'That looks human': The father and son who unwittingly took Dunraven Castle bones home

A father and son innocently took home what they thought were cattle bones - only to realise they were actually human remains.

Christopher Rees, 39, from Bridgend, was walking the family dog with his seven-year-old son Dylan at Dunraven Bay in the Vale of Glamorgan in October last year when the pair made the discovery.

The 39-year-old said when they saw a bone "sticking out of the ground," his son thought he had "found a dinosaur," while Christopher thought it was a bone from cattle.

It was only when they returned home that it dawned on Christopher they might have made a more grizzly discovery.

He explained: "When we got home, the first thing my wife said was: 'That looks human.' I started panicking then."

After a quick bit of research, he realised she was probably right.

"I thought I was going to be in trouble. I thought: 'Oh my God, should I go and put them back?'," he said.

He phoned the police who, after analysing the remains, confirmed they were indeed human, although thankfully not recently buried.

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Police then shut down the site of Christopher and Dylan's discovery as they carried out their investigations. Archaeologists also visited the area but there was no further excavation.

"Because there weren't more bones visibly sticking out of the ground, they said they weren't going to dig for any more - I found that surprising. We were a bit disappointed, because we thought we'd discovered something pretty interesting when we realised how old they were," Christopher recalled.

Dylan, who loves history, was still happy with what they had found.

At the time, Christopher suspected more bones would emerge and he appears to have been proved right.

Last Tuesday, walkers came across what are thought to be human remains in the same area of the beach.

South Wales Police said the bones have also been sent for analysis to confirm whether the remains are ancient.

Christopher and Dylan's bones were not the last human remains to be found nearby, it turns out. Nor were they the first.

The skeletons of at least six individuals, thought to be victims of a 16th or 17th century shipwreck, were discovered on Cwm Nash beach in 2019.

The remains of an 800-year-old monk were also discovered a few years earlier, with his legs protruding from a cliff.

There were also discoveries in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales lists the Cwm Nash Burial Ground as an "unofficial burial ground used by parishioners of Monknash."

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