of events upon which future studies can build.

Sir Stephen Glynne had a national reputation as a careful observer of medieval churches. At regular intervals throughout the year this indefatigable antiquary would leave his home Hawarden Castle to set out upon one of his many church-visiting tours. This was a common pattern from 1840 until his death in 1874. The results of his visits are contained in over a hundred notebooks filled with architectural observations, while twenty surviving diaries and four pocket-books record other aspects of his tours. However, either out of modesty or procrastination, he never published his observations. Yet it is upon his assiduous recording of English and Welsh churches, posthumously published, that his reputation stands. The majority of this essay will explore the church notes he composed in Wales assessed in relation to the various phases of his life. From this article one can assess the value of these church notes compiled by a pioneer architectural recorder. Glynne toured Wales as an enthusiastic and appraising observer in the central fifty years of the nineteenth century as the full tide of Victorian restoration, swept along by the Oxford Movement, removed the decayed medieval fabric or corrected the ‘debased’ work of post-Reformation centuries.

It is a commonly felt grievance that the regulatory framework which governs our lives nowadays is steadily tightening, and is certainly much more onerous that it used to be. To take as an example the carrying out of work on a church, particularly one that is listed. This essay investigates the rules and requirements affecting church work in the latter half of the nineteenth century in the Bangor Diocese, in particular with those cases involving grant aid from the Incorporated Church Building Society (ICBS).