Fron Ddu Round Barrow

Fron Ddu Round Barrow stands on a quiet hillside above Devil’s Bridge in Ceredigion. It is a Neolithic or Bronze Age burial mound, about thirteen metres wide and just over a metre high. The site was built roughly five thousand years ago as part of ancient ceremonies or to hold the remains of the dead. Cadw keeps the barrow on its list of protected monuments, where it is known as SAM CD124. Almost four hundred similar mounds appear in that register, more than any other kind of ancient site. The first of these mounds were raised around 3000 BC and the custom lasted until the end of the Bronze Age, around 600 BC. Most were built between 2400 and 1500 BC, when communities across Wales laid out long earthen heaps over chambers or simple graves. Over centuries the mound at Fron Ddu has been robbed of stones and flattened by ploughing, yet its circular shape still rises gently above the surrounding grass. Visitors walk a short farm track to reach the barrow, where a low ring of turf marks the original edge. From the top there are wide views over the wooded gorge of the Rheidol and the Cambrian Mountains beyond. The air is quiet except for the sound of the river and the wind in the oaks. A single hawthorn grows near the centre, a reminder of the centuries that have passed since the first stones were placed here.