Welsh Journals

and now public footpath past Garreg Llwyd and stone No. 3 along the western slope of Moel Llanfair to the Llanarmon-Ruthin road and stone No. 4. It probably went straight over Moel-y-plas, where there is a footpath alongside a wire fence, to the next pass at Llyn Gweryd then up Moel-yr-Acre where stone No. 5 is. Near here it joins the parish boundary at about 1300 ft. and fron this point can be seen a line of old hedge stretching away to the south west over Nant-y-garth and which is followed by the parish boundary all the way to the county boundary between Denbighshire and Merioneth near Carrog. From Rhos Lydan this is the same alignment as I have shown in an earlier number of the Journal? probably to be that of the Roman Road from Chester to Bala and beyond. It may be thought presumptive to accept this as a prehistoric route without further evidence, but how else can this continuous stretch of 6 miles of old hedge and bank be explained ? It must have followed some feature on the ground that can only have been the summit of the ridge (but it does not keep to this); or an earthwork, such as Offa's Dyke, of which no evidence here exists or a trodden way afterwards in part adapted and straightened by the Romans. There is however a possible branch of this end of the track, namely past the irregular shaped tumulus at Castle yr Adwy and over the Gam Elin (shown on the map as "Gamelin" as if named after the French Marshal !) or the "crooked way of Elen," supposedly the mother of the Emperor Constantine, to whom most of the old roads of Wales were attributed, and thence to the Dee Valley to join the Conway-Cotswold route, which has been dealt with by Mr. C. A. Gresham in "Antiquity" for March 1963. This, from the similarity of long cairns in the Lower Severn Valley to those in the Conway Valley, is thought to have led to the lower Severn Valley, and it is not too fanciful to suppose it connecting via the Cotswold ridgeways with the centre of Bronze Age civilisation at Stonehenge itself. Note-Since writing the above much of the track described has become part of the Llwybr Clawdd Offa, though it is of course several miles from Offa's Dyke. HENRY POTTS *Vol. 21, pp. 105-109. A POLISHED STONE AXE FROM MOLD A polished stone axe was amongst a collection of natural history specimens pre- sented to Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery in 1926 by P. T. Davies-Cooke of Gwysaney and Owston. An old hand-written label stuck on the axe has been damaged but reads "Found at yn-coed-Issaf, Mold". The axe (Fig. 1) is 6.1 inches (15.5 cms.) long, 3 inches (7.6 cms.) in width across the cutting-edge the surface is well-ground and polished but some shallow flake scars remain. The sides are smoothly rounded and the broad butt has a slightly convex facet. Macroscopic examination suggests the Graig Lwyd axe factory as the source of the stone. Doncaster Museum Accession No. 124.26 The find-spot unfortunately remains uncertain there is a possibility that the label should read Bryn-coed-issaf' and might refer to a farm, now Broncoed-isaf (NGR SJ/238624) just south of Mold. Capt. Davies-Cooke tells me that the estate has never owned this farm, but that does not positively exclude it from consideration. If any readers have more precise information, Doncaster Museum would be glad to hear of it.