The dig team is approaching the end of its month-long work at one of our most stunning beauty spots, and they are opening up to share what they have discovered this weekend.
A team of over 20 volunteers has joined the professionals at the Beacon Ring, overlooking Welshpool from the Offa’s Dyke path on Long Mountain, to try and find out more secrets about the enigmatic monument.
On Saturday and Sunday, public days will be held with a mini bus service from the railway station in Welshpool to take visitors up to the hillfort.
Departure times for these guided tours of the site will be 10am, 12 noon and 2pm. Up on site, Dr Paul Belford, Director of the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust, will guide visitors around the excavations.
“This is a very exciting opportunity to look at this enigmatic site,” said Dr Belford. “Although we recovered some well-preserved samples last year we weren’t able to find out the date of the hillfort, and we hope to be able to do that this year.”
The hillfort was probably built around 3,000 years ago, and may have been rebuilt during medieval wars between English and Welsh kings about 1,200 years ago.
Fieldwork last year found out more about how the monument was built, and the archaeologists have returned to look at the two entrances to the hillfort. The Powys and Shropshire volunteers have been joined by others from as far afield as Worcestershire and the Netherlands.
The project – which is taking place in Wales’ ‘Year of Discovery’ – is jointly funded by Cadw and the Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust which owns the site.