Has a Lost Stone Circle Been Found at Bryn Celli Ddu? Exciting New Discoveries in Wales
- apeach5
- Jul 15
- 19 min read
Updated: Aug 26
On the ridge above Anglesey’s most famous tomb, archaeologists are rewriting the sacred map of the past.
Introduction
In Part One of this three-part series, I returned to the iconic Neolithic chambered tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu, nestled on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. That first post focussed on the 2025 summer solstice—a moment of deep resonance. I told the tale of how I rose before dawn, travelled to the tomb, and stood within its ancient chamber as the midsummer sun pierced the stone-lined passage, striking the rose-veined rock at the back with golden fire—just as it has done for more than five thousand years. To witness this in person was a moment of quiet astonishment, a touchstone between past and present.
In this second instalment, I turn to the work of Dr. Mike Woods, whose research is beginning to reframe Bryn Celli Ddu not as a solitary monument, but as the focal point of a wider ceremonial landscape. I recount how I joined his team at Tyddyn Bach, on the ridge above the tomb, where a solitary monolith may be the last survivor of a lost stone circle. And I reflect on what this sacred terrain revealed to me—not just through soil and stone, but through the deeper contours of the human imagination.
In Part Three, I will step beyond the trench to follow a more intuitive path—one that listens as much as it looks. This is not just about archaeology, but about how the stones still speak. When we move among them with care—watching light shift across their weathered faces, standing still in their presence—shapes begin to emerge, meanings stir, and we find ourselves drawn into the same questions their builders once faced. Questions that haven’t gone away: Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?
Perhaps it is not only memory we encounter at these sites, but something deeper—a shared inheritance. The Neolithic mind is not so distant from our own. The land holds no final answers, but it does hold echoes. And in those resonances, something stirs: a glimpse of continuity, of shared humanity across the ages. These stones are not relics of a dead past, but part of a living cycle. They invite us to stand where others once stood—to puzzle over what was, what is, and what may yet be. To ask again the questions that never truly go away.
But before I drift too far into symbol and silence, we must return to the tale of the trench. There, among the loamy spoil and careful toolmarks, the story continues—grounded in soil, stone, and enduring evidence. In Part Two, I join the excavation at Tyddyn Bach, where a lone monolith murmurs of a hidden past, a lost stone circle, its story re-emerging from the archaeologists muddy hands.
You can read Part One of the solstice weekend—along with a full video of the sun entering the chamber—here:
Welcome to Stone Temple Gardening — where we dig deep into the soil of time to cultivate new understandings of the ancient past! Here we explore ancient sites through both the trowel of archaeology and the lens of human wonder, asking not just what was built and how, but why it mattered. If you enjoy this post, please like, share, or leave a comment — your engagement helps others discover the work. It’s also free to subscribe, so you’ll receive each new post the moment it’s published.
Unearthing the Lost Circle: The Tyddyn Bach Excavation
This post follows the archaeological dig at Tyddyn Bach, where a solitary monolith of local blueschist stands proud on a ridge above Bryn Celli Ddu. From this vantage point, the stone looks back to the very outcrop it was quarried from, then outward along the summer solstice alignment—through a second, rounded standing stone—toward the chambered tomb, the sacred river Afon Braint, and beyond to the dreaming peaks of Snowdonia. It is a magnificent placement, overseeing the entire greater ceremonial landscape.
Here, I joined Dr. Mike Woods’ excavation team, trowel in hand, to help investigate what may once have stood alongside the Tyddyn Bach stone: a lost circle, dismantled long ago.
The story begins with geophysical surveys, detailed in Dr. Woods’ thesis The Dark Side of the Tomb, that revealed a 30-metre ring ditch encircling the monolith—a circular trench marking what was once sacred ground. It suggests a ceremonial structure now vanished, save for this single surviving pillar. Its elevated position and panoramic views hint at a larger role. Was this stone part of a once-cohesive prehistoric ritual network—later dismantled, reformed, or reimagined?
That was the mystery we sought to unearth.
