East Fforest Fawr and Mynydd-y-glôg

Various aspects of the natural environment of Fforest Fawr and Mynydd-y-glôg are considered in some detail in the Royal Commissions’s Mynydd Du and Fforest Fawr: The Evolution of an Upland Landscape in South Wales (1997), which are summarized here.

At the north the area rises to the summit of Fan Fawr at a height of about 734 metres above sea level, the second highest peak of Fforest Fawr after Fan Brycheiniog which lies about 14 kilometres to the west. Southwards the bleak upland gradually drops to a height of about 300 metres, dissected by the narrow, steep-sided, rejuvenated stream channels of the Afon Hepste and its tributaries, gradually merging at about 350 metres into the enclosed, lower-lying parts of Dyffryn Hepste, Cwm Cadlan and Pant Sychbant valleys which continue to fall to about 250-300 metres. To either side the land drops much more abruptly, into the more steep-sided valleys of the Mellte to the west and the Taf Fawr to the east.

The underlying solid geology of the area is varied and includes Old Red Sandstone to the north which forms the north-facing escarpment of the Brecon Beacons, to the south of which is a belt of Carboniferous limestone and Millstone Grit. During the last ice age the landscape was affected by glaciers and ice sheets, ice flowing out radially from the summit of the Beacons, deepening the pre-existing south-draining river valleys of the Mellte, Hepste and Taf Fawr and depositing glacial drift deposits within them. The resistant outcrop of Millstone Grit on Mynydd-y-glog deflected the passage of the ice to the east and west, creating Pant Sychbant, a dry valley which cuts across the landscape at a different angle to the river valleys. A distinctive characteristic of the Carboniferous limestone is the formation of numerous smaller shake holes and a some larger swallow holes, generally between 5-100 metres across, formed by the solution of limestone along joints in the rock, which join underground streams and watercourses.

In the moorland area to the north the soils mostly overlie Old Red Sandstone or sandstone drift deposits and are predominantly seasonally waterlogged, acidic, and with a peaty surface horizon, supporting wet moorland of poor grazing quality. Towards the west are smaller areas of better-drained land overlying sandstone in the Gwaun Cefnygarreg area and of better-drained land supporting moorland pasture of better grazing quality overlying limestone in the Garn Ganol area. Likewise, to the south, there are some areas of better-drained land overlying sandstone and limestone in the Cefn Cadlan and Mynydd-y-glog areas. In the lower-lying parts of Hepste and Cadlan valleys the soils are mostly derived from sandstone drift deposits and are generally slow draining and seasonally waterlogged loams.

A broad outline of the environmental and vegetational history of the historic landscape area since the last glaciation is indicated by a number of palaeoenvironmental studies that have been undertaken in the region, including pollen analysis of peat deposits on the south side of Pant Sychbant and buried soils near Nant-maden in Cwm Cadlan as well as a number of other sites in the Brecon Beacons and Fforest Fawr. The late-glacial and early post-glacial period between about 12000-6000 BC is marked by a sequence which saw the appearance of juniper scrub subsequently dominated by birch and then hazel-dominated woodland. The establishment of temperate woodland between about 6000-5000 BC also saw the arrival of oak and elm, of which oak became dominant on the lower-lying ground and pine and birch on higher more exposed elevations. It appears that post-glacial tree cover probably became patchy over a height of about 500-600 metres though some woodland would evidently have extended to over 800 metres, taking in the summit of Fan Fawr at the northern tip of the historic landscape area.

The first clear impact of human activity in the natural vegetation sequence in Fforest Fawr appears at a date of about 6000 BC during this warmer phase in the later Mesolithic, when it has been suggested that upland clearings were being created and kept open in birch woodland by burning and animal grazing. At about this time some areas of heather heathland and hazel scrub were also beginning to appear in areas that had once been wooded, probably at least in part due to human activity. Increased waterlogging in some areas also initiated peat formation and the rise of alder.

The period up to about 4000 BC, during the earlier Neolithic, saw a slight fall in elm and some other tree species with corresponding increases in grasses and herbs, and possibly an expansion of heathland. Intensified pressure on woodland is evident in the later Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age periods, between about 3500-1500 BC, with evidence for further increases in grassland, some ground disturbance, the continuing expansion of heather moorland but probably also the survival of some oak and hazel woodland at relatively high altitude. The continuing relatively mild climatic conditions during this period seem likely to have given greater potential for agriculture at higher levels than in the recent past and appear to coincide with the appearance of the early settlement and land use activity in parts of the historic landscape area.

This more favourable climatic phase began to deteriorate at about 1500 BC, during the middle Bronze Age, ending with cooler and wetter conditions which came into being in the period between about 1000-500 BC, loosely corresponding to the period of transition between the late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. A shortened growing season and greater rainfall during this less favourable climatic phase probably led to the abandonment of early settlements and fields in some of the higher and more exposed parts of the area, which have since reverted to moorland. Wetter climatic conditions generally, however, appear to have led to increased waterlogging and a decline in soil fertility which inhibited woodland regeneration, though no doubt settlement and cultivation continued on more lower-lying and sheltered sites within the valleys.

A number of subsequent climatic fluctuations also seem likely to have had a direct impact upon the settlement and land use history of the area, such as a slight warming during the later Iron Age and Roman period, between about AD 0-400 AD and again in the Middle Ages between about AD 1150-1250, during which it is possible that some of the more marginal areas of settlement and land use that had been abandoned during the Bronze Age again became permanently settled for periods of several centuries at a time, only to be finally abandoned with the advent of worsening conditions during the ‘Little Ice Age’, between about AD 1300-1850, when cooler and wetter summers again imposed limitations particularly upon arable farming.

It has been suggested that the widespread acidic grassland which today dominates the unenclosed uplands of the historic landscape area were the result of relatively recent changes in grazing practice, replacing the heather moorland that had gradually spread and grown to dominance since the early prehistoric period. In medieval and earlier times it seems likely that the moorland was less intensively grazed, perhaps largely by cattle. Since about the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, however, intensive sheep farming has become dominant and is thought to have contributed to the vegetation change.

