15. Gaer Ridge

Parking

Turn left opposite the Queen’s Head and park on the side at the top of the steep lane. SO 299 222

Directions

1. Go through the gate onto mountain land and turn left to follow the fence up to the top of the Gaer. This is a short but not difficult climb - keep fence on your left. Good views from the Gaer. To the south on a clear day you can pick out the Gaer in Newport and another on Gray Hill to the east of Wentwood.
2. Follow path north to go down to the ridge, then follow broad track north along ridgr for about 2 miles passing through a gate and following wall on your left. At the end of the wall you see Dial Garreg (Revenge Stone) in the middle of the track in front of you.
3. EITHER return the way you came, but missing the climb to the Gaer
4. OR turn left at the stone to to follow a path / track to Upper House and then Ty Mawr. DO NOT go down the farm drive to the road, but stay left on a path that leads back up onto the ridge. Go through gate and up to the top of the ridge. Turn right to get back to cars. This is more strenuous than the alternative as it involves climbing back up to the ridge, but manageable if taken slowly.

Points of Interest

Twyn y Gaer is a strongly embanked and ditched enclosure which occupies the impressive summit of an isolated and dramatic hill. It is roughly oblong in shape divided by two cross ditches into three compartments; it encloses an area of four and-a-half acres and commands views of three valleys. There is a single concave east-facing entrance. There were steep and bold entrenchments, which were widened and hollowed out at the entrance so as to accommodate defenders who

would protect the fort at close quarters. They can be thought of as “bow-and arrow pits”. The northern rampart is clearly defined and offered protection on the naturally weakest side. On the southern side facing Sugar Loaf and Bryn Arw, the rampart is understandably much less formidable, given how sharply the hillside drops away to the farmland below.

This fort at Twyn y Gaer was the central one of three, all guarding the southern approaches to the Black Mountains. The others were Crug Hywel on Table Mountain, four miles to the west at Crickhowell; and Pentwyn, two miles to the east on the southern tip of Hatterall Ridge.

It is almost certain from the remains of hut platforms and the range of domestic Iron Age objects found during excavations that the site was permanently inhabited. Finds include pottery, salt containers, and brooches. The economy was mixed, with stone mills for grinding corn indicating cereal cultivation, and iron slag and crucibles suggesting some form of iron working. Glass beads dating from fourth to first centuries BC have also been discovered at Twyn y Gaer. They resemble others found at Iron Age female burial sites, and the inhabitants may have worn them as necklaces or pendants.

Dial Garreg. The remains of the cross commemorating the murder of Richard de Clare, Marcher Lord, in 1136. In 1136 Richard had been away from his lordship in the early part of the year. He returned to the borders of Wales via Hereford in the company of Brian Fitz Count, but on their separating, Richard ignored warnings of the danger and pressed on toward Ceredigion with only a small force. He had not gone far when on 15 April he was ambushed and killed by the men of Gwent under Iorwerth ab Owain and his brother Morgan, grandsons of Caradog ap Gruffydd, in a woody tract called "the ill-way of Coed Grano", near Llanthony Abbey, north of Abergavenny.

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