Y Garn Goch is a hill in the

Brecon Beacons National Park The Brecon Beacons National Park ( cy, Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog) is one of three national parks in Wales, and is centred on the Brecon Beacons range of hills in southern Wales. It includes the Black Mountain ( cy, Y Mynydd Du) i ...

in the east of

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire ( cy, Sir Gaerfyrddin; or informally ') is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. The name means the 'red cairn'. It lies near the village of

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital ...

, three miles southwest of

Llangadog Llangadog () is a village and community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales, which also includes the villages of Bethlehem and Capel Gwynfe. A notable local landscape feature is Y Garn Goch with two Iron Age hill forts.The Welsh Academy Encycloped ...

and four miles east of

Llandeilo Llandeilo () is a town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated at the crossing of the River Towy by the A483 on a 19th-century stone bridge. Its population was 1,795 at the 2011 Census. It is adjacent to the westernmost point of the ...

on the southern side of the broad Towy Valley. It is also commonly known as either Garn Goch or Carn Goch. Current owners and land managers are the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority.

Geology

Y Garn Goch is formed from the coarse sandstones of the Ffairfach Grit Formation of the early

Ordovician period The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. Th ...

. A northeast-southwest oriented

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is t ...

(the Garn Goch Anticline) which runs through Y Garn Goch can be seen to fold these rocks. The

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

s and

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology.' ...

s of the Abergwilli (sic) and Llandeilo Flags formations form the lower slopes of the hill to north and south. A fault runs northeast-southwest through the

saddle The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not kno ...

between the two tops and is considered a part of the

Welsh Borderland Fault System The Welsh Borderland Fault System is a zone of faulting and associated folding which runs northeastwards through Wales from Pembrokeshire through Carmarthenshire and Powys into Shropshire in England. It comprises the Tywi Lineament, Pontesford ...

. The lower ground is mantled by

glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

, a legacy of the last ice age when the valley was filled by the Towy Valley glacier. The hill lies within Fforest Fawr Geopark designated in respect of the outstanding geological heritage of the region.

Archaeology

The established view is that Y Garn Goch is notable for the two impressive

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age ( Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age ( Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly ...

hillforts A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Rom ...

Y Gaer Fawr Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...

, ( en, the big fort) and

Y Gaer Fach Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or seventh ...

, ( en, the little fort), together the largest in southern

Access

The entire hill is registered common land and hence freely available to walkers as access land. It is approached by minor cul-de-sac roads from east and west and a public footpath runs north-south across it. The

Beacons Way The Beacons Way (Welsh: Ffordd y Bannau) is a waymarked long distance footpath in the Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales. It is a linear route which runs for east to west through the National Park, and passes many of the most important landm ...

which starts at

passes through the nearby village of

before running west-east over the hill en route for the Black Mountain (Welsh: ''Y Mynydd Du'') and eventually

Abergavenny Abergavenny (; cy, Y Fenni , archaically ''Abergafenni'' meaning "mouth of the River Gavenny") is a market town and community in Monmouthshire, Wales. Abergavenny is promoted as a ''Gateway to Wales''; it is approximately from the border wit ...

References

External links

garngoch.org

Images of Y Garn Goch & surrounding area
{{DEFAULTSORT:Garn Goch, Y Black Mountain (hill) Archaeological sites in Carmarthenshire Mountains and hills of Carmarthenshire Hillforts in Carmarthenshire History of Carmarthenshire Hillforts in the Brecon Beacons National Park Medieval sites in Wales Roman auxiliary forts in Wales

Geology

Archaeology

Access

See also

References

External links