Sheryl Medlicott (Member no: 693)

Gors Fawr

The stones are barely knee height, perhaps they have sunk into the bog a little over the thousands of years? But as we got there, I understood it was in the perfect position

We visited Gors Fawr on a sunnier-than-forecast Saturday in early May 2023. We packed no macks but did take along some shortbread fingers.

We were visiting friends in West Wales and our host was a more than willing tour guide. The stone circle is down the road and familiar to them, although I’d never been before. Together, we were a party of five adults, one teenager and one child.

We drove down lanes flanked with wild garlic and past a barn crushed by a substantial fallen tree, still lying across (and through) its roof, to park at the foot of the Preseli hills.

Proceeding on foot, the tarmac road gave way to track and then footpath across the boggy land at the base of the hills. The gorse was in flower, its coconut scent like suntan lotion. I wish I’d been familiar with gorse scent first so suncream smelled like gorse instead.

As we walked towards the stone circle it felt hard to know why it had been built here. Why put a monument in a bog? And why make the stones so small you can’t even see it as you approach? Our friend told us people used to cross this land on foot by walking the ridge of the Preselis instead of traversing the marsh. But that was hard going in its own way of course and it became an early Christian pilgrimage route.

Soon we saw an upstanding stone and headed towards its. Behind it was the circle. The stones are barely knee height, perhaps they have sunk into the bog a little over the thousands of years? But as we got there, I understood it was in the perfect position. The circle echoed the shape of the hill range behind it and would be visible from all along the ridge. It was like centre stage in a giant amphitheatre.

We chomped our shortbread and I thought about how the people who built Gors Fawr saw the land differently to us with our tarmac brains. I had thought of this location as somewhere remote and out of the way, but the circle showed it to be a commanding position, a kind of lynchpin of the landscape. I felt I was benefiting from the full-scale sense of place the builders of this monument must have had, and we might still have deep down.

Thanks, Gors Fawr!