The Tyddyn Bach monolith stands 3.3 metres tall, over a metre wide, and 1.25 metres thick, tapering slightly from its base to a rounded point. It rises from a scatter of clearance boulders like a relic surfacing from a hill of memory, pinning the earth to the sky. According to Dr. Woods, this was no mere boundary marker, but possibly a vital node within a far-reaching Neolithic complex. Similar patterns are visible elsewhere on Anglesey—at Llanfechell and Ty Newydd, for instance—where single stones remain, standing alone as if in reverence or remembrance, hinting at forgotten circles that only the time-travelling trowel can release. Why were these lone stones left standing when the others fell or were taken?
These echoes of antiquity, long buried and now stirring once more, suggest a pattern—a tradition of deliberate dismantling and sacred reformation. And yet, amid the ruins of former temples, one stone is often spared. Left standing, perhaps, as a gesture of continuity, reverence, or fear. Is it an offering to memory? A marker of boundary or power? A sign of uneasy respect for forgotten gods? We cannot say for certain.
But the Tyddyn Bach monolith fits this pattern—a solitary sentinel, rooted in the land, enduring as a monument to what was lost.
Tyddyn Bach’s Lonely Shard: My Journey from the Sunrise to the Stone.
If you have already read Part One of this tale, you will be aware of my exhilarating early start for the solstice sunrise. Afterwards, I returned to my camp for a much-needed nap. By mid-morning I was awake again and I drove to the dig field. I had been given comprehensive instructions, navigating a gate and two electric fences set up to keep the cows at bay, though their absence during the dig didn’t spare me their plentiful, pungent souvenirs. My boots, unfortunately, found a few buried in the long grass, demanding a thorough scrub before I could return to the car without offending its upholstery. The cows’ presence, though they were missing today, felt strangely fitting. The landscape of Bryn Celli Ddu has long been entwined with cattle. A young bull lies buried in a stone cist near the chamber’s entrance, its gaze eternally fixed down the passage, hinting at a ritual significance woven into the tomb’s very foundation. I’ve been reflecting on the vital role cattle played for the Neolithic farmers the successors of the original Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (who first marked this sacred landscape with postholes at the future tomb’s threshold). Cattle worship resonates across many ancient British sites, a testament to their enduring cultural weight. Here, the Neolithic bovine legacy thrives still. Today, the pastures surrounding Bryn Celli Ddu are home to one of Wales’ largest dairy farms.
That millennia-spanning thought lingered in my mind as I parked beside the temporary Portaloo. I climbed the short rise up to the ridge — and saw Tyddyn Bach’s stone for the first time. It endured there on the crest, seemingly watching over the landscape — twelve feet of rose-quartz-veined blueschist, pointing skyward like a stone finger of time. Around it sprawled a jumbled cairn of field clearance boulders, and not too far away, yet more stones clustered in a corner of the field — possibly containing archaeology awaiting its own story. Rising above the stone stood an elder tree, a fitting companion in folkloric terms as in the ancient lore of trees, elders are sacred guardians, believed to shelter spirits or fairies who protect the land, bestowing blessings on those who revere them and curses on those who dare harm their ancient branches. The tree draped a dappled veil of shade over the rosy-grained monolith, its leaves rustling in the warm breeze. Nearby, foxgloves swayed gently, their purple and cream-speckled heads nodding in appreciation of the weather as they basked in the summer sun’s radiant smile. Another sultry day was dawning in west Wales.
Meeting the Team
I paused beside the stone, drawing a deep breath as I gazed at the sweeping vistas of Snowdonia shimmering in the distance. My eyes traced the landscape down to the rare Gorsedd blueschist outcrop and onward to the tomb beyond. The view from here is magnificent, and that felt important. Eventually, I drifted back from my reverie, turned to the task at hand, and stepped carefully toward the dig. I knew no one here except Mike, who had invited me. Though we’d been friends on Facebook for some years, we had never met in person. Suddenly, there he was—all boots, beard, and warm bonhomie—grasping my hand firmly before pulling me into a big bear hug and welcoming me to the dig. Mike introduced me to the team, explaining my role and praising my work on Stone Temple Gardening, encouraging everyone to read it. The team—students, locals, volunteers and seasoned archaeologists—greeted me with open generosity and muddy smiles.