By the early medieval period the area formed part of the cantref (hundred) of Cantref Mawr in the kingdom of Brycheiniog which had emerged as one of the early British kingdoms in Wales by the 7th to 8th century AD. The kingdom was conquered by the Norman baron, Bernard de Neufmarché, in the late 12th century and continued to be administered as a marcher lordship until the 16th century.

The greater part, if not the whole of the historic landscape area formed part of one of the largest hunting preserves in Wales, belonging to the lords of Brecknock known as Fforest Fawr or the Great Forest of Brecknock stretching for about 20 kilometres from east to west and 12 kilometres from north to south (about 12 miles by 8 miles), called the forestya de Brechonie (‘Forest of Brecon’) by the 1160s and 1170s. In documents of the early 17th century it is named as Forest y Brenin (‘King’s Forest’), the area having been forfeited to Henry VIII by the Duke of Buckingham in 1521.

At the Act of Union of 1536 Cantref Mawr came to form the hundred of Defynnog (Devynock) in the newly-created county of Brecknock (Breconshire)

During the Middle Ages most of the historic landscape area fell within the ecclesiastical parish of Penderyn in the archdeaconry of Brecknock, in the diocese of St David’s. The ecclesiastical parish of Hirwaun was created in 1886 from the civil parishes of Aberdare in Glamorgan and Penderyn in the county of Brecon.

By the 19th century the area formed parts of the Brecknockshire civil parishes of Penderyn, Ystradfellte, Glyn and Cantref. Following local government reorganisation in 1974 Penderyn, making up most of the southern part of the area, was transferred to the new county of Mid Glamorganshire, and the northern communities were transferred to Brecknock District Council in the new county of Powys. In the local government reorganisation of 1996 the northern part of the area was subdivided between the communities of Ystradfellte and Llanfrynach within the unitary authority of Powys and the southern part of the area became part of the community of Hirwaun in the new unitary authority of Rhondda Cynon Taff.

Fforest Fawr remained Crown property until the sale of the central part of the area in 1819. The unenclosed moorland within the historic landscape area was unaffected by this sale, however, and is still mostly Common Land.

The historic landscape area falls wholly within the Brecon Beacons National Park, created in 1957 for the purpose of protecting the natural beauty of the area, to help visitors enjoy and understand it, and to foster the well-being of local people.

The historical significance of Fforest Fawr was highlighted in the early years of the 20th century with the publication of John Lloyd’s The Great Forest of Brecknock published in 1905 and later by William Rees’s similarly named book published in 1966. The archaeological importance of the area, in terms of the surviving prehistoric, medieval and industrial remains was highlighted by the fieldwork and publications of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales during the 1990s, notably Stephen Hughes’s The Brecon Forest Tramroads (1990), David Leighton’s Mynydd Du and Fforest Fawr: The Evolution of an Upland Landscape in South Wales (1997), and the Brecknock Inventory, Prehistoric Burial and Ritual Monuments and Settlement to A.D. 1000 (1997).

Greater awareness of the surviving archaeological remains was a major factor in the inclusion of the East Fforest Fawr and Mynydd-y-glog historic landscape area in the Register of Landscapes of Special Historic Significance in Wales, published under the auspices of Cadw, the Countryside Council for Wales and ICOMOS UK in 2001.

The historic landscape area now also falls within the Fforest Fawr Geopark, established to promote both the geological heritage and economic development of the area and granted recognition by the UNESCO Global Geopark Network in 2005.

Prehistoric and Roman periods

The earliest settlement and land use in the area is suggested by the chance find of a Neolithic polished stone axe in the now wooded area near Cefn-y-maes, overlooking the Taf Fawr valley on the eastern side of the historic landscape area. Finds of this kind suggest the beginnings of forest clearance around the margins of the uplands by early farming communities, though it is not improbable that both the lowland valleys and the uplands of Fforest Fawr were also exploited by nomadic hunter-gatherer groups during the preceding Mesolithic period.

A number of important complexes of early land use and settlement have also been identified within the historic landscape area including huts, abandoned field walls and clearance cairns and although none of these have so far been closely dated it seems likely that at least some of these remains date broadly to the period between the Bronze Age and the Roman periods, though some are also likely to be of early medieval and medieval date.

Initially, settlement and land use required the clearance of woodland and scrub, no doubt as part of a gradual process which began in the potentially more fertile and sheltered areas. The stone footings of circular round huts suggest a date within the Bronze or Iron Ages, though the presence of some rectangular buildings suggests either continuity into the Roman and early medieval periods or re-use of earlier sites in the early medieval, medieval or early post-medieval periods. In the absence of excavation the interpretation of these settlement and land use remains is uncertain. The huts appear either singly or in small clusters and may either indicate seasonal or all-year settlement. These are sometimes associated with small stone-banked enclosures where possibly animals were herded. Clearance cairns, which often occur in extensive but loose clusters or cairnfields, represent the collection of surface stone either for pasture improvement or to improve cultivated land. Low walls and field banks might again be associated with field clearance or pasture improvement as well as controlling stock from straying.

The distribution of the surviving remains is likely to be strongly influenced by later land use. The remains have largely been found on the lower fringes of the unenclosed moorland areas, between a height of about 300-480 metres above sea level. It is likely that the traces of earlier settlement and land use on lower-lying ground, now mostly within present-day enclosed farmland within Mellte, Hepste and Cadlan valleys, have been obscured, overlain or removed by subsequent agricultural activity, during the period between the medieval period and the present day. The upper contour of about 480 metres is likely, however, to provide a reasonably accurate upper limit of past settlement activity.

