Last Man Standing

Carn Ingli is an easily-recognisable, sharp northen peak in the Preseli hills, which are in north east Pembrokeshire, between Fishguard and Cardigan. The town of Newport lies below Carn Ingli, hemmed in by the hills to the south and St Georges Channel (beteeen Wales and Ireland) to the north. When the rain stopped we ignored all the weather warnings, drove to Newport, enjoyed our favourite cafés and shops (where else would you go to buy a second-hand poker?), and the raging brown water of both the sea and the Nevern/Nyfer river (fighting the tide and the wind), and climbed the cliff path until the gusts became too scary

I was idly looking at the map, picking a way home, and noticed a marked 'burial chamber' that I'd never been aware of before. Often this just means a small rise in the ground or a copse of trees, but this one had an associated name, and google led me to an image like this. Many of these neolithic portal tombs are well-known, and highlighted in the tourist literature, and have associated plaques and explanatory boards. This one is almost completely ignored. You can see why: no easy parking; a longish walk up a poorly-maintained private road; sodden, cut-up pastureland and mud around the base of the stones

We had to take a multi-road diversion around standing water on the coast road, too deep to drive through. We had to turn the car around on the narrow lane and park half on, half off the road (hoping the off road was not bog), with the lights on. Walking in, the water on the track was too deep for my boots - mandating a scramble through 50 metres of brambles and dried-out docks. Arriving, as you see, just before the sun met the horizon, we felt we had earned our audience with the ancients

It's late neolithic - the end of the stone age - 4500-6000 years old. It's a tomb of a respected person; the body placed beneath the capstone, an earth mound (now weathered away) raised over the stones to seal it. The technical term for these portal tombs is a 'dolmen'. In English, the more general term for megalithic monuments, 'cromlech', may be applied (but in most other languages a cromlech is always a stone circle). A 'quoit' is the term used for portal tombs in Cornwall and the south-west; for some reason, this one also attracts that term

It attracts legends of course. It was thrown here by a giant (they all are!) from Carn Ingli. In consequence, it looks like the mountain, visible on the horizon (but not in my picture) 

It is called 'Llech-y-Dribedd' - ‘Stone of the Three Graves’. At some point there may have been three of them. This one shows signs of fragility - we feel privileged to have seen it. The capstone apparently has a crack all the way through, and the upright on the right has a wide fissure, visible even in this picture. On some stormy night...