Pentre Ifan: Neolithic Portal Dolmen in Pembrokeshire, Wales

Pentre Ifan is a Neolithic portal dolmen, or burial chamber, in north Pembrokeshire, west Wales, built around 3500 BC. Its great capstone, about 5 metres long, rests delicately on the tips of three upright stones, making it one of the most photographed prehistoric monuments in Britain. It stands on the northern slopes of the Preseli Hills, a landscape later famous as a source of the Stonehenge bluestones.

Background: the first farmers of Wales

Farming arrived in Wales around 3800 BC, part of the wider spread of the Neolithic way of life across Britain and Ireland. The new communities cleared woodland, grew cereals and kept cattle, sheep and pigs. Within a few generations they began building megalithic tombs, communal monuments made of large stones.

Around the Irish Sea several distinctive types of tomb developed. The portal dolmen, also called a portal tomb, has two tall stones flanking an entrance, a lower backstone, and a large capstone that slopes down from front to back. Close relatives are found in Ireland, such as the Poulnabrone dolmen in County Clare, and in Cornwall, showing the close links between communities on both sides of the sea.

The monument

Pentre Ifan, whose Welsh name means “Ifan’s village” or “Evan’s village”, stands on open ground between the villages of Nevern and Brynberian. The surviving chamber consists of a capstone and three main supports: two portal stones at the southern end and a backstone. Other stones stand around the chamber but no longer bear any weight.

The capstone is about 5 metres (16 feet) long and is usually estimated to weigh around 16 tonnes. It rests about 2.5 metres (8 feet) above the ground, touching its supports only at a few points, so that from some angles it seems almost to float. How the builders raised it is unknown, but earth ramps, timber levers and large numbers of people are the usual explanation.

The stones are local volcanic rocks found in the area. The builders may have chosen the site partly because of its views over the Nevern valley and towards the rocky outcrops of the Preseli Hills and Carningli.

Excavation

The monument was excavated by the archaeologist W. F. Grimes in 1936–1937 and again in 1958–1959. He found that the chamber had once stood at the southern end of a long cairn, a mound of stones about 36 metres long. Only the chamber survives in full today.

Grimes also found a curved forecourt in front of the entrance, lined by upright stones, which may have been a place for gatherings and ceremonies. He discovered that a “false portal” blocking stone stood between the two portal stones, showing that the entrance was sealed or symbolic rather than a working doorway. Finds were few: some flint tools and a little pottery of Neolithic type. No human remains survived, which is normal in the acidic soils of west Wales.

History and folklore

Pentre Ifan has attracted visitors for centuries. The Elizabethan antiquary George Owen of Henllys described it in his account of Pembrokeshire, written around 1603. Later travellers and artists drew it, and in the 19th century it became a favourite subject of antiquarian illustration.

In 1884 Pentre Ifan became one of the first monuments in Wales to be taken into state guardianship under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act of 1882. It is now cared for by Cadw.

Local folklore links the stones with fairies, known in Welsh as the Tylwyth Teg, who were said to have been seen nearby. Such stories are common around megalithic monuments in Wales, Ireland and Brittany and reflect how later people tried to explain the great stones.

Pentre Ifan and the Preseli landscape

The Preseli Hills are known around the world because several of the bluestones at Stonehenge were quarried there. Research led by Mike Parker Pearson and colleagues has identified Neolithic quarries at the outcrops of Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin, both within a few kilometres of Pentre Ifan.

Those quarries were worked mainly around 3000 BC, several centuries after Pentre Ifan was built. There is no direct evidence connecting the dolmen with the Stonehenge stones, but its presence shows that the area was already a place of monuments and ritual long before the bluestones were moved east.

Timeline

• c. 3800 BC: Farming communities become established in Wales.
• c. 3500 BC: Pentre Ifan dolmen and its cairn are built.
• c. 3000 BC: Bluestones are quarried at nearby Preseli outcrops.
• c. 1603: George Owen of Henllys describes the monument.
• 1884: Pentre Ifan is taken into state guardianship.
• 1936–1937: First excavation by W. F. Grimes.
• 1958–1959: Grimes excavates the site again.

Why it matters

Pentre Ifan is one of the finest surviving portal dolmens in Britain and a vivid reminder of the engineering skill of the first farmers of Wales. It also helps place the famous Stonehenge bluestones in their wider setting, as part of a Preseli landscape that was important to Neolithic people for many centuries.