The Carneddau mountain range is one of the most stunning and historically rich landscapes in the Snowdonia National Park. The Snowdonia Society has been actively trying to preserve and protect the archaeology and wildlife that make this landscape so special. The Society has been doing this through its involvement with the Carneddau Landscape Partnership project. 

This is a 5 year long scheme, which is led by the Eryri National Park Authority; with many other organisations, including Snowdonia Society, involved as core partners. The Snowdonia Society has primarily been involved in two aspects of the project – clearance of vegetation from scheduled monuments, and engaging communities to remove Himalayan balsam.  

Bird nesting season is between March and September and so we’re taking a break from our scrub clearance to make sure we don’t disturb the Carneddau’s upland bird species. With this short hiatus, it seems like a good time to share the progress that’s been made. 

Since September 2021 we’ve been clearing gorse from two sites near Abergwyngregyn. On one site we have uncovered the remains of two circular huts within an oval stone walled enclosure probably dating to the late Iron Age about 2,000 years ago. We have also uncovered some other stretches of wall which are probably the remains of field walls. These may also be prehistoric, but could also be medieval as there are medieval hut sites nearby.  

The other site we’ve been working on near Abergwyngregyn is Carnedd y Saeson and some other neighbouring cairns. Reports indicate that there are seven cairns here. So far we have uncovered three of them. The most impressive, Carnedd y Saeson itself, is a low circular mound about 14m across, the edge of which is marked by large stones. Part of a second ring of stones survives just inside the first. At the centre is a cist, a rectangular pit edged with stone slabs, in which a burial would have been placed. The stone pile which would have covered the burial is long gone now. These burial places date to the Bronze Age, about 4,000 years ago. 

Clearing the gorse from this site has made the structures visible, allowing archaeologists to investigate it for the first time since the early 1900s. Clearing the gorse also ensures that burrowing animals, such as rabbits, don’t burrow under the bushes which would damage the archaeology. Kathryn Laws, a National Trust archaeologist working on the project said “Now that the sites have been cleared it will be possible to undertake measured surveys to create new ground plans while overlapping photographs taken from an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) will give us high resolution imagery of the sites from above”. It will be very exciting to see what conclusions the archaeologists will come to as a result of the hard work of our volunteers and the continued work of the experts. 

 Clearing the gorse has the added benefit of providing more feeding grounds to an iconic local species – the chough. The chough relies on short, cropped grass to access the invertebrates that it feeds on. This work will hopefully support the return of large flocks of choughs to the Carneddau. 

We would highly recommend visiting the site to see places where the ancient communities of the Carneddau hunted, farmed and lived. Seeing the hut circles from the other side of the valley gives perspective of the scale of the site and the amount of work our fantastic volunteers have put in.