Welsh Journals

Excavations at Ffridd Faldwyn Camp, Montgomery, 1937 and 1938. 1937. With the aid of grants from the Board of Celtic Studies and the Cambrian Archaeological Association a start has been made with a programme of excava- tion of Ffridd Faldwyn Camp, near Montgomery, of which Dr. Willoughby Gardner F.S.A., published a plan in Arch. Camb., 1932, 364 ff. The camp is remarkable for having a smaller inner enclosure with slight ramparts and an en- closing massive system of fortification. In 1937 two trial trenches were cut at the south-western end of the defences, one on each side of the entrances, across most of the lines of fortifications. It was apparent before excavation that these are of more than one period, but the great number of complexities found was quite unexpected. Section A, which was cut west of the entrances, disclosed at least five struc- tural periods. Section B, east of the entrances, confirmed the three earlier periods precisely and was in general agreement regarding the later phases All the periods are clearly in the pre-Roman Iron Age, and no indication was found of any reoccupation of the camp in the fourth century A.D. or later. Charcoal layers, cobbled floors, and a large quantity of animal bones indicate consider- able habitation at different times. A single Early Iron Age potsherd, of ware identical with that of one class found at Breiddin Hill Camp in 1935 (Arch, Camb., 1937, 116), was obtained from the material of the latest rampart. The only other finds were miscellaneous iron objects. Period I is shown by the floor of an oval hut, as marked by a continuous black layer Four postholes for roof supports were found; there were two hearths and paving occurred sporadically. Only minute pieces of burnt bone were recovered from this layer, but it underlies the rampart of Period II., and thus, as at Breiddin Hill Camp, indicates that there was occupation of the hill prior to the erection of the defence. Most of this hut was explored by enlarg- ing Section A. A similar layer in Section B was not fully explored. Period II witnessed the building of the first defensive system on the hill. The rampart was of stones with a small amount of soil, revetted on both faces by a dry-stone wall, usually not of shale, the natural rock, but of other stones, derived from the glacial drift, which occurs sporadically on the hill. In Section B this wall, which nowhere now exists above 2 feet in height, was 18 feet wide. In Section A, however, it was only 9 feet wide, perhaps because here there was a