Arthur's Stone, Cefn Bryn, Gower

Arthur is one of the legendary heroes whose name sometimes crops up in connection with ancient monuments; in this case, the legend is that Arthur found a pebble in his shoe in Llanelli (on the opposite coast in the second picture) and threw it away so that it landed on the top of Cefn Bryn! In reality, the capstone of Arthur's Stone is a natural boulder, probably glacial, and there are two chambers underneath. As the boulder is at ground level, it appears that the builders dug out the space for the chambers underneath, propping the boulder up as they went by the smaller stones which form the sides of the chambers. This tomb was never excavated, so we do not know how the chambers were used. The scale pole is 50cm, pained in 10cm stripes.

A piece of the capstone has cracked off and fallen away to lie on the ground in the front of the picture. This means that the remaining part of the capstone no longer fits properly over the chambers.

The position of the mound, which has now been completely removed, is shown by the ring of stones around the capstone. It would have been circular, but it may not have covered the capstone completely. Some archaeologists think that the profile of exposed capstones was intended to match that of the surrounding hills. If this is the case here, the builders were not too particular about the angle.