UPLANDS INITIATIVE FIELD PROJECTS 2002-3 Llyn Aled and Gwytherin Survey Area, North Wales Revised Archaeological Survey Report

An archaeological identification survey of the eastern part of Mynydd Hiraethog North Wales (centred SH 920590) was undertaken in March 2003. 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 Mynydd Hiraethog study area incorporates Historic Landscape 39 (Countryside Council for Wales 2003), of which part has been previously surveyed for the Mynydd Hiraethog Survey by Clywd Powys Archaeological Trust. In addition, the western section of the Mynydd Hiraethog area has been recorded as part of the present project and is the subject of a separate report. The present report consists of the results of an extension to the
original survey and is divided into two study areas, comprising c12km² in extent. The southern most of these areas is to the north of the A453 and is centred on the reservoirs of Llyn Aled and Aled Isaf. It is an area of open heather moorland encompassing large open tracts of heather and rough grass moorland which rise steadily to the centre of the area. The Gwytherin study area was a second, smaller study area, including enclosed land on the lower slopes rising up from the village of Gwytherin and moorland rising to the south and east Within the Gwytherin study area very little archaeological sites were recorded. An historic
agricultural settlement, now disused was located to the extreme north of this area together with a moderate quarry and a small number of former droveways over the moors.
A small amount of prehistoric activity was previously known within the Llyn Aled study area, with the survey providing no additional records. The remains of a possible medieval
agricultural settlement can be seen in the central part of the study area. It is thought to have been abandoned in at least the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, as the boathouse of the Llyn Aled sailing club has been in existence over one hundred years and it is difficult to see that it would have co-existed within a large rural agricultural settlement.
The remaining sites within this area relate to quarrying, the construction of the reservoirs and the trackways and drove roads across the moors. The possible remains of two stone built buildings of unknown function were found on the hill at Cefn Mawr, as well as a large area of peat cutting to the south of this area. A total of eighteen new sites were identified in addition to those already known.