Search Results : Pembrokeshire

Jun 192021
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Sparrows were chirping in the reed-beds along the railway as we crossed the line by Penally station. The ominous rainclouds of early morning were blowing away eastward along the Pembrokeshire coast, and in the sand dunes every purple-pink pyramidal orchid and creamy yellow burnet rose held a spray of diamond drops.

Dogs raced joyfully along the pebble-strewn sands of South Beach. We walked the long strand, looking ahead to where the handsome colour-washed houses and hotels of Tenby stood at the rim of tall cliffs. Offshore the block-like stack of St Catherine’s Island carried its ‘Palmerston’s Folly’ of a fort, built in the 1870s to ward off a French invasion that never came.

If you had to show a Martian what a seaside resort was all about, Tenby with its colourful houses, steep and winding streets and curves of sandy beach would be the place. We climbed the green knoll of Castle Hill to pay our respects to Prince Albert, surveying the prospect in lordly fashion from his statue pedestal. Then we descended to skirt the sands of North Beach where children went trotting solemnly to the edge of the sea for a bucket of water for their sandcastle moat.

A flight of steps up the cliffs, and we were heading north along the Wales Coast Path, a sun-dappled way under ash and sycamore, flanked by ramrod foxgloves in the first flush of their velvet mauve bells.

The coast path formed the boundary between pastures and woodland. From Rowston Hill there was a wonderful view back to the tight multi-coloured curve of Tenby harbour and its houses, with the low green bar of Caldey Island lying beyond, then a forward vista eastward round the curve of the bay to the dragon humps of the Worms Head promontory running out into the sea from the toe-tip of the Gower Peninsula.

We picnicked under the oaks above Lodge Valley with the sea sighing on invisible rocks below. Punishment for many sins came after that in the shape of a cruel climb up a purgatorial run of steps. From there it was (mostly) downhill, coasting through the trees to Monkstone Beach, then on down to a slip of sand at the edge of Rhode Wood. A final stretch along the shore brought us wet-booted into Saundersfoot, and up to a fantastic view of the long and beautiful beach from the picture windows of the St Brides Bay Hotel where we had our well-earned lunch.

How hard is it? 6½ miles; moderate; a rugged coastal walk with some steep climbs and sharp drops

Start: Penally railway station, Tenby, Pembs SA70 7PS (OS ref: SS 118991)

Getting there: Train to Penally. Bus – 349 (Haverfordwest-Tenby)
Road: Penally station is on A4139 (Tenby-Pembroke)

Walk (OS Explorer OL36): Cross railway; follow path to South Beach (122988). Left to Tenby. Up cliff path (131001) along Esplanade and Paragon. Follow ‘Harbour’ signs; descend to harbour (136005), following walkway round bay. Beside café (133008), climb steps; right along The Croft cliff road. In 400m pass Park Hotel (133013); keep ahead up path (‘Wales Coast Path’/WCP, National Trail acorn symbol/NT). In 200m take right fork uphill (NT). Follow WCP and NT to Saundersfoot. Beach alternative (not at high tide) – below caravan park in Rhode Wood, turn right (141038), descending steps to beach; left to Saundersfoot.
Return to Tenby – bus 351 (Pendine-Tenby).

Lunch/Accommodation: St Brides Spa Hotel, St Brides Hill, Saundersfoot SA69 9NH (01834-812304, stbridesspahotel.com) – very stylish and comfortable, with superb views. Booking for meals advisable.

Info: Tenby TIC (01437-775603); visitwales.com, walescoastpath.gov.uk

 Posted by at 03:19
Nov 162019
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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Only the upperworks of St Davids Cathedral tower are visible as you enter the smallest city in Britain. First sight of the cathedral is so unexpected it takes your breath away. You step through the arch of Porth-y-Twr gatehouse, and there, filling a hollow far below, lies this magnificent and enormous church, with the ruin of a most spectacular 14th-century Bishop’s Palace just behind.

There’s hardly a sign of the modern world, just woods and fields beyond rising to knobbly, mountainous outcrops on the unseen coast. It’s a truly wondrous way to start this walk round one of the most spectacular sections of coastline in all of Wales.

Green lanes and country roads took us down to the southern corner of Whitesands Bay. On the far side of the tan-coloured strand the rocky promontory of St Davids Head ran a long finger westward into the sea. Wavelets creamed on the sands, and from a rock stack offshore came the querulous cries of a herring gull asserting its territorial rights.