Larger and more significant areas of surviving early settlement and land use are known in the northern part of the historic landscape area in the sheltered upper valley of the river Hepste, extending into the tributary stream valleys of the Nant Hepste-fechan and Afon y Waun and onto the sheltered east-facing slopes of Mynydd y Garn and Waun Tincer. An isolated group of round-huts of possible prehistoric date is also recorded at Carn Caniedydd, towards the eastern side of the area, at about 400 metres. In the eastern and southern parts of the historic landscape area there are significant and extensive remains of early settlement and land use surviving on the sheltered, east-facing slopes of Cadair Fawr, at the head of the Garwnant and Nant Ffynnonelin streams, overlooking Pant y Gadair and the Taf Fawr valley, on the more sheltered southern slopes of Cefn Cadlan and the northern slopes of the col extending beyond the limits of the enclosed farmland at the head of Cwm Cadlan, and on the southern side of Cwm Cadlan and extending onto the more exposed northern slopes of Mynydd-y-glog.

As noted in a following section about Bronze Age prehistoric burial and ritual monuments there are clear indications that at an early period the landscape was already segregated for different clearly-defined purposes. Clusters of probably Bronze Age burial cairns and ritual ring cairns often appear to lie on the upper fringes of the areas where there are the surviving remains of early settlement and land use with which they are most probably at least in part contemporary, and often sited on local hill crests and summits from which they would have been visible from lower ground.

Another facet of early settlement and land use is the presence of a number of burnt mounds of which a handful of examples have been identified mostly in unenclosed moorland areas, below Cefn Esgair-carnau overlooking the Taf Fawr valley, next to the Afon-y-waun towards the head of the Hepste valley, and on the western edge of Cefn Sychbant, overlooking the Cadlan valley. These sites, which evidence elsewhere suggests are likely to be Bronze Age in date, are represented by accumulations of burnt stones, ash and charcoal, usually sited next to a stream. They are most convincingly interpreted as a kind of sauna bath, though some may have been used as cooking sites. Like the distribution of prehistoric burial and ritual sites these monuments appear to avoid areas of contemporary settlement and land use which again suggests significant functional division of landscape in the early prehistoric period.

Traces of early settlement avoid the more exposed and less hospitable land which in the historic landscape area extends up to about 730 metres above sea level, and generally peter out and become much more sparse at heights of between about 400-480 metres. Several small clusters of probably prehistoric round huts are known at these heights, as for example on Cors y Beddau — on the spur between the Nant Ganol and Nant Mawr streams, close to the Nant Llywarch stream, on Waun Llywarch — between the Nant Llywarch and Afon y Waun streams, and also at several locations next to the Afon y Waun stream, though they are only infrequently associated with traces of cultivation in the form of field banks or clearance cairns and are sometimes found in association with rectangular structures which seem more likely to represent medieval to early post-medieval hafodydd (‘summer houses’) inhabited by family groups and associated with the seasonal exploitation of upland pastures during the summer months, particularly for cattle rearing. This association raises the question of whether transhumance in the region had its origins in the prehistoric period.

Early medieval to early post-medieval periods

Clearance of woodland and scrub within the area no doubt continued on a piecemeal basis up to and beyond the beginning of the early medieval period. By this time it is likely that a system of land use and settlement had emerged adopting a mixed arable and pastoral economy exploiting both lowland and upland resources. Initially, it seems probable that there was an emphasis upon cattle rearing and dairying but later on, the emphasis was on sheep herding. Detailed evidence of the forms of settlement, the size and extent of holdings and the nature of the economy is largely lacking until the later 18th and early 19th centuries, when the first estate maps and the tithe surveys were drawn. However, it was probably during this period that settlement was based upon a pattern of small and dispersed holdings with all-year-round habitations or hendrefydd (‘permanent residences, winter dwellings’) associated with enclosed meadow, pasture and arable on the more fertile and productive land in the lower-lying, sheltered valleys with grazing of the extensive moorland pastures during the summer months which in some instances or during some periods involved the use of hafodydd (‘summer houses’) temporary upland habitations particularly to be associated with cattle grazing. The place-name elements hendre and hafod are in fact unknown within the historic landscape area but since the way of life that these represented had all but disappeared by the time many of the earliest farm names were being recorded, in the second half of the 18th century, this is probably of little significance.

The emergence of permanent lowland farms or hendrefydd during the Middle Ages is suggested by the survival of a number of early farmhouses of longhouse form, such as Hepste-fawr in the Dyffryn Hepste historic landscape character area, discussed in a following section upon buildings, which at this period were probably mostly held by freehold farmers. This form of building was multi-functional, often accommodating both humans and animals, fodder and grain storage under a single roof. As at the present day, early farms were probably dispersed and set amongst their own fields. Though specific evidence is lacking, it also seems likely that much of the general pattern of small irregular fields had gradually evolved by at least the later medieval and early post-medieval periods, probably clearing away in the process any earlier traces of settlement and land use, though some fluctuation probably continued around the margins of the surrounding unenclosed moorland, depending upon climatic conditions or the tenacity of their occupants. The detached and isolated moorland encroachment at Hepste-fechan, for example, between a height of 330-70 metres is first documented in the 1780s but probably represents the partial survival and enhancement of a much earlier period of land use activity, with fields as elsewhere lower down in the Hepste and Cadlan valleys defined by drystone walls and clearance banks.

Much of the modern pattern of lanes, trackways and fords probably also emerged during this period, providing access to individual farms, with green lanes between the fields enabling livestock to be driven up to the mountain pastures in the spring and returned to the home farm in the autumn. Specialised uses for different fields had probably already emerged by this period, depending upon fertility, aspect and natural drainage. Drier fields would be better suited to cultivation, less freely draining fields to permanent pasture, and damper lower-lying to hay meadows.

