Pentre Ifan
Interesting facts
- The name means 'Ifan's village' in Welsh; Ifan is a Welsh form of John, derived ultimately from the Latin Johannes.
- It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic dolmen in Wales.
- No trace of bones has ever been found inside, raising the possibility that any remains were later moved elsewhere.
- A 2014 study argued the stones were never buried in a mound, and that the floating effect of the capstone was the builders' intended spectacle.
- The capstone was probably a glacial erratic already lying on the spot; the builders likely dug beneath it and levered it upward bit by bit.
- Its flat underside was probably made by splitting the boulder, while at Garn Turne, about 12 km away, a similar face was laboriously pecked off with stone tools.
- If it was once covered, the mound would have been about 30 metres long and 17 metres wide, with the chamber at its southern end.
- The first UK list of protected ancient monuments in 1882 included only 68 sites, with the dolmen listed as 'The Pentre Evan Cromlech'.
- Engravings of the stones made it a popular image of ancient Wales, and the artist Richard Tongue painted it in 1835.
Why it is worth it
Pentre Ifan is one of the best-known burial chambers in Wales, and it earns that reputation through a single act of balance. A capstone some 5 metres long, 2.4 metres wide and nearly a metre thick, estimated at about 16 tonnes, rests on the pointed tips of just three upright stones, about 2.5 metres above the ground. Seen from the side, the slab seems to hover, touching its supports so lightly that daylight shows through almost everywhere beneath it. It stands on a slope in the parish of Nevern in north Pembrokeshire, with open country around it, and the silhouette has become one of the emblems of prehistoric Britain.
The monument was built around 3500 BC by Neolithic farmers, and what survives is the stone skeleton of something larger. It is a portal dolmen: besides the three supports of the capstone there are two stones framing an entrance and one set at an angle across it, as if to close the doorway. In front of the portal was an elaborate façade in dry-stone walling, and the chamber was once covered by a mound of earth and stones. Excavations by William Grimes in 1936–37 and again in 1958–59 traced the kerb of that mound and found rows of ritual pits beneath it, but very little in the way of finds: some flint flakes and pottery. Whatever was buried here, the builders' main legacy is the structure itself.
Pentre Ifan has been admired for a long time. The antiquary George Owen described it in 1603, and it was one of only three Welsh sites on the first list of protected monuments under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882; Augustus Pitt Rivers, Britain's first Inspector of Ancient Monuments, came to see it in 1884. Today it is a scheduled monument in the care of Cadw, the Welsh government's historic environment service. The best moment to see it is in low light, when the capstone's shadow falls long across the grass and the whole arrangement looks at its most improbable.
Getting there
The dolmen lies about 3 miles (5 km) east of Newport, Pembrokeshire, and about 11 miles (18 km) from Cardigan. The nearest larger town is Carmarthen, about 36 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Cardiff International Airport (CWL), about 119 km away. The site is reached by road from Newport, and a car is the practical way to get there.
On these lists
51.99900, -4.77000per Wikidata