Bedd yr Afanc stone sources

 I had a good look at Bedd yr Afanc today, and it was easier to examine than on some previous visits because several gorse bushes have been cleared away.  This revealed the slight mound on which the passage grave is built -- intentionally making the site drier than it would otherwise have been.

Apart from the 16 "standing" or leaning stones there are around 14 which are embedded in the turf.  As mentioned in previous posts, the stones are a mottley collection -- dolerites of various types, ashes, rhyolites and quartz blocks -- all obtained in the immediate vicinity.  there has been no real attempt to find "pillars" -- the stones are highly varied in shapes and dimensions.  I have wondered in the past why this grave site was not built a few hundred metres to the east, on the extensive and rather dry rhyolite bench that runs almost all the way to Glan yr Afon.  I now think it was built where the stones were; around the chosen site there is a litter of gabbro, dolerite, rhyolite and tuff boulders, whereas about 200m to the east there is a sudden break with a gravelly rhyolite terrain on which there are very few erratics.  I can't explain why erratics are abundant here and in the Glan yr Afon area, but not in the intervening area.  Working on it......

Close-up of a broken surface on one of the Bedd yr Afanc upright stones.  I'll call it a gabbro -- it's similar to rocks found close to Brynberian road bridge and also further east near Glan yr Afon.