Long Barrow (destroyed): OS Grid Reference – SO 169 357
Also Known as:
- Croesllechau
Archaeology & History
It appears to have been Theophilus Jones who first mentioned this all-but-lost megalithic tomb, more than 200 years ago. He told that,
“In a field called Croeslechau about two miles eastward of (Talgarth), but in the parish of Bronllys and on a farm called Bryn-y-groes, is a cromlech, not merely interesting on account of its antiquity, but from the circumstance of a white thorn growing close, and indeed under part of it, which has gradually raised the horizontal or covering-stone several inches out of its original position; it is therefore not only venerable as a relic of very ancient days, but as a natural curiosity.”
Thankfully he gave us the fine old drawing of the tomb, here reproduced.
Although shown on an 1832 map of the region, when Crawford (1925) came to describe this old tomb it had already been destroyed. He told that,
“the site is unknown and all memory of it is has completely vanished in the neighbourhood. Mr Evan Morgan had visited the site and reports that no traces of the ‘cromlech’ were visible; nor were enquiries of the farmer at Bradwys any more successful in identifying the site. It is not unlikely that the monument was destroyed when a new road was made…”
References:
- Crawford, O.G.S., The Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, John Bellows: Gloucester 1925.
- Jones, Theophilus, History of the County of Brecknock, volume 2, George North: London 1809.
© Paul Bennett, The Northern Antiquarian