Pen y Crug Iron Age hillfort
Pen y Crug Iron Age Hillfort – walk up from Brecon and enjoy stunning views across the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park on a clear day.
Worth the climb
The hillfort remains you can see today date back to the Iron Age (800 years BC to 75 years AD), there is even some evidence of possible earlier occupation on the site. The picture shows the view of the fort from the start of the walk looking up the hill, once on top you can circle the fort.
Defensive walls
The ramparts, with rounded earthwork banks and ditches you can see today would once have been impressive stone and earth barricades, with a wooden defensive palisade built on top. These allowed the people inside the hillfort to defend themselves and presented a formidable obstacle to invaders.
Welcome to Pen y Crug Iron Age hillfort
It is clear to see why Iron Age peoples chose to build a defendable settlement here. The hill has extensive views of the central Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) and to a number of neighbouring hill fortsincluding Coed Fenni Fach on an adjacent hill and to Twyn y Gaer on the other side of the valley.
The hillfort remains that you can see today date back to the Iron Age (800BC to 75AD), although there is some evidence of possible earlier occupation on the site. The rad earthwork banks and ditches with a wooden palisade on top allowed those who occupied the hillfort to defend themselves and provided a formidable obstacle to anyone attempting to attack the settlement.
You could only get inside the hillfort through a single, well-guarded entrance on the south-east.
In the 18th and 19th century areas of the hill on which Pen-y-Crug sits were occupied by a brick and tile works, and worked as a tile quarry; complexes of leats, old quarry workings and clay pits, trackways and kilns hint at the role of the Crug as a locally important industrial site.
Today the site is situated on common land and is owned and managed by the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park Authority.