Rhiwiau Uchaf : The Site of the Kanovium Milestone

© Kanovium Project

During the latter days of December 2000 I had reason to visit London, I made a point of visiting the British Museum at Russell Square, I wasn’t certain if the stone was still on display, I remembered it as a child, but the museum and the Roman Britain Gallery had seen quite a few changes since then.  I asked a member of staff, Sam Moorhead, and was surprised when not only did he take me to the milestone but also impressed with his interest in the Caerhun fort and its milestone.  The stone is the first thing you see on entering the brand new Roman Britain Gallery, it stands at the south plinth, and at two metres tall it cannot fail to impress.  Seeing the stone was a strange experience, it is made of the same stone as Caerhun Church! and it didn’t take much imagination to envisage it standing on the North slope of the Carneddau mountains, with a salty breeze blowing over from Conwy Bay and Anglesey.  Many a person back in those long gone days must have been glad to see the stone, if they could (or want to) understand the inscription is another matter.  How did the Romans get the thing up on this mountain? probably with a very large cart pulled by some very strong animals, I noticed at the British Museum that there are hollow egg shaped holes at the sides of the stone, maybe this was to aid erection, I doubt if the stone came into Kanovium dock, as the climb up from the river valley would have been too steep, possibly shipped into Segontium,. or maybe an unknown fort site near Bangor (which is still a steep climb)  Certainly a number of soldiers would have had a difficult task, and the same for the soldiers of Septimius Severus who put up the other nearby stone 80 years later.  By the time of Postumus and Constantine, any old flat bit of rock would suffice, and other milestones found nearby, and seen at the Segontium and Bangor Museums look like mini standing stones, but these first two stones are the classic early type Roman milestone.


 Having seen the milestone shown above at the British Museum it now seemed a logical conclusion to actually visit the original siting.  At present I have no actual clues to the exact spot, but enough hints are given to actually get very near indeed.  All the evidence we have is that the find spot was in the field called Caegwag (in Welsh this means ‘the empty field’) on the land belonging to Rhiwiau Uchaf Farm adjacent to the nearby Roman road, which here is crossing very rocky high ground before making a very steep and still visible descent down the Anafon valley, before shortly reaching low ground at the modern village of Aber.  The name Rhiwiau Uchaf can no longer be read on a modern Ordnance Survey map, while another name nearby can, Rhiwiau Isaf, this is significant, Isaf means ‘lower’ while Uchaf means ‘higher’ the names usually always come in pairs and are house or farm names.  For the above image, I stand on the Roman road and look towards the area of Rhiwiau Isaf, which is in the trees, this wood is called Coed Gorddiniog, to the far right of this image, no houses can be seen on this image, but there was a large amount of farm vehicles to be seen in the distance so the farms are certainly still in existence.  This farm is less than 1 km from this spot, and the point is this, Isaf is the lower so Uchaf would have been higher up this area, so must have been very close to the Roman road.  While this image shows the land to be very moorland type, these stones are significant they are cleared from the land beyond and show it has been reclaimed for farmland at some time, but if not worked it will soon return to the former mountain type terrain, so possibly this actually is Caegwag field, and has not been farmed for maybe 100 years, perhaps the last time was 1883 when the two stones were discovered?  See beyond especially to the far left, the fields are still meadows, the land drops steeply to the sea and the east point of Anglesey can be seen in the distance.  Now how the milestones came to be lost is unknown, if simply pushed over or if actual removal was intended.  This area is flat and would make a very suitable spot to erect milestones, certainly very conspicuous on the bleak featureless expanse of moon rock and small standing stones, very clear if traveling up from the coast using the small valleys, I doubt someone has actually tried to rob them as the later Severan milestone was incomplete and could easily have been removed, while the earlier stone at  2 metres tall would have been more difficult but still not impossible to shift.  So surely all we have here is the stones have fallen down due to bad weather, storms or even lightning strikes, something which has been noted at Stonehenge and Hadrian’s Wall, or pushed over by vigilant early Christians, whom we know used the road, the stones have been slowly covered by the peaty soil to be discovered during the end of the 19th century.  Conjecture from my part is pointless, if anyone from Llanfairfechan knows better than me then please e-mail me, and I know you read my site as I have seen one of your links!

To visit the Roman road here, the find spot, and walk to Bwlch y Ddeufaen then follow these directions.

Driving west on the A55, exit at the junction for Aber, just east of Bangor, you then find yourself at a very small village, take a turn next to the only pub and head up a very unclassified road signposted Aber Falls, you must drive very carefully on roads such as this, speed humps can only be an advantage on such a narrow road lined by stone walls.  In just under a km you find yourself at the carpark for Aber Falls ignore this and keep on left and up for about 1 km, here at a small parking area the road ends, some sort of private track heads on up the gloomy mountain, Foel Dduarth (the ‘flat black stone’ in English).  The drive up this final km is awful, meeting another vehicle could only end in disaster, park up and follow the footpath left over the large stile, follow the hollow way up the very steep slope until it meets a cart track heading east for Bwlch y ddeufaen, you are now on the Roman road (which was the hollow track) the Pass of the Two Stones can be reached in about an easy hour walk, the milestones stood several hundred metres east along the road, on level ground to the north of the Roman road