Craig Rhiwarth hill-fort, Montgomeryshire

Abstract

The genesis of this report dates back to 1974, during one of Frances Lynch's memorable student field-trips, when it was suggested to DR that a survey of Craig Rhiwarth would be a suitable topic for his undergraduate thesis, supervised of course by Frances herself. The initial survey was carried out over ten days during the following spring by DR and PC. Due to the constraints of time and using a plane-table on a site such as Craig Rhiwarth, with its irregular topography, only the central area around the west summit was surveyed, recording 56 structures (Roe 1975). In the summer of 1976, after a spell of very dry weather, the vegetation and peaty soil was burnt off a considerable proportion of the hilI-fort, revealing both a large number of new structures and considerable detail within them (Figs 3, 4). Thus, in the spring of 1978, the whole site was resurveyed over a period of20 days, using a plane-table with a self-reducing alidade. In the days before the common availability of EDM instruments, this was an ideal method for such a site, allowing both the extreme topography to be surveyed with relative ease and individual features, both natural and man-made, to be plotted with considerable accuracy (Fig. 24, between pages 328-29). A full list of the structures identified on the hill is given in Table 1. In April 1978, in ajoint project between the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) and University College of North Wales, Bangor (UCNW), Frances and six of her archaeology undergraduates, supervised by GG, made plans of 16 of the burnt structures at a scale of 1:20 (Figs 13-15).3 This detailed work led to the recovery of a number of artefacts.