Visting Llyn Cerrig Bach - An Iron Age Wonderland!

The Lake from the south west near Llanfairyneubwll. where one of the most important collections of British Iron Age objects was found during WWII.

 
The objects were found during the construction of RAF Valley (now famous as Prince William's place of work!). Peat was needed to cover the original runways which were very sandy (the sand was getting into the airplane engines) so they used the peat next to the runway which contained the aretfacts.

 
The most of the original objects are kept at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, but some replicas of the objects made by Ancient Arts can be seen at Oriel Ynys Mon at Llangefni on the island. This shows a reconstrution of the slave chain found on the site and which was used to pull a stuck mechanical digger out of some mud before it was identified as Iron Age!

 During the Iron Age the objects had been 'rituallly' placed in a lake on the site which subsequently dried out leaving the objects very well preserved in layers of peat. The lake you see now only exists because of the removal of the peat in the 1940's.

 You can get to the site from the RSPB carpark at Llanfihangel yn Nhowyn along a lovely path through the nature reserve. At this time of year it is quite stunning, if not a little noisy with the RAF jets taking off and landing! The birds don't seem too mind though!  For more information on making the replicas go to: http://www.ancient-arts.org/webrep2.pdf