Pen-Clawdd-Mawr Hillfort

Tranquil Drone Flight around Pen-Clawdd-Mawr Hillfort and beautiful scenery nr Talsan in West Wales

Tranquil Drone Flight around Pen-Clawdd-Mawr Hillfort and beautiful scenery nr Talsan in West Wales

WA2363: Pen Clawdd-Mawr.

Back in April I went out to investigate a series of overlooking Hillforts dotted along the Aeron valley in West Wales.

Not much is known about these ‘Pen Y Gear’s’, research has been minimal but they took up prominent defensive positions along the valley. Each fort was within a couple of miles of the neighbour and most look to have somehow artificially flattened the prominences , before constructing huge banks and ditches in defensive patterns. Maybe these were then topped with huge dry stone walls. Where they really defensive forts? Probably the smaller ones where fortified farmsteads perhaps for larger family farming groups, hunkered down together in a period of danger but usually living and farming the surrounding land.

Today not much is left of the Great Headland Bank as the name translates. Sheep as always are left to graze peacefully atop the green meadows that used to house the Iron Age community that once lived there. The village of Talsarn can be seen across the valley about a mile to the north and it is situated below the peak of TryChrug (343 Metres). Lower on the flank of the summit to the left is an ominous looking spur, this too is a Hillfort, we shall travel there soon. In spring on a sunny day the Aeron Valley is stunningly beautiful and the county of Ceredigion as a whole is one of the most sparsely populated areas in the whole of mainland Britain. ‘Aeron’ itself translates as ‘Berries’ in this case probably Blackberries as they can still be found all over.

Music, a newbie from Nostramus, seemed to fit the mood of the flight. So new is this track that for the time being I will call it “Pen-Clawdd-Mawr” Hope you like it!