Mike is a big personality and an excellent communicator, generous with his time and knowledge, and despite my fondness for poetic speculation and occasional sidesteps beyond academic orthodoxy, he has always made me feel thoroughly welcome. In person, I found him just as insightful, engaging, generous and kind as I had imagined. I always had a high opinion of him, but having met him in the real world, I decided I really like him. He could not have made me feel more at home.
Finds So Far
By the time I arrived, the team had been working the site for two weeks, enduring wind, rain, and sun in equal measure. They had removed a large area of turf at two locations, identified postholes, uncovered a ring ditch, found flints, and located what may be a buried standing stone. Modern land drains had complicated the stratigraphy, obscuring parts of the picture — but the emerging evidence was nonetheless tantalising. The large ring ditch that had shown up in the geophysics was now partially revealed, and opposite Tyddyn Bach they were excavating what might be an uprooted standing stone — though still unsure if it was truly megalithic or simply a protruding piece of bedrock. They were still in the process of digging it out. It would be confirmed as a lost standing stone the following day.
The Second Trench: Neolithic Trade and the Link to the Graig Lwyd Axe Factory
Further up the field, a second trench targeted another geophysical anomaly, yielding a single, tantalizing clue: a shard of microdiorite, or augite granophyre, from Graig Lwyd, a Neolithic axe factory across the Menai Strait. Between 3500 and 2500 BCE, this quarry produced polished axes—tools and symbols of power—traded across Britain. This fragment, possibly waste from shaping an axe, suggests Tyddyn Bach was a hub of exchange or craft, linking this ridge to distant communities. But why bring such stone here? Was it a gift to the gods, a marker of alliance, or a tool imbued with sacred meaning? The shard, small yet heavy with story, invites us to wonder what connections the ancients forged across these shores?
An oval pit in the trench promised more but yielded modern pottery, ruling out a prehistoric origin. Yet the microdiorite alone speaks volumes. Graig Lwyd’s quarry scars and flaking debris tell of a bustling industry, and this shard ties Tyddyn Bach to that wider world. As I held it, I imagined the hands that carried it—hands that, like ours, sought to shape meaning from stone, to ask questions of the earth and sky. The trench may have been quiet, but its single find whispered of a landscape alive with human ambition and wonder.
The Gorsedd, the Sunstone, and the Limits of Meaning
As the afternoon wore on and the golden sun began to mellow into that rich, late-summer hue that ripens everything it touches, we packed up the site and secured the trenches for the evening. But the day wasn’t quite over. As a final treat, Mike led a group of us down to the Gorsedd — the rocky outcrop that had supplied the sacred blueschist for Bryn Celli Ddu — for a close inspection of the enigmatic rock art on its summit. It was a moment I had long anticipated, and one that more than lived up to expectation.
My first visit to the Gorsedd — followed by a return the next day, when I also encountered the Sunstone — was everything I had been hoping for. Rock Art is one of the few direct symbolic connections with the ancients. Their meaning may be lost, but after all, their minds were not too distant from our own. The faint cup marks etched into its rocky summit, deliberate yet enigmatic, seemed to suggest a celestial design: perhaps an echo of constellations, or a map of sacred intent. To my poetic sensibilities, these markings opened portals to deeper human questions — of symbolism, memory, and meaning — reaching beyond the trench’s terra firma into the vast collective unconscious of our species. And yet, as Dr. Mike Woods wisely cautioned, one could go mad trying to pin down their purpose. Their true significance is likely lost to time. We cannot say for certain what they meant to those who carved them. Some archaeologists rightly warn against projecting modern desires onto ancient artefacts, seeing meaning where none may exist — a critique often levelled at claims of celestial alignment or spiritual symbolism in rock art. Natural weathering, or practical uses such as grinding hollows, could just as easily explain their origin. Even the process of making them — the percussive sound of stone on stone — may hold a key to their meaning.
Still, there is value in gently exploring other possibilities—not to claim scientific certainty, but to humanise these places with a softer gaze. I see no shame in the attempt—however uncertain—to bridge the gap between analytical thought and emotional response. To try and tease a more forgiving yield from these places through the lens of our shared human condition.
