282 HAFOD TYDFIL

GRID REFERENCE: SN116337
AREA IN HECTARES: 11.5

Historic Background
A very small character area near the summit of Mynydd Preseli. It comprises a small pocket of enclosed land - 13 small fields - around a farmstead, Hafod Tydfil. It lies within the unenclosed land of Mynydd Preseli common on which the freeholders of Cemaes had been granted rights of pasture and turbary by a charter of Nicholas Fitzmartin in the late13th-century. Superficially, the enclosure appears later post-medieval, but 'Hafod Tidvill' is mentioned in a document of 1585-6 as a 'tenement of 8 acres', under the ownership of the Bowens of Pentre Ifan. It appears to have been one of several areas of former enclosure within the common, the evidence of which can be seen elsewhere as weathered bank systems, sometimes associated with deserted rural settlement sites on the moorland. Hafod Tydfil was assessed for 2 hearths in 1670, and had assumed its present form by at least the time of the tithe survey, in 1841. It continued to be occupied until the 1950s.

Base map reproduced from the OS map with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of The Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, © Crown Copyright 2001.
All rights reserved. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown Copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Licence Number: GD272221

Description and essential historic landscape components
Hafod Tydfil historic landscape character area consists of several fields surrounded by the open moorland of Mynydd Preseli. It lies on north-facing slopes between 150m and 220m. The fields are small and irregular, and are divided by banks of earth and stone. Hedges that top the banks are overgrown and contain numerous small trees. Land-use is improved pasture. The dwelling and other buildings of the farmstead have been demolished.

No other archaeology has been recorded in this character area.

This is a very distinct historic landscape character area; its fields and hedges form an island of green in the surrounding open moorland.

Sources: Charles 1992; Jones 1996; Meline tithe map and apportionment, 1841 .