Dog Stone, Mynydd Varteg Explained

Dog Stone
Type:Memorial
Map Relief:yes
Coordinates:51.7543°N -3.0857°W
Location:Abersychan, Torfaen
Built:1864
Governing Body:Cadw
Designation1:Grade II
Designation1 Offname:The Dog Stone
Designation1 Date:13 December 2010
Designation1 Number:87618

The Dog Stone (or Pillar Stone), on Mynydd Farteg, a subsidiary top of Coity Mountain, near the village of Abersychan, Torfaen, Wales, is a memorial, dating from 1864, to "Carlo", a Red setter. It is a Grade II listed structure.

History and description

Carlo was a hunting dog, of the Red setter breed, owned by Henry Martyn Kennard (1833–1911). The Kennards, of Crumlin Hall, were local ironmasters and landowners, Henry Martyn's father Robert Kennard (1800–1870) having gained control of the Blaenavon Ironworks through his Blaenavon Coal and Iron Company in 1836. At a shooting party held on the hill on the Glorious Twelfth in August 1864, Carlo was accidentally, and fatally, shot. Kennard had the dog buried at the site of the accident, and arranged for a memorial headstone to be cast at Blaenavon and erected over the dog's grave.

The memorial comprises a single sheet of cast iron on a plinth of concrete. Above the inscription (see box), is a cast of a dog with its snout raised. It has been catalogued in the archives of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales[1] and is a Grade II listed structure, Cadw's listing record describing it as "a good unusual example of a cast iron memorial slab".

Sources

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Royal Commission Archive & Library Bulletin of Newly Catalogued Material. Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. September 2022. 10 February 2023.