This intuitive impulse was stirred by being physically present—by my senses, here and now. The Solstice event had awakened something in me, and later, at the Gorsedd and again at the Sunstone, that feeling deepened. There, I sensed a quiet connection to those who once stood in these same places—people who shaped meaning from matter with imagination and care. And through their enduring efforts, something still lingers—something meaningful, reaching across the long drift of time. A gift of knowledge, perhaps—though it rises from within ourselves.
While science demands evidence — and rightly so — speculative, intuitive engagement can still enrich our shared experience of these places. It invites us to wonder what stories the builders once told, even if those stories are now beyond our reach. After all, for all their distance in time and experience, they imagined too. They dreamed, just as we do. They invited wonder into their world and shaped it in earth and stone.
At the heart of humanity lies an eternal spark of wonder, a quiet instinct that lifts our gaze to the stars and stirs timeless questions: What came before me? Why am I here now? Where am I going? These are not mere musings but the very pulse of our existence, echoing through the ages within the stones of ancient temples.
At Stone Temple Gardening, we embrace these profound inquiries. The same restless curiosity that drove the ancients to erect their timeless structures lives on in us. To speculate about their purpose is not just to honour their legacy—it is to keep alive the questions that make us all human.
My next post shall explore this viewpoint in more depth, to look actively at the right here right now — to explore imaginatively those strange resemblances in stone that are shaped by nature and refined by human perception. Forms that carry a hint of the sacred. Stones of seeing — vessels of a quiet, almost-hidden imaginative power that stirs the soul. Stones that, when gazed upon with care, seem to gaze back.
The Final Day: Lligwy Tomb, the New Stone in the Ring Ditch and Sacred Questions
The final day of the dig dawned — fittingly — on the true astronomical date of the summer solstice, June 21st. By the time I awoke, down in the field below us, Bryn Celli Ddu had already welcomed its annual assembly of druids, pagans, and solstice pilgrims. They had gathered in the tranquillity of the pre-dawn peace to witness the rising sun pour once more down the ancient passageway. This time, I did not join them. After the demands of the dig and days spent immersed in the field, I chose rest over ritual. Despite some regret, I decided to save my energies, I had a long day ahead and I had already seen the light return once. That was enough.
Instead, I took a short detour that solstice morning to the remarkable Neolithic chambered tomb at Lligwy. What I found there was unexpected, surprising. But then again, perhaps not. But that encounter deserves its own telling. You will find it, along with my two visits to the Gorsedd and the remarkable 'Sunstone' monolith, in the post to follow this one.
For now, I returned to Tyddyn Bach to hear what could — and could not — be said about the site. New discoveries often emerge slowly, reluctantly, one trowel-scrape at a time. But narratives also form through conversation. So, I began the day by interviewing Dr. Mike Woods about his ongoing work at Bryn Celli Ddu and the surrounding ceremonial landscape.
You can watch our full conversation below.
My first question was:
“You have been working closely with the site Bryn Celli Ddu for several years now. What aspects of the monument still surprise or intrigue the most?”
Then
“Can you share any recent findings or reinterpretations of the site, such as the so called fossilised tree that forms the central pillar inside Bryn Celli Ddu, and can you comment on some of the the rock art found here?”
Finally I asked:
"Can you explain to us about the placing of these monuments within this landscape. Is Bryn Celli Ddu typical, and how important is the closeness of water, the Afon Braint in this case?"
As the day wore on, various findings began to take clearer shape. In the first trench, the team had uncovered what appears to be a substantial, possibly Bronze Age, ring ditch. Inside it, wooden postholes were identified, while outside the ring lay a broken, toppled, and buried stone that once stood opposite Tyddyn Bach. Worked flints were found in the fill surrounding this stone, confirming its prehistoric context.
Perhaps the most evocative discovery, though, was a river pebble — most likely brought from the Afon Braint — used as a packing stone to stabilise the monolith. On its surface, a faint carved face emerged, peering up through time. Whether symbolic or incidental, the pebble’s likely origin, placement, and prehistoric carving felt charged with meaning, especially in light of my speculations (to follow in Part 3) about the Gorsedd, Sun Stone and Lligwy tomb.
