| Site Name: | Moel Ty Uchaf |
| Country: Wales | County: Denbighshire |
| Nearest Town: Bala | Nearest Village: Llandrillo |
| Map Ref: | SJ05613717 |
| Landranger Map Number: | 125 |
| Latitude: 52.923618N | Longitude: 3.405455W |
Description
Moel Ty Uchaf Bronze Age Cairn Circle. The archaeological jewel in the crown of our area and seen as a site of National importance. It is visited by many people from far and wide for its history and spectacular views over the Dee Valley. Over the years it has become spiritually significant, with a warm and enveloping ambience, with presumed ritual ceremony associated with it. This is a very special site.
Dating from the early Bronze Age Moel Ty Uchaf is classed as a cairn circle and not purely a stone circle. It is a place of burial, with a central cist clearly visible. On the slopes to the West there is evidence of further cist burials. However, these have been converted in to shooting butts in the early 19th Century, although there is enough remaining evidence to suggest that these are prehistoric.
The Cairn circle is made up of 41 irregular stones and is approximately 12m in diameter, with the tallest being just under 1m. Also, to the West there is an “outlier” and due North there are at least three further stones which could be related. The renowned Archaeologist, Aubrey Burl, during his research commented that the outlier aligns perfectly with the setting of Deneb the main star in the constellation Cygnus. A recent visitor, Smac, commenting on The Megalithic Portal that after a visit “it is a near perfect circle, I think I counted 48 stones.” He also stated that in his opinion this was once the burial place of a special person in the community and noticed, what we have perceived on our many visits, that sunlight reveals the different colours and textures in the surrounding landscape.
moeltyuchaf.pdf from HENEB
< Moel Ty-Uchaf, stone circle | Coflein>
Close by to the South are the remains of a large platform cairn with a ring of white quartz stones, many of which have been removed. The encircled platform is filled with smaller cobbles and presumed inhumations. This suggests that the whole area had some ceremonial and ritual significance and the whole area is a scheduled ancient monument. This circle, when in shadow from Moel Ty Uchaf main cairn, or moonlight, is so much more visible that night and shadow must have some additional significance.