The Pembrokeshire Coast Path leads along the coast at the very edge of green and purple cliffs whose dense sandstone has fractured into slanted faces as smooth as slate. The sea gasped hungrily at their feet, and from up ahead came the swish and thump of the tide race in Ramsey Sound.

Ramsey Island, long and low-slung with two humps of hill, lay square-on across a mile or so of very turbulent water. Sinews of tides pulled hard in opposite directions, whirlpools circled end to end, and a jabble of large waves rose north and south.

Ramsey is a RSPB reserve these days, but the old farmhouse where the Griffiths family once stuck out the tough island life still stands out against the green turf. From a tiny fingernail of beach at the southern end came a thin hooting. With binoculars we made out a little gathering of seal pups in white fur, nerving themselves for the short journey to the waves and their new lives as creatures of the sea.

Soon Ramsey Island was behind us. The path led in and out of tiny coves and beaches. We skirted the slit-like inlet of Porth Clais, and headed inland past the ancient chapel of St Non, mother of St David, with the last of the daylight transferring a silver sheen from the sea to the darkening sky above.

Start: St Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire SA62 6RD (OS ref SM 752254)

Getting there:
Bus 411 (Haverfordwest)
Road – A487 from Fishguard or Haverfordwest

Walk (10 miles, easy, lanes and cliff paths, OS Explorer OL35): From town centre follow Goat Street (‘St Justinian’s’). Bear left at ‘Merrivale’; on down Catherine Street. Opposite Ramsey Gardens, right (749252, blue arrow) down lane. In ½ mile at road, left (743252). In 200m, right (‘Ty Newydd Farm’). In 400m right at road (737250). In 500m, left at T-junction (736254, ‘St Justinian’). In 500m, right (731254, ‘Pencarnan’). At Pencarnan entrance, fork right (728258, ‘Public Path to Coast Path’). At coast, left on Pembrokeshire Coast Path/PCP for 6½ miles via St Justinian’s (724252). Porthlysgi Bay (731238) and Porth Clais (741242) to St Non’s Bay (750243). Inland off PCP at kissing gate (fingerpost) past St Non’s Chapel to road (752244); left for ¾ miles to St Davids.

Conditions: Coast path along unguarded cliffs

Lunch: Picnic; The Bishop’s Inn, Cross Square, St Davids SA62 6SL (01437-720422, thebish.co.uk)

Accommodation: 15 Tower Hill (Landmark Trust), St Davids SA62 6RD (01628-825920, landmarktrust.org.uk) – cosy cottage overlooking cathedral.

Information: St Davids Visitor Centre (01437-720392)

visitwales.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

 Posted by at 02:56
May 192018
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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The Preseli Hills march east to west across the heart of West Pembrokeshire, and the Golden Road marches with them – an ancient drove road and highway that hurdles their peaks. Out at the western end of the range the Golden Road climbs gently up the flanks of Foel Eryr, the Eagle’s Peak, and we climbed with it, peat and soakwater squelching underfoot.

By the summit cairn a topograph specified places in view and their distances, but these cold facts and figures could never catch the splendours of this extraordinary view. Lundy lying like a sleeping sea-dog 50 miles off in the south, with a faint hint of the North Devon coast beyond Exmoor’s long spine; the shadowy shapes of the Cambrian mountains far to the north; west to Skomer and Ramsey islands; and in the east the dragon humps of Worm’s Head promontory.

We stood and marvelled, while the mountain ponies of Foel Eryr cropped the grass nearby and nibbled the itches out of one another’s necks. Then it was down over sedgy ground to the lonely farm of Pen-lan-wynt, where wind-bent thorn trees lined the hedges.

This is the land of small farms and smallholdings – Pentrisil, where the fine rich savour of a freshly opened silage clamp wafted across the lane; the stone cottage of Gernos Fawr in a watery dell full of runner ducks; the hillside farm of Gernos Fach, where a young sheepdog leaped gymnastically between the high bars of a gate to fawn on us and lick our hands in welcome.

Beyond the farm a moorland track led away, the cold cloudy sky reflected in its peaty pools. A little way off the track, standing stones stood in the heather – a hip-high pair sloping close together, and a short distance away a fine solo stone of man height, crusted with lichens, upright in a little circular moat of water. A posy of wild flowers had been laid at its foot.

