NGR: SS 5373 8984. At the southern side of the wooded Green Cwm (valley) close by a public footpath, ¾ of a mile to the northwest of Parkmill (Melin-y-Parc), Gower Peninsula, South Wales, is the Neolithic chambered long barrow called ‘Parc le Breos’, which is also known locally as ‘Parc Cwm Long Cairn’ and ‘the Giants’ Grave’. This particular long barrow has long since lost its earthen mound and now only its inner structure is displayed with a stone-lined passageway and two pairs of burial chambers or cells open to the skies. There is a bell-shaped, deep-horned forecourt at the front of the monument, while at the sides of the passageway there are upright stone slabs, although a few of these at one side now lean slightly inwards at angles. Around the sides of the monument traces of the tomb’s earthen mound can still be seen. The long barrow was excavated twice in the 19th century at which time the bones of many individuals were recovered. A  partial restoration by the Ministry of Works took place in the early 1960s. This 60-foot-long ancient barrow is described as bearing the structural features of the Severn-Cotswold Group of monuments from the Neolithic Age. The site, which is 2 miles to the southwest of Ilston and around 2½ miles north of Penmaen, is in the care of CADW (Welsh Historic Monuments).

Timothy Darvill writing in 1988 about the site in Gower says: “This partly restored middle Neolithic long barrow constructed in the Cotswold-Severn tradition stands on the floor of a narrow leafy valley well away from the busier parts of the Gower coast. The most striking feature of the site is the characteristic wedge-shaped cairn, reverted all round by a fine dry-stone wall. It is constructed of limestone rubble and today looks very much like it must have done in Neolithic times because the bare rock has not yet been colonised by grass and flowers.  At the southern end of the cairn is a bell-shaped forecourt flanked by broad horns. Part of the eastern horn was disturbed by a river flowing past the site at some time since the Neolithic period. The entrance to the burial chambers lies at the back of the forecourt; there are two pairs of side chambers leading off a central passage. Large orthostats form the walls of the passage and chamber but unfortunately the roof was removed in antiquity and has not been restored. Excavations in 1869 recovered the remains of between 20 and 24 individuals from within the chambers.” 

Jacquetta Hawkes writing in 1973 tells us that: “The Gower Peninsula. a charming piece of coast beyond the infernal industrial regions of Swansea, is for its size well endowed with antiquities. Of these the most important and the most spectacular is Parc Cwm, Penmaen, near the centre of the promontory. This monument has a deep forecourt and a gallery with two pairs of side cells very much like the early Cotswold long barrow; the cairn on the other hand is a stumpy oval and appears never to have been long. It has been suggested, therefore, that Parc Cwm is a hybrid architectural form between the Cotswold style and that of the megalith builders of the western Atlantic coasts who, as we shall see, often covered their chambers with round or oval cairns. There are, indeed, two other burial chambers with rounded covering mounds on the Gower Peninsula—the two Sweyne’s Howes, sometimes incorrectly called Swine Houses, on the Rhossili hills near the western extremity. There are two other tombs in the Peninsula which are well worth seeing; one, a gallery with side cells like a smaller version of the Parc Cwm chamber, is masked by the blown sand of Penmaen Burrows behind Oxwich Bay; the second, Maen Cetti or Arthur’s Stone, Reynoldston, is an exposed megalithic chamber with an enormous capstone weighing some twenty-five tons.”

Bill Anderton writing in 1991 says: “This passage tomb is in an excellent state of preservation and is one of the finest to be found in Wales. Excavated in 1869 and again in 1960-1, the remains of twenty bodies were found in the various chambers along with some fragments of Neolithic pottery. The tomb is approached along a track from Parkmill. It is oval in shape, measuring approximately 18 metres by 15 metres. The passage inside is about 5 metres long with small chambers on each side. Take the main road from Swansea , the A4118, and turn north to Parkmill shortly before reaching Penmaen”  Also, Chris Barber (1987) adds more to the above, saying: “It was excavated by Sir John Lubbock in 1869 and by Professor R. J. C. Atkinson in 1960-1…. It is oval in shape, measuring roughly 60 feet by 50 feet. Inside is a passage about 17 feet long and 3 feet wide with small chambers on each side.” 

About 180 metres north of Parc Le Breos Long Barrow is Cathole (Cat’s Hole) Cave where there have been many finds from prehistory from within this bone cave, but you have to climb 50 feet up the steep slope to actually reach it! And 2½ miles south of Parc le Breos on Penmaen Burrows can be found the remains of a second megalithic tomb (NGR: SS 5315 8812) known as ‘Pen-y-Crug’, however, this ancient monument has always been partly buried in the sand dunes and now only one chamber is visible along with its passage; the tomb here is said to date back over 5,500 years, according to the Gower Society publication (1989).

Sources / References & Related Websites:

Anderton, Bill, Guide To Ancient Britain, Foulsham, Slough, Berkshire, 1991.

Barber, Chris, More Mysterious Wales, Paladin, London, 1987.

Darvill, Timothy, AA GloveBox Guide – Ancient Britain, Publishing Division of the Automobile Association, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 1988.

Hawkes, Jacquetta, A Guide To The Prehistoric And Roman Monuments In England And Wales, Cardinal, London, 1975.

The Gower Society, A Guide To Gower, Publication Committee of the Gower Society, (Reprint) 1989.

https://cadw.gov.wales/more-about-parc-le-breos-burial-chamber

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=4473

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parc_Cwm_long_cairn

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/parclebreos.htm

https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA132599

Copyright © Ray Spencer, The Journal of Antiquities, 2024.