Photo Gallery |
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Panoramas |
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Infrared |
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SH 34426 73866 (GPS 25min) | |
Visited August 2001 |
Ty Newydd is most probably the remains of a
Passage Grave, it had an oval chamber, of which the southern and eastern
orthostats are now missing. Also missing is the southern section of the
capstone, a fracture plane on the southern edge of the slab (see photo above),
shows where it split off. As is normal for Passage Graves, Ty Newydd is built in
a commanding position on the summit of a low hill, and the former existence of a
characteristic round cairn covering the chamber is hinted at in nineteenth
century accounts of the monument.
Today the capstone is stabilised by two modern stone blockwork pillars, one of
which occupies much of the original chamber space. It also appeared to us that
the remaining orthostats were now set in concrete. A semicircle of diminutive
concrete posts encloses the monument on the northern side, we can only suppose
that these mark the supposed extent of the original cairn, although no trace
exists of this today.
Excavated in 1936, no human bones were found at the site, but the original
chamber floor area was delineated by a layer of charcoal. Other finds included
Beaker fragments, a barbed and tanged arrowhead, and a small flint chip thought
to come from a polished axehead. The pottery and the arrowhead date from the
late Neolithic and may be evidence of secondary use of the tomb, although the
absence of earlier finds at the site leaves only typological assumptions of an
early date for its construction.
No direct evidence of a passage was found at Ty Newydd, since the tomb was
constructed on a rock outcrop no stoneholes were evident, but if Ty Newydd was
indeed a Passage Grave, then the passage is thought to have entered the chamber
at the east. The capstone does tilt up toward this direction, but how much this
is due to the obvious reinstatement that the tomb has experienced is unknown.