UPLANDS INITIATIVE FIELD PROJECTS 2004-5.Mynydd Hiraethog (North East)Survey Area. North Wales Archaeological Survey Report

An archaeological identification survey of the Mynydd Hiraethog (North East) area of North Wales (SH 942 594 centred) was undertaken in November and December 2004 (Fig 1). The work was undertaken by Oxford Archaeology North (OA North) on behalf of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW) as part of the Uplands Initiative. The fieldwork consisted of an identification survey to identify, locate and describe archaeological and historical features within the defined survey area.
The survey area of Mynydd Hiraethog (North East) is located on the northern edge of the Denbigh Moors within the Cambrian Mountains, on the upland section of a large natural block of land between the river valleys of the Clwyd and Conwy. To the south and west the area is also bounded by the reservoirs of Aled Isaf, Llyn Aled and Llyn Brenig, along with extensive tracts of the Clocaenog Forest. Denbigh Moors (C)5 is designated as an Historic Landscape within the Register of Landscapes of Outstanding Historic Interest in Wales. Several of the areas of Mynydd Hiraethog to the west of the present study area were previously surveyed by OA North (2003a and 2003b). The OA North 2004-5 survey area comprised c10.5 sqkm of predominantly large tracts of heather moorland, which for part of the twentieth century was part of the 1st Viscount Devonport’s shooting estate.
The evidence of prehistoric sites is limited to a small discrete group of funerary monuments which is similar to others in the immediate region although lacking the ceremonial monuments of larger complexes. There are two previously discovered barrow sites and an axe hammer findspot to the east of Rhos Bryn-llwyn in the north of the study area. The present survey identified a further funerary monument to the north-west of the other two and these together form a linear grouping, possibly defining territorial boundary, as well as having a funerary function.
Medieval evidence is limited to two large ribbon-like trackways crossing over the moorland from lower ground. They are well-developed hollow-ways apparently of some antiquity and would have provided routes over the moorland between farms on the lower ground as well as access onto the moorland for grazing, quarrying and peat cutting.
Surviving post-medieval sites are mostly of recent nineteenth and twentieth century origin when the construction of the turnpike road through the study area led to quarrying, the rationalisation of farm and estate boundaries with boundary stones, and the development of a wayside hostelry at the Sportsman’s Arms. Evidence of post-medieval agricultural land-use on the moorland is limited; there are a few sites associated with moorland grazing and stock management but the mainstay of the study area at this time was as a recreational heather moorland shooting estate. The shooting estate was used by the 1st Viscount Devonport in the early twentieth century and it was he who built the visually spectacular shooting lodge at Gwylfa Hiraethog. Use of the moor for shooting has left much evidence in the form of numerous trackways and groupings of grouse shooting stands across the open moorland of the study area.
In total, the survey identified 99 new sites, but also involved the enhancement of 18 previously identified sites, which together made a total of 117 sites overall from within the study area. The new sites included a funerary cairn, four field boundaries and field-systems, four boundary stones, one building (possibly a shepherds shelter), nine quarries, 16
Uplands Initiative Field Projects 2004-5: Mynydd Hiraethog (North East) Survey Area 4
For the use of RCAHMW © OA North July 2005
trackways, three areas of peat cutting, two sheepfolds/shelters and 55 grouse shooting stands.
The survey has highlighted only a small prehistoric funerary resource, which may reflect that peat cover has restricted site visibility. There is, consequently, a need for selective intensive survey, sampling, excavation and dating to discover further information about the monuments, potential contemporary settlement activity, and the wider landscape covered beneath the moorland peat.