We crossed the road and climbed a boggy old path that snaked up the wet hillside of Rhwngyddwyffordd. Ponies with tangled manes moved reluctantly off the track as we followed it to the saddle. Here we turned for a final stare over bog and hillside, coasts, islands and distant mountains, before a last homeward stretch along the miry ridgeway of the Golden Road.

Start: Bwlch-gwynt car park, near Tafarn-y-Bwlch, Pembrokeshire SA66 7RB approx. (OS ref SN 075322)

Getting there: Bwlch-gwynt car park is on B4329 (Cardigan-Haverfordwest), between Tafarn-y-bwlch and Tufton

Walk (6½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer OL35): Cross B4329; path to Foel Eryr summit (066321). Keep same line descending. At fingerpost with arrow (061321), right on path. In 300m at another fingerpost with arrow (061324) fork left, soon bearing downhill to wall. Right to 4-finger post (060327); follow wall to Pen-lan-wynt farm (058330). Follow blue arrows/BA to track (057333), then road (055337). Right; 250m beyond Pentrisil, right (062342, ‘Tafarn Bwlch, Pembrokeshire Trail’). Follow track past Gernos-Fawr (069341, BAs); up green lane to gate (069344); right (bridleway fingerpost) to Gernos Fach (075343). Right (fingerpost) on track to B4329 (084337). Right; in 350m, fork left (082333, BA) up hill track for ¾ mile to fence at Bwlch Pennant (085321). Don’t go through gate; turn right along fence to car park.

Conditions: Very wet and boggy in parts

Lunch: Tafarn Sinc, Rosebush SA66 7QU (01437-532214, tafarnsinc.co.uk) – 3 miles

Accommodation: The Harp Inn, Letterston SA62 5UA (01348-840061, theharpatletterston.co.uk)

Info: Fishguard TIC (01437-776636), visitwales.com; satmap.com; ramblers.org.uk

 Posted by at 01:10
Dec 142008
 

A blowy Sunday morning in westernmost Pembrokeshire after a week of grey, horizontal weather – and boy, were we keen to see the sun. When the clouds began to shred away off the moor tops and the hint of a tint of blue shone through, we were out of our holiday cottage and down in St David's before you could blink.

St David's is one of those neat little towns you don't want to leave in a hurry. We slipped into the Cathedral between Holy Communion and Parish Eucharist to admire the beautiful Norman pillars of purple slate, the chisel marks of the masons still plain beneath the patina of 800 years' smoothing by hands, backs and shoulders. I ducked into the choir to indulge my passion for medieval misericord carvings. There were some beauties, including two very fine leafy Green Men, a curly dragon, and a crafty fox in a clerical cowl preaching to some trusting inhabitants of the farmyard. The light was low and muted in the church, built deep in a hollow so that – legend says – marauding Vikings might pass by without suspecting it was there.

We caught the little Celtic Coaster bus and went rattling down the twisting, high-banked lane to St Justinian's. From the cliff we gazed across the mile-wide strip of Ramsey Sound to the twin peaks of Ramsey Island RSPB Reserve. The solitary farmhouse stood above the landing slip, a tiny gleaming cube of white. Here was a pure drop of nostalgia for me. Twenty years ago I had waited on this cliff above the cream-and-crimson corrugated tin shed of the lifeboat, looking out to the ferocious tide-rips of Ramsey Sound through which a rubber boat was bouncing and smacking its way towards me. It had been a bumpy and spray-drenched old journey to the island, and a strangely enthusiastic welcome on arrival. I soon found out why – I had arrived just in time for the annual sheep shearing, and Ramsey was short-staffed.

What a hell of a weekend that turned out to be. Ramsey back then had been privately owned, under covenant of the National Trust, and its flock of sheep had been let run completely wild. Six of us, "assisted" by a half-trained pup called Spot, set out to gather them off the hills and slippery cliffs of the two-mile-long island. The tough guys sheared them in the stuffy shed, between glugs of beer and puffs of tobacco. I was appointed tallyman/door wallah, and scored a mark in purple wax crayon on the shed wall for each bucking, tittuping beast that sprang past me from the hands of the shearers. By the end of the day there were 198 strokes on the shed wall. I have never been sworn and shouted at so much, laughed so hard or ended the day in such a drunken daze of exhaustion and triumph. Sheer anarchic magic.