As noted above, temporary summer dwellings or hafodydd which were no doubt linked with these lowland farms are known in the higher, unenclosed moorland areas, often seeking out more sheltered spots adjacent to streams providing water for household purposes and for watering stock. In the northern part of the historic landscape area, below Fan Fawr, groups of rectangular building platforms with the remains of stone-built long huts which appear to represent hafodydd have been recorded along the Afon Hepste stream below the 380-metre contour. Several small clusters of rectangular huts probably of medieval date are at heights of between 430-80 metres on Cors y Beddau, on Waun Llywarch. These higher settlements are sometimes associated with small embanked enclosures which may have been used for controlling stock, but are rarely if ever associated with evidence of cultivation. In the eastern and southern part of the area significant clusters of similar rectangular house platforms and stone footings are also known between about 380-420 metres on the sheltered, east-facing slopes of Cadair Fawr, at the head of the Garwnant and Nant Ffynnonelin streams, overlooking Pant y Gadair and the Taf Fawr valley, between about 350-450 metres on the more sheltered southern slopes of Cefn Cadlan and the northern slopes of the col extending beyond the limits of the enclosed farmland at the head of Cwm Cadlan, and hugging the southern boundary of the enclosed land in Cwm Cadlan, to the east of the Cae’r Arglwydd, Wern-las and Beili-helyg farms and extending onto the more exposed northern slopes of Mynydd-y-glog, between a height of about 300-380 metres above sea level. Few if any of these more remote upland dwellings within the historic landscape area seem to have ever evolved into permanently occupied dairy farms of the kind which emerged in other areas of upland Wales.

The hunting of wild game and fowl for subsistence will have continued to be practiced at this period, though as noted above, in the section on boundaries, by the end of the 11th century, following the Anglo-Norman conquest of the kingdom of Brycheiniog, the greater part of the historic landscape area formed part of the extensive hunting preserve of Fforest Fawr or Great Forest of Brecknock belonging to marcher lordship of Brecknock, possibly assuming more ancient rights previously held by native princes of the kingdom.

The extent of the medieval forest is only loosely defined and remained unmapped until the early 19th century, the forest being essentially an area of unenclosed ground over which rights of the chase were reserved. In time other smaller preserves were identified within the broader mantle of Fforest Fawr, such as Cadlan Forest, to the north of Mynydd-y-glog. The boundaries of Fforest Fawr are likely to have fluctuated from early times, however, gradually diminishing as licensed or illicit encroachments of potentially better farmland nibbled away at its outer rim.

Management and administration of the forest by the lordship is poorly documented, though it is likely that as in the case of other similar medieval forests and chases in Britain it was governed by forest law, a body of local rights, customs and regulations governing the activities of those who lived near or within it, such as grazing rights, rights to gather fuel, to dig for stone and burn limestone. It has been suggested that the medieval stone castle at Castell Coch at the southern foot of Fforest Fawr, just outside the historic landscape area at the head of the valley of the Afon Mellte, might have been used as temporary accommodation during hunting expeditions to the vast Fforest Fawr by the medieval lords of Brecknock.

Due to expense and the difficulties maintaining game stocks open forests of this kind tended to decline in significance towards the end of the Middle Ages, to be replaced by enclosed deer parks. Fforest Fawr passed to the Crown in 1521, which retained ownership until the early 19th century, a period during which the present-day rights of commoning were established.

Later post-medieval and modern periods

As noted above, it is likely that throughout Fforest Fawr much of the boundary between the unenclosed moorland and the enclosed farmland around the mountain edge had become reasonably well established by the early post-medieval period, represented by a pattern of generally small irregular fields in the valleys. However, a distinctive feature of post-medieval farming, probably during the course of the 17th to early 19th centuries, was the enclosure of significant areas of mountain pasture around the fringes of the moorland which continued to observe pre-existing rights of way. These larger enclosures were typically between 10-20 hectares but occasionally 70-80 hectares in extent, and were carved out of the common moorland, often with characteristically curving upper boundaries. In parts of Wales enclosed but uncultivated moorland grazing around the mountain edge is sometimes called ffridd (‘moorland, rough mountain pasture’), though in parts of south Wales the term coedcae or coetgae appears to be more common. In this context it is probable that the name of the farm Coed Cae Du close to the moorland edge on the northern side of Cwm Cadlan is probably significant.

Areas of enclosed moorland grazing are evident high on the eastern side of the Mellte valley north-east of Goitre farm, on Gwaun Cefnygarreg, on the more sheltered northern side of the Hepste valley, around the margins of Cwm Cadlan and on the southern fringes of Mynydd-y-glog. The precise dating of some of these boundaries is uncertain, but 18th-century estate maps denote ‘old banks’ on the moorland edge near Pen-fathor in the Mellte valley and at the eastern end of Cwm Cadlan, suggesting that some of these boundaries are at least 17th-century in origin. These later boundaries, whose length extends to tens of kilometres, show a variety of construction methods, including banks, revetted banks, freestanding drystone walls, and walls accompanied by ditches. In some instances a sequence of construction is evident, with drystone walls in some cases evidently lying on top of earlier earthen banks. The purpose of these new mountain enclosures was probably to secure the private use of the better areas of moorland grazing, to prevent stock from straying across the mountain, and perhaps also to control breeding.

The general shift towards sheep farming in Wales in the later middle ages and post-medieval periods is to some extent reflected in the archaeological record of the area, most notably in the appearance of drystone sheepfolds strategically sited at convenient points for gathering flocks being brought down from the hill. The less demanding day-to-day requirements of managing sheep led to end of transhumance and the abandonment of the hafodydd though smaller shelters might occasionally be needed by lone shepherds.

The first comprehensive evidence of settlement and land use in the historic landscape area is provided by estate maps which began to appear in the second half of the 18th century and the tithe maps and schedules of the 1840s which show most of the existing farms and cottages on the eastern rim of the Mellte valley, Dyffryn Hepste and Cwm Cadlan though some buildings have clearly disappeared since that time. By the mid 19th century most of the farms are shown as holdings of between 15-60 hectares (40-140 acres) and were mostly tenanted. Many of them had been acquired by estates such as the Tredegar, Penmailard and Bodwigiad estates, which had begun to emerge in the area from about the later 17th century onwards.