All signs now pointed toward the remains of a lost stone circle — a ceremonial structure likely to have been deliberately dismantled and buried, with the Tyddyn Bach monolith left standing as a solitary marker or memorial. And now, with the confirmation of a second upright stone, we may be looking at the ghost of a former circle — or, if that proves unfounded, at least the fragment of a stone row. And if not even that, then surely a deliberate pairing: a rare, aligned duo of standing stones, enduring across the ages.
The second trench proved less informative, but just as interesting. The oval anomaly it targeted turned out to be modern in origin. However, it did yield one important clue: a small fragment of stone — possibly waste material from the initial shaping of a Neolithic axe head. This single shard, likely from the Graig Lwyd axe quarry across the Menai Strait, hints at long-distance connections and the ceremonial importance of this upland ridge.
To confirm the circle hypothesis, next year’s excavation will extend the trench further into the still-unexplored portion of the ring-ditch anomaly. I will be there. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away!
Conclusion: A New Map of Bryn Celli Ddu’s Ritual Landscape
As the final day wore on, the picture at Tyddyn Bach began to settle — if only for now. In the first trench, a broad ring ditch had emerged, likely Bronze Age, its arc traced in soil and flint. Wooden postholes cut into the ditch confirmed prehistoric construction, while a broken and buried stone — toppled in antiquity — added weight to the theory that this was once a stone circle. Not a mythic ring dreamt up by hopeful eyes, but something grounded in soil, stratigraphy, and stone. Something real.
Yet as ever in archaeology, certainty comes slowly. Only the spade and the ongoing seasons of digging can say for sure. The trench must be expanded at next year’s dig if we are to fully trace the ring and test the theory. But what has already been uncovered points to something extraordinary: that the standing stone at Tyddyn Bach may once have formed part of a larger ceremonial structure, one that stood in deliberate relationship to Bryn Celli Ddu, the ridge, the river, and the wider sacred landscape. The implications stretch far beyond the trench — reframing not just this ridge, but the very map of Bryn Celli Ddu’s greater ritual landscape. A monument once thought peripheral now demands a place in the centre of the map.
A Personal Reflection
Beyond the trench’s empirical yield, for myself, the landscape itself began to speak, stirring questions that reach deeper than the layered story of the soil. From my personal point of view, some of the most profound discoveries of the weekend were not confined to the grounded empiricism of the trenches. They came not from what was dug, but from what the act of excavation metaphorically released — and how it shaped what I perceived above the ground: the potential stories that emerged from the folds of loam and stone, the play of light, and the immaterial currents that stir beneath waking awareness. What follows isn’t a claim to scientific fact but a personal meditation — one shaped by the encounter, the setting, and a deep curiosity about how meaning lingers in a place. Such a small word. In a sacred space. My reflections here are offered not as answers, but as questions — part of the human story that joins us still to these places; the feelings, emotions and connections with the lost generations that enacted these poems in stone. These are the human experiences that the language and world view of archaeology alone cannot always express well.
For me, the encounters with the Gorsedd, the ‘Sunstone,’ and the strange, anthropomorphic rock at Lligwy opened a parallel thread of meaning — one harder to measure by the golden mean of modernity, lying beyond rational analysis and into the numinous, the poetic, and the intangible mythopoeia of landscape. These were experiences that brushed against something older than memory — older even than myth — a residue of perception itself.
The discovery of a face inscribed on the river pebble used to pack the monolith deepened this preoccupation: a trace not merely of function, but of intention — as though a quiet knowledge had been left behind, encoded with lost meaning within its earthen placement. Blinded beneath its great standing stone, the face seemed not to demand attention but to await recognition — lying in wait below both soil and perception. It was not meant to be seen in the conventional sense, yet its placement was deliberate, significant. A quiet gesture, maybe even a guardian presence, suspended within the foundation of a vanished circle. The synchronicity of its unearthing — just as my thoughts had turned toward symbolic forms and ancestral faces in the greater landscape — felt uncanny. As if my perception had been drawn out by the landscape and then to this pebble that bridged the present and the past. And perhaps that’s the deeper purpose of such markings: not to be understood, but to be found. Placed in the land — and in the mind — like a puzzle with no solution, only connection.
