Felin Cwrrws, Llandyfroig

Description

A small promontory fort with a single curving bank and ditch. The bank is up to c.3.6m in height with a wide U shaped ditch up to 1.5m deep. Although the defences have been truncated at both north and south the entrance was probably at the north end where there is a causeway. JH 1995 based on Cadw 1988. (Dyfed Archaeological Trust HER)

A roughly 34m sweep of west-facing rampart & ditch cuts off a rather tapering, steep-sided promontory, about 24m deep, overhanging the valley of the Afon Cynllo: a defensive earthwork of uncertain date. (Coflein)

The monument comprises the remains of a defended enclosure, which probably dates to the Iron Age period (c. 800 BC - AD 74, the Roman conquest of Wales) but may equally date to the early Medieval period. Inland promontory forts are usually located on a ridge or spur with steep slopes on 2 or 3 sides, and artificial ramparts on the level approaches. Alternatively they may have been constructed on a promontory above the confluence of two rivers, or in the bend of a meander. This site occupies a small natural promontory forming a headland above the Afon Cynllo. The defences, which consist of a substantial bank 2.8m high with an outer ditch up to 1.5m deep, run for a distance of c.34m around the more accessible west of the promontory, enclosing a fairly level area measuring only c.30m north-south by 24m. The most likely site for an entrance is at the north end of the rampart, where there is a causeway across the ditch. (Scheduling Report)

Comments

David King consider this to be a medieval partial ringwork but it is scheduled as an Iron Age defensive enclosure. Beside a road as it climbs through a steep valey onto the hills but otherwise isolated from settlement. May have had some medieval use as a control point but seems unlikely as a residential castle site.