Place-name evidence from estate and tithe maps gives a number of hints about the former independence and social status of some of the farms that had probably originated during the later medieval and early post-medieval periods. In the Hepste valley, some of the older and possibly originally higher-status houses are suggested by the element mawr (‘large, important’) in the names Ty-mawr and Hepste-fawr, and neuadd (‘hall’) in the lower part of the valley, the latter first appearing in the form ‘Tyr y noyadd’ in 1618, though in many cases it is evident that the place-name elements were used to distinguish dwellings that might only be a little larger than average. The use of the element neuadd is perhaps ironic in the case of Gelli-neuadd applied to the pair of 19th-century roadside workers’ cottages on the lane along the Cadlan valley north of Penderyn. The place-name element tir ‘land, ground’ also occurs in a significant proportion of other farm names in the valley, including Tirmawr, Tir-dyweunydd, Tir-yr-onen and Tir-Shencyn-Llewelyn (renamed Llwyncelyn), the last of which is first recorded in 1819. These farms, like the suggested originally higher-status dwellings, are normally set within their own fields. By contrast a number of cottages and smallholdings may represent later encroachments set alongside lanes and trackways, single examples of which in the Hepste and Cadlan valleys are significantly called Heol-las, meaning ‘green lane’, and others are indicated by the element tyle (‘steep path’) in the name Gawr-dyle on the southern edge of the Cadlan valley.

Place-name and field-name evidence, from the tithe survey in particular, also provides some evidence about former vegetation and land use which in some respects is similar though in other respects is in marked contrast to the present day. Names referring to trees are predictably quite frequent in the sheltered valleys of Dyffryn Hepste and Cwm Cadlan, with names such as Llwyn-y-fedwen (‘birch, birch grove’), Tir-yr-onen (from onn, ‘ash, ash wood’), Gelli-ffynhonnau-isaf and Gelli-ffynhonnau-uchaf (from celli, ‘grove, copse, woodland’), and Beili-Helyg (from helyg, ‘willow’). Little indication of former land use is provided by place-name evidence, though the area name Gweunydd (or Gwaunydd) Hepste, the enclosed area on the moorland edge on the south-west side of the area and the farm name Tir-dyweunydd both includes the plural of gwaun (‘moor, mountain pasture’), with better quality grassland indicated by the field-name element gweirglodd (‘hay-field, meadow’) and its various spellings and by names such as ‘Cae Clover’. Limitations upon land use of some of the enclosed valley land due to poor drainage, is indicated by the element gwern (‘swamp’) in the farm names Gwern-pawl and Wernlas and the stream name Gwern Nant-ddu, and also by the element garw (‘rough’) in the farm names Pant-garw and Garw-dyle (formerly Garw-dylau) and brwyn (‘rushes’) in some field names. Even so, unlike today, it is clear from the tithe survey that in the 19th century, and presumably in earlier periods, there was a much greater emphasis upon arable farming, reflected in occasional occurrence of the element haidd (‘barley’) in the fields such as ‘Caer Haidd’ on Coed Cae Ddu farm.

The former emphasis on a mixed arable and pastoral economy is also strongly reflected in the surviving farm buildings, as noted in the following section on vernacular buildings. It is again evident from the surviving buildings that significant investments were made in new farm buildings and in new and renovated farmhouses in the later 18th and 19th centuries, possibly under the influence of the local estates and bodies such as the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society, founded in 1755. A number of other improvements in farming methods that were taking place in the later 18th and 19th centuries are also reflected in the archaeological record. Clusters of more regularly-shaped fields close to the farms at Tirmawr, Tir-dyweunydd, Llwyncelyn and Hepste-fawr in Dyffryn Hepste and close to the farms at Glyn-perfedd, Garw-dyle, Gelli-dafolog, Wern-las and Nant-maden, including some with straight-sided boundaries, suggest small-scale reorganisation of field boundaries, probably during the 19th century. Improved drainage of enclosed fields was also attempted in some areas with open ditches, underground drainage and by the construction of cultivation ridges (sometimes called ‘lazy beds’) which are visible in some areas. As noted in the section on industry below, limekilns were set up in a number of areas which provided agricultural lime to improve soil fertility.

Parts of Fforest Fawr were sold by the Crown in 1819, due to the cost of the Napoleonic Wars, becoming the largest single enclosure in either England or Wales. The immediate impact upon the historic landscape area was muted however, since due to the objections of commoners and others only the middle portion of the Forest was sold, the unenclosed land within the area under study being retained as one of a number of substantial blocks of common.

The later 19th and 20th centuries saw a general decline in the profitability of farming, the introduction of mechanisation as well as the industrialisation of south Wales which drew people away from the land, resulting in farm amalgamation and the abandonment of some farms and cottages which have likewise left their mark upon the landscape. In Dyffryn Hepste, for example, a house between Tirmawr and Tir-yr-onen and a possible smallholding on moorland edge west of Llwyn-y-fedwen, were abandoned or in a ruinous condition by the 1880s. The isolated barn at Heol-las, is possibly all that now survives of a former farm complex abandoned in the 19th century. Other farms, such as Blaen Hepste, were abandoned for similar reasons in the 1920s. In Cwm Cadlan the farmsteads and cottages at Gwern-pawl, Blaen-cadlan-isaf were already ruinous in the 1880s, whilst those at Cae’r Arglwydd, Gelli-ffynhonnau-isaf, Blaen-cadlan-uchaf all appear to have been abandoned from the early in the 20th century onwards.

Arising from the depressed state of agriculture in the early 20th century, proposals had been made to implement various kinds of agricultural improvements within the Welsh uplands with a view to increasing agricultural prosperity and arresting the process of rural depopulation that was affecting these areas. Few changes were made to upland farming, however, until the second world war when these areas were said by the recently established Welsh Agricultural Land Sub-Commission to be in an ‘advanced state of dereliction’. With the declaration of war all British agriculture came under the direct control of the County War Agricultural Executive who were charged with the responsibility of increasing agricultural productivity. Based upon aerial photographic evidence, the exigencies of wartime agriculture seems to be reflected in the significant attempts at pasture improvement that were made to extensive areas of moorland within the historic landscape area at this time, with the appearance of extensive systems of drainage gullies or grips dug, probably by machine, at the heads of the Afon y Waun, Nant Llywarch, Nant Iwrch and Nant yr Ychen, tributures of the Afon Hepste in the moorland below Fan Fawr. Modern air photograph coverage shows patterns of parallel drainage trenches, up to 400 metres long and spaced between about 8-18 metres apart, were dug covering almost 200 hectares of waterlogged areas at the heads of the streams between a height of about 400-600 metres above sea level, in an attempt to drain waterlogged areas. Today, most of the drainage trenches have largely silted up and have eroded into more regular courses to the extent that on the ground they often have the appearance of natural watercourses, but are shown in a pristine condition on RAF air photographs taken in 1945 and 1946, just after the second world war, evidently soon after these works were carried out.