Holidaymakers who had booked a boat trip round the island were waiting at the lifeboat shed today, staring across the white horses of Ramsey Sound and cracking nervous jokes about losing their breakfast. Jane and I, turning along the cliff path where the wind was shaking the clumps of thrift and toadflax, felt glad to be keeping to terra firma. Sea wind is a constant here on the coast of Pembrokeshire, streaming the hedges of sea buckthorn inland and sculpting the gorse sprigs into rounded yellow clubs. The sharply canted cliffs fell away to the waves in weather-smoothed flanks of green and mauve, and a sparrowhawk hung in the wind a few feet above our craning faces.

Looking ahead into the long curve of Whitesands Bay, we saw the sands between the rocky headlands of Point St John and St David's Head covered in short figures, most of them in suits of black, running, screaming and leaping. It looked like a painting by LS Lowry with added glee. Down on the beach we discovered it was Young Life-Savers Day. In spite of the barking instructors and their gung-ho exhortations, most of the wet-suited youngsters looked as though what they were out for was a good splash in the pounding surf.

Among the dunes lay a humpy green mound, all that remains of the little Chapel of St Patrick where newly landed seafarers of the Dark Ages would kneel and give thanks for deliverance from the dangers of the twin headlands. Others, outward bound, would pray before embarkation for the saint's protection amid the hazards of the sea. St Patrick was felt likely to lend a sympathetic ear, since stories said that it was from Whitesands Bay that he himself had set sail in AD432 to bring the Word across the sea to the heathen Irish.

Did the great patron saints of Ireland and Wales, Patrick and David, ever meet each other on Ramsey Island, as other tales tell? Certainly the rugged island had its own macho 5th-century saint in the person of Justinian, a nobly-born Breton both misogynistic and imperious, who expelled two holy women from Ramsey so that he could live there, and so infuriated his own monks that they cut his head off. Nothing daunted, Justinian marched across the Sound to his burial place on the mainland with his head under his arm. They seem to have made them tough back then.

Out on the windy extremity of St David's Head we passed through the double wall of Clawdd-y-Milwyr, the Warrior's Dyke, built 15 feet high by the Iron Age farmers who lived out here behind this formidable barrier. Who was it that they feared so greatly? Now their great wall lies less than man height, scattered and tumbled among blue feathery buttons of scabious and white bells of sea campion. Nearby along the cliff path loomed Arthur's Quoit, a giant stone slab propped up by a slender upright. Our ancestors raised it as the capstone of a kingly tomb nearly 6,000 years ago. Or was it mighty Arthur, hero-giant of Welsh folklore, who hurled it here from Moelfre Hill? The head urges one story, the heart another, when one walks these rocky moors and cliffs so drenched in the mythological past.

The clink of rock-climbing harness recalled us to the practical present as a breath of warm sunlight stole along the coast. Climbers were inching their way down to the rocks of Ogof Coetan, the Cave of the Quoit, where the waves leapt fitfully and tongues of foam came licking up at the adventurers. Jane and I moved on along the path, threading our way through beautiful coastal heath of gorse and heather whose topmost sprigs held black-capped and russet-breasted stonechats. Time for a little climbing on our own account.

By tip of boot and finger we scrambled up the 600ft volcanic tor of Carn Llidi. Little children in shorts and trainers were prancing around the summit like mountain goats. Down below lay Whitesands Bay, a crescent of sand where lines of surf were creaming. Out at sea, gathering clouds hid the horizon. Here on Carn Llidi, Patrick the Welsh-born shepherd once stood, gazing west to where the pale blue peaks of Wicklow pierced the skyline a hundred miles off. There was no chance of seeing them this day. But the thought of them made me smile as we picked our way back down to the seashore once more.

Stepping out

Maps
OS 1:25,000 Explorer OL35, 1:50,000 Landranger 157

Travel
By train (www.thetrainline.com) or coach (www.nationalexpress.com) to Haverfordwest; bus 411 (www.pembrokeshire.gov.uk/coastbus) to St David's. Celtic Coaster bus (service 403, operates March-September) between St David's, St Justinian's and Whitesands Bay.

By car
M4, A48, A40 to Haverfordwest; A487 to St David's; minor road signposted to St Justinian's.

Walk directions
From St Justinian's car park (OS ref SM724252), walk down lane towards sea and turn right along Pembrokeshire Coast Path