Qualla: Penrhos Feilw Standing Stones

Penrhos Feilw Standing Stones: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There are two of them, ten feet tall, standing about ten feet apart on an open patch of grass between two low hills above Porth Dafarch. Their long axes are aligned northeast to southwest, pointing approximately toward the coast and toward Holyhead Mountain in the other direction. They have been there for somewhere between three and a half and four thousand years, planted by people whose names and purposes have not survived. Nobody knows why they are there. Theories include the remains of a stone circle, a vanished burial cist between them, or some kind of ritual alignment. None of these theories has evidence to support it. They are, in the polite formula of the Cadw guide, 'quite enigmatic.'

Penrhos Feilw Standing Stones: Two Stones, A Few Numbers

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Each stone is roughly three metres tall and one metre wide at the base, but only about twenty centimetres thick - tall, broad slabs of stone, like the page of an enormous book stood on edge. They are situated about three metres apart on flat grassland behind the farmhouse of Plas...

Penrhos Feilw Standing Stones: The Theories Without Evidence

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Almost everything you might say about why the stones are there is either speculation or has been disproved. The most common theory in older literature is that they are the surviving members of a larger stone circle, with the other stones either removed or buried over time. No arc...

Penrhos Feilw Standing Stones: The Hut Circle Next Door

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

About a hundred metres from the standing stones is the Plas Meilw hut circle - a separate Iron Age dwelling site that is much smaller and less well-preserved than the famous Holyhead Mountain Hut Circles a couple of kilometres to the north. The proximity is suggestive. People liv...

Penrhos Feilw Standing Stones: What You See From the Field

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Walk to the stones across the open grassland above Porth Dafarch and they appear in profile against the sky, tall and thin and somehow improbably balanced on the soft ground. The wind on this side of Holy Island is constant and damp - the same wind that has been weathering these ...