Otherwise, by contrast with the later 18th and 19th centuries, little significant investment has been made in farming which has left a mark on the landscape since about the beginning of the 20th century apart from the appearance of a number of steel-framed agricultural buildings. The loss of necessary skills and the relatively labour-intensive nature of maintaining drystone field walls and traditional hedge laying has resulted in the increasing decay of ancient and traditional field boundaries and a growing dependence on post-and-wire fencing probably from a date early in the 20th-century.

Some changes in land use during this period resulting from a decline in profitability are also evident, including the reversion of some areas of enclosed improved pasture to rough grazing and, from about the mid 20th century, the overplanting of some areas of former fields with conifer woodland by the Forestry Commission, notably on the western side of the area at Gweunydd Hepste and on the eastern side of the area at Penmailard and Cefn-y-maes. The latter woodland, overlooking the valley of the Taf Fawr, forms part of a large estate of over 2,300 acres of land in the upper Taf Fawr valley purchased by the Forestry Commission in 1946. In more recent years the amenity value of these wooded areas has been premoted by the creation by the Forestry Commission of a number of woodland walks and picnic areas and also by the Taff Trail, a long-distance footpath and cycle trail running between Brecon and Cardiff.

The creation of the Brecon Beacons National Park in 1957 together with more recent conservation and recreational initiatives from about the 1990s up to the present day are beginning to have a muted visible impact upon the historic landscape. Conservation measures have included the creation of a number of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) including the nature reserve focusing on an area of wet meadow in Cwm Cadlan which is also designated as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) under the European Habitats Directive, pioneered by the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW), and a number of farms which have joined the Welsh Assembly’s Tir Gofal agri-environment scheme.

Standing buildings are present in just half of the historic landscape character areas, the valleys of the Mellte, Hepste and Cadlan, characteristic of the kind of farming communities that have survived around the fringes of the extensive moorland of Fforest Fawr. Hepste-fawr is the single designated Listed Building, though the general form and character of the surviving buildings in the absence of surviving documentary evidence represent a vital and coherent expression of the social and economic history of the areas of enclosed farmland which fall within the historic landscape from at least the later medieval period up to the present day.

The majority of the surviving buildings are farmhouses and farm outbuildings. Some surviving buildings are likely to be of 17th- and 18th-century origin, but a number of these as well as some of the farmhouses rebuilt in the 19th-century appear from their orientation across the slope and the arrangement of outbuildings in line, to be derived from medieval or early post-medieval longhouses which provided for human accommodation at the upper end and animal accommodation at the lower end. Buildings of this form in the Hepste valley, generally associated with early cattle husbandry, include Hepste-fawr, mentioned in Iorworth Peate’s The Welsh House (1940), and the farmhouse at Neuadd. The farmhouses of 17th- to 18th-century date in the Cadlan valley at Nant-maden, Coed Cae Ddu and formerly at Gelli-ffynhonnau-isaf, were aligned across the slope, suggesting the rebuilding of structures of medieval or early post-medieval origin.

In some instances there are suggestions that entirely new farmhouses were erected in the 18th and 19th centuries, replacing earlier structures. These later farmhouses, by contrast, followed the general custom of being built along the contour, such as the farmhouse at Llwyn-celyn whose plan and a large chimney suggests an origin in the 18th century. A good number of the farmhouses associated with farms of potentially medieval or early post-medieval origin appear to have been substantially rebuilt or replaced during the 19th century, however. The 19th-century farmhouse at Tirmawr lies along the contour but most probably replaced an earlier building of medieval origin represented by an abandoned house platform. The 19th-century farmhouse at Tir-dyweunydd is associated with a range of buildings arranged across the slope, suggesting that it may possibly include an earlier house. Likewise, the layout of farm-buildings at Beili-helyg, with 19th-century farmhouse, corn barn and cowhouse in line, also appears to represent the rebuilding of an earlier complex. Other farm complexes adopted a simple arrangement of outbuildings parallel with or at right-angles to the farmhouse. The later 19th-century farmhouses and outbuildings at Tai-hirion and Gelli-ffynhonnau-uchaf, both with details in yellow brick, are again probably both at farms of earlier origin.

Many of the surviving farm buildings are later 18th to 19th-century in date, illustrating the typically mixed farming economy of that period. A majority of farms in the area were tenanted at this period and it is therefore probable that many of these improvements, perhaps carried out hand in hand with the small-scale reorganisation of field boundaries, suggested above, were influenced by some of the estates with holdings in the area. Characteristic farm buildings include small corn barns with ventilation slits and central doors, stables, cowhouses and granaries, sometimes combined into a single structure, of which examples survive at a number of farms, including Hepste-fawr, Tirmawr and Neuadd in the Hepste valley and at Beili-helyg, Garw-dyle and Coed Cae Ddu in the Cadlan valley. More extensive building work is evident at Wern-las where the farm layout suggests the influence of the 19th-century model farm. Here and elsewhere in the area the improving influence of the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society, established in the mid 18th century, is perhaps evident. Walter Davies in his General View of the Agriculture and Domestic Economy of South Wales, published in 1814, notes the improvements in both farming practice and buildings inspired by the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society, founded in 1755: ‘Their improvements gradually extended to the remotest corners of the county; even in the hundreds of Dyfynog and Buallt, we recognise the superior buildings and farm-yards of the Brecon Society’. In particular he notes the characteristic form of corn barn in Brecknock with ‘double folding-doors on each side of the barn floor, for convenience, especially during precarious harvests, of driving in a load of grain under cover’.

Many of the former cottages and smallholdings in the area have not survived, a rare example of workers’ housing being the pair of later 19th-century roadside cottages called Gelli-neuadd, on the lane north of Penderyn, which probably housed either agricultural or quarry workers.

Apart from a number of farmhouse and cottage renovations, much less investment in building was made during the 20th century, except in the case of rare dutch barns and recent steel-framed buildings for the storage of hay and straw and for lambing and occasional temporary or movable structures in non-traditional materials.

The historic landscape area includes quite a number of prehistoric burial and ritual monuments, most notably circular cairns and ring cairns, which are important indicators of early land use and settlement. Few sites have been excavated in modern times though by analogy with sites elsewhere both monument types are most likely to belong to the Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age, the circular cairns representing burial monuments and the ring cairns having possibly been used for both ritual activity and burial. The only finds associated with the monuments is a sandstone disc found at a cairn in the col above Cwm Cadlan and fragments of Early Bronze Age pottery found during the excavation of the large cairn near Nant-maden farm in Cwm Cadlan. The monuments are generally between 6-20 metres across and up to about a metre in height, though the Nant-maden cairn is exceptionally up to 1.8 metres in height. In some instances there are possible traces of a circular kerb and indications of a central burial cist. Most of the sites appear to be generally well preserved although small intrusions have been dug into some monuments and others have been adapted to form sheep shelters.

These monument types are generally readily distinguished from clearance cairns because of their greater size, or because they occur singly rather than in cairnfields, or because they possess structural detail characteristic of early burial and ritual monuments. The association of some of the monuments in the Cwm Cadlan area with a much later, medieval battle, as suggested by the Breconshire historian Theophilus Jones on the basis of the placename Cadlan (‘battlefield, battle’), is now considered improbable. A suggested association of some ring-cairns in this area with goose rearing is also unlikely.

Few of the monuments appear to have any specific names of any great age, two exceptions being Carn Caniedydd (‘singer’s, song-writer’s cairn’) and Garn Wen (‘white cairn’) where the element appears to apply to prehistoric burial cairns. Caniedydd possibly refers to the whistling of the wind in this exposed location, or is derived from a personal name, or may have folkloric or legendary associations. The signficance of some of these monuments as landmarks within otherwise featureless moorland is emphasised by the frequency of the place-name element carn (plural carnau, ‘cairn, mound, rock, heap’) in the area, in such names as Mynydd y Garn, Cefn Esgair-carnau, though in some, and perhaps a majority of instances, the word appears to refer to naturally-occurring rock outcrops rather than artificial mounds.

Most of the known monuments lie within the present-day unenclosed upland areas (Mynydd y Garn, and Cefn Cadlan, Cefn Sychbant and Mynydd-y-glog historic landscape character areas). The presence of a number of monuments in enclosed landscapes, as for example in the case of the partially-excavated circular cairn near Nant-maden (Cwm Cadlan historic landscape character area), hints at the possibility that the visual, above-ground elements of other similar monuments on the lower-lying areas of Dyffryn Hepste and Cwm Cadlan were cleared away or obscured during the course of later clearance, enclosure and agriculture. The present-day distribution of these monument types is therefore likely to be skewed towards more marginal and less intensively farmed areas.

In both the Mynydd y Garn, and Cefn Cadlan, Cefn Sychbant and Mynydd-y-glog historic landscape character areas the monuments occur either singly or pairs or in larger clusters and generally appear to be deliberately sited on hill-slope or hill-crest location from which they would perhaps have been visible from contemporary settlements on lower ground. In the regional context there is a notable concentration of sites in the northern part of the historic landscape area, on the upland plateaux of Mynydd y Garn, Waun Tincer and Cefn Esgair-carnau. The cairns generally avoid the highest and most remote moorland areas above about 450 metres above sea level in the northern part of the historic landscape area, below Fan Fawr. It appears significant that the surviving distribution of these monument types tend to be on slightly higher ground and to complement rather than overlap the traces of early settlement and land use with which they are likely to be at least in part contemporary, suggesting a fairly rigorous functional segregation of the landscape in the earlier prehistoric period, with some areas set aside for settlement and more intensive land use and others for burial, ritual and more extensive land use.

The anciently enclosed landscapes of the Dyffryn Hepste and Cwm Cadlan character areas preserve a pattern of lanes running along the valleys, giving access to farms and cottages and from early times providing a means of moving herds of animals through the enclosed fields to and from the surrounding upland pastures. Some of the lanes have now been metalled but others survive as unmetalled green lanes which were sometimes walled to either side to prevent stock from straying. Farms on opposite sides of the valley were sometimes also linked by green lanes which cross streams by means of fords and stepping stones. Earlier routes of this kind are indicated by several occurrences of the place-name Heol-las (‘green lane’).

A number of these ancient routeways continue across the moorland to communicate with places in the neighbouring valleys of the Taf Fawr to the east and the Afon Mellte to the west, the place-name element cwrier (‘courier’) in Nant y Cwrier, the name of the stream running northwards from the head of the Hepste valley and more or less parallel for part of its course with the A4059, suggesting the course of an earlier footpath across the mountains in the direction of Brecon. Many of these early routeways, some of which are likely to be of medieval or earlier origin, survive as part of a network of public footpaths and permissive paths now managed by the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Other shorter trackways in the enclosed landscapes of Dyffryn Hepste, Cwm Cadlan and the eastern fringe of the Mellte valley give access to quarries and limekilns largely of later 18th- and earlier 19th-century date. In addition a network of amenity footpaths has been created by the Forestry Commission in recent years in the wooded Coed Penmailard and Cefn y maes character areas.

