Forgotten, but not gone

Who thought to build this stone pillar for a gatepost? Why the wrought iron gate leading into a scruffy field  that slopes down towards a jumble of indeterminate trees, mostly sycamore and stricken ash? The farm's no longer farmed it seems although I remember the elderly woman who used to walk the land followed by several cats years ago.

The name of the farm is Llys-y-Coed, meaning Woodland Court,  which suggests it was once a place of some significance within the local community. The proximity of the field to the farm would have meant it was an 'infield', used alternatively for grazing and for cultivation, or for keeping young animals under the farmer's eye.. Or perhaps it was an orchard supplying apples for cider, maybe an apiary for honey, a pasture for the cart horses - we'll never know.

For years I've walked the paths and lanes that twine around this scattered community. Once they were the obvious means to get from place to place but now the main road carries motor vehicles straight through, missing such little gems as these. 

A recent publication Tir [Land] by Carwyn Graves features this very village as an example of the way the landscape retains ancient features that act as clues to how the environment  was used by people far back in unwritten history - long before the pillar and the gate.

 You only have to notice them (along with the damsons in the hedgerow!)