For those who still carry the ancient impulse to find meaning in matter, music in the landscape, profundity in experience, such rare moments of epiphany hint at a shared human perception — suspended across time, just waiting to be re-encountered, if we are brave enough to look.
Epilogue
As we await next year’s dig to confirm the lost circle, the stones continue to give up their stories. This trilogy will conclude in Part Three, where I step out of the trench and back into the more speculative realm of symbol and perception discussed above. I’ll trace a path through simulacra and sacred form, ask what it means to see faint traces of meaning in the rocks — and whether our ancestors saw them too. From quarry to altar, from sun to shadow, from the carved stone to the imagined form — something stirs in the land around Bryn Celli Ddu.
Before we part, I offer a last question for you to ponder. What do you think the builders of Bryn Celli Ddu were trying to say? Share your thoughts in the comments or join our community to explore these mysteries together. Join me at the conclusion of my sacred journey in Part Three: The Watching Stones of Bryn Celli Ddu!
Dr. Alexander Peach,
Anglesey West Wales,
Summer Solstice 2025.
#BrynCelliDdu #AngleseyArchaeology #NeolithicWales #StoneCircleDiscovery #TyddynBach #MegalithicMonuments #WelshHeritage #SolsticeAlignment #AncientWonders #SacredLandscapes #RockArt #GorseddOutcrop #PrehistoricWales #StandingStones #StoneTempleGardening #CupMarks #DrMikeWoods #LostStoneCircle #NeolithicExcavation #Mythopoeia #CelticArchaeology #SunStone #LligwyChamberedTomb #ArchaeologyPhotography #MidsummerSolstice #AncientRitualSites #CollectiveMemory #SacredSitesUK #FieldworkDiaries #IntuitiveArchaeology
Part One: Unearthing the Sacred Heart of Anglesey https://www.stonetemplegardening.com/post/bryn-celli-ddu-unearthing-the-sacred-heart-of-anglesey-part-one
A sweeping introduction to Bryn Celli Ddu’s archaeological complexity and its place within Anglesey’s sacred geography.
Part Two: Unearthing the Sacred Heart of Neolithic Anglesey Part Two https://www.stonetemplegardening.com/post/bryn-celli-ddu-unearthing-the-sacred-heart-of-the-neolithic-anglesey-part-2
Delves deeper into the site’s ritual landscape, exploring lost cairns, child burials, and the symbolic resonance of hazel and stone.
Part Three: Stone, Sky, River and Mountain https://www.stonetemplegardening.com/post/stone-sky-river-and-mountain-the-sacred-geography-of-bryn-celli-ddu-part-three
Investigates the elemental geography—blueschist outcrops, sacred rivers, and mountain alignments—that may have sanctified the site long before its monuments were raised.
Part Four: Unveiling the Cosmic Mysteries of Bryn Celli Ddu https://www.stonetemplegardening.com/post/unveiling-the-cosmic-mysteries-of-bryn-celli-ddd-explore-the-celestial-secrets-of-the-neolithic-sol
Explores Bryn Celli Ddu’s solstice alignments, archaeoacoustics, and light phenomena, proposing a multisensory ritual experience encoded in stone.
🌞 Solstice Posts: Light, Spirit, and Discovery
These posts document personal pilgrimages and recent discoveries, offering a phenomenological and poetic counterpoint to the scholarly essays.
Part One, Stone, Sun, and Spirit: My Solstice Journey to Bryn Celli Ddu https://www.stonetemplegardening.com/post/stone-sun-and-spirit-my-solstice-journey-to-bryn-celli-ddu
A vivid account of witnessing the midsummer sunrise within the tomb, blending personal reflection with archaeological insight.
Part Two Has a Lost Stone Circle Been Found?: Exciting New Discoveries in Wales https://www.stonetemplegardening.com/post/has-a-lost-stone-circle-been-found-at-bryn-celli-ddu-exciting-new-discoveries-in-wales
Chronicles the excavation near Tyddyn Bach and the possible rediscovery of a lost ceremonial circle, expanding the known ritual landscape.
Together, these posts form a tapestry—archaeological, experiential, and cosmological—through which Bryn Celli Ddu emerges not just as a monument, but as a living dialogue between land, light, and lineage.
What interesting discoveries!