The historic landscape area is crossed by only two modern roads. The first is the A4059 between Hirwaun to Brecon which appears, despite more recent upgrading, to have been newly constructed throughout more or less its entire length within the historic landscape area as a turnpike road in the early 19th century, abandoning the more ancient route along the Hepste valley for the higher ground to the south. As a consequence, entrances to several of the farms on the southern side of the valley, notably Llwyncelyn, Neuadd and Tirmawr, were reorientated to give direct access to the turnpike road. The turnpike road is associated with a number of surviving contemporary milestones and small roadside quarries from which it was probably built. The second road is the modern unclassified road from the head of Cwm Cadlan to the Llwyn-on Reservoir in the valley of the Taf Fawr which was probably first metalled in the later 19th or earlier 20th centuries but based upon a more ancient routeway linking Cwm Cadlan and the valley of the Taf Fawr.

The course of a former railway forms a distinctive landscape feature running along part of the western boundary of the area. It formed part of the railway running southwards to Penderyn, built to transport materials used for the construction of the Ystradfellte Reservoir as a water supply for Neath between 1907 and 1914.

The Taff Trail, a long-distance footpath and cycle route from Brecon to Cardiff, runs through woodland towards the south-east corner of the characterised area

The southern part of the area is crossed for a distance of about 2 kilometres by the route of a modern gas pipeline whose 20m-wide wayleave can still be traced to the point it joins the Bryn Du gas works which lies just outside the characterised area.

Probably from the Middle Ages those with commoners’ rights in Fforest Fawr were able to exploit the natural resources within the historic landscape area. There is no explicit surviving evidence of peat cutting in the area, most probably due to the scarcity of suitable deposits, but there are widespread surviving remains of extraction industries associated with the stone and lime production which are of significance to the settlement and land use history of the area even though they are often on a smaller scale than those to be found in adjacent areas of south Wales. All rights to quarrying in Fforest Fawr passed to the entrepreneur John Christie when he purchased the mineral rights in the early 1820s, rights which following his bankruptcy were soon transferred to others.

Limekilns, many of which are not closely dated, have been identified either singly or in clusters in each of the character areas, generally close to the margins of the unenclosed moorland in places where limestone occurs naturally. It is possible that some lime production was carried out in the area during the Middle Ages but as yet there is no clear archaeological evidence for production at that period. Most of the surviving remains of the lime industry within the area were probably for the production of agricultural lime between the later 18th and earlier 19th centuries, and mostly going out of use when more commercial limekilns were established elsewhere in the later 19th century. Amongst the earliest known kilns in the area are ones towards the south-eastern corner of the area which are represented on a map of the Penmailard estate dated 1749. Many known kilns are represented on Ordnance Survey maps published in the 1880s, some of which are already shown to be out of use by that date. A kiln on Tirmawr Farm in the Hepste valley is said to have been still working up to the 1920s or 1930s.

The kilns are associated with often small-scale quarrying activity which for the sake of economy was generally focused on natural outcrops and rock faces. The kilns sometimes occur singly though are more often in pairs or clusters up to ten or more in number. Many of the kilns are visible only as grassed-over mounds with a hollow at the centre, though in some cases structural details of drystone walling and the presence of one or more flues are visible. Some kilns are associated with platforms or ramps by which they were loaded with limestone, and with waste heaps. The kilns often lie along paths or tracks for carts which carried the coal needed for firing the kilns and for carrying away the finished lime. Some of the kilns at least are likely to represent a seasonal activity undertaken by workers who were otherwise employed on farms and smallholdings in the area.

Many other small limestone and sandstone quarries are known in the area and are likely to have provided material for the construction of houses and farm buildings, field walls and roads, perhaps mostly in the period between the 17th century and mid 19th century, before the establishment of large-scale commercial stone quarries in the region. A small number of disused sandstone quarries appear to be later in date, cartographic evidence for those on Garn Ddu and the western side of Cefn Cadlan, for example, suggesting that the quarries originated during the first half of the 20th century. Deposits of silica sand for the manufacture of refractory bricks used in smelting furnaces in south Wales were also once worked at the Cefn Cadlan quarry.

The historic landscape area is remote from centres of population and consequently has few significant historical or cultural associations.
A number of early antiquaries, including Theophilus Jones, the Breconshire historian, associated Cwm Cadlan with a battle between the forces of Iestyn ab Gwrgan and Rhys ab Tewdwr in the 11th century. The association is most probably mythical, however, and no doubt a speculation based on the second element of its name, the Welsh cadlan meaning ‘battlefield, battle’, and the presence of numerous carneddau or burial mounds in this area, which today are considered to be most probably of early prehistoric date.

Cwm Cadlan is more reliably thought to have associations with the notorious Lewis Lewis, a figure of some significance to the social history of south Wales in the early 19th century. Lewis, also known as ‘Lewsyn yr Heliwr ’ and ‘Lewsyn Shanco Lewis’ was the son of Jenkin, butcher, and Margaret Lewis of ‘Blaencadlan’, Penderyn, born in 1793. He took a leading role in the Merthyr Rising in 1831, a popular protest brought about by rising prices, hardship and poor working conditions. ‘Blaencadlan’ is possibly to be identified with the farm Beili-Helyg (which though shown by this name on the Penderyn tithe map of 1840, is named as ‘Blaen Cadlan’ on the accompanying schedule) rather than the now-derelict cottages on the moorland edge at Blaen-cadlan-uchaf and Blaen-cadlan-isaf. At the time of the riots Lewis was employed in carting coal from the pits at Llwydcoed to the limekilns at Penderyn, hence the origin of his soubriquet ‘Lewsyn yr Heliwr’ (‘Lewis the haulier’). At the subsequent Cardiff assizes he was charged with instigating the attack on the house of Joseph Coffin, the clerk to the Court of Requests on 2 June, and inciting the crowd to seize the arms of the soldiers of the 93rd (Highland) Regiment of Foot outside the Castle Inn in Merthyr on the next day. He was seized in the Penderyn district a few days later, and alongside Richard Lewis (‘Dic Penderyn’) was condemned to death for riotous assembly and the destruction of the house and property of Joseph Coffin. In Lewis Lewis’s case the sentence was commuted to transportation for life.