Ancient monuments

The term 'ancient monument' is applied to a very wide range of archaeological sites. Some examples may be completely buried below ground, and may only be known through archaeological excavation. Others are far more prominent, and include the great standing ruins of well known medieval castles and abbeys.

Ancient monuments and planning permission

Any person wishing to carry out work at a scheduled ancient monument which requires planning permission will need to obtain both planning permission and scheduled monument consent. Planning permission alone is not sufficient to authorise the works.

Scheduled monument consent is administered by Cadw. It is important to note that consent can be granted only for detailed proposals. Unlike planning permission, there is no provision for granting outline consent.

Applications for planning permission can be made via The Planning Portal Applications (opens new window)

Further information regarding scheduled monument consent can be found by contacting Cadw (opens new window)

Location of ancient monuments

The locations and boundaries of all ancient monuments in Wales can be viewed at DataMapWales (gov.wales). If you click on the pins within the map then this will open the Cadw record information.

More information can be found on the Cadw web site at Scheduled Monuments | Cadw (gov.wales)