Isolated upland area with screes and rocky outcrops, former common land enclosed in 19th century.
Historic background
The character area falls within the medieval ecclesiastical parishes of Pennant Melangell, Llangynog and Hirnant. It lay within the ancient commote of Mochnant Uwch Rhaeadr, Montgomeryshire.
Key historic landscape characteristics
Isolated upland area with steep, north-facing screes and rocky outcrops, between about 200-480m OD, the pointy rock outcrops on the skyline being the probable origin of the place-name cyrniau ‘horns’.
Predominantly unimproved pasture with low shrubs and heather, with some improved areas on flatter ground with scattered clearance cairns, probably of recent date. 19th-century enclosure boundaries almost exclusively of post and wire fencing though a number of earlier banks representing earlier land divisions are also evident.
The eastern side of the area is crossed by several footpaths and trackways probably of some antiquity giving access from the lowland farms in the Llangynog area up to extensive areas of upland grazing on the moorland of Bwlch Sych between Hirnant and Llanwddyn. The northern slope of the hill is crossed by a number of tracks leading up to disused quarries and levels visible by scree waste heaps, as well as a number of modern, scarped, agricultural access roads.
