MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS
INTERNATIONAL
INTERNATIONAL
| Pentre Ifan Portal Dolmen |
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| Pentre Ifan is perhaps the finest surviving Neolithic tomb in Wales and forms one of a group of Portal Dolmens built around the tributaries of the Nevern Valley approximately 6,000 years ago. Its chamber is formed by a capstone of around 16 tons upheld on three uprights about 2.5m high at one end of a cairn some 30 m long. The tomb was excavated by W F Grimes in 1936-7, who thought that it was heavily influenced by prehistoric contacts with Ireland. More recent research suggests the tomb was an indigenous creation by the local communities but may have been nonetheless influenced by Irish culture and contact during a later stage of its use, when the long mound, long since eroded away, was extended. Finds from Pentre Ifan, as from other Welsh prehistoric tombs, were meagre, numbering a few sherds of pottery from a shouldered bowl and a triangular flint arrowhead. Its present appearance, as a gaunt freestanding structure supporting a delicately balanced capstone, may never have been witnessed by the communities who later used it. Instead, it is thought that the whole structure was covered in a massive mound or cairn of stones with access to the chamber permitted only through the door or ‘portal’ at the south end. ‘Spirits and fairies exist all round us, invisible. Fairies have no solid bodily substance. Their forms are of matter like ghostly bodies, and on this account, they cannot be caught. In the twilight they are often seen, and on moonlight nights in summer. Only certain people can see fairies, and such people hold communication with them and have dealings with them, but it is difficult to get them to talk about fairies. My mother used to tell about seeing the "fair-folk" dancing in the fields near Cardigan; and other people have seen them round the cromlech up there on the hill (the Pentre Evan Cromlech). They appeared as little children in clothes like soldiers' clothes, and with red caps, according to some accounts.’ The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1911). Account given by a local woman whose ancestors had lived in that area for centuries. |
| LOCATION Latitude: 51.999005N Longitude: 4.770042W Located 4km east of Newport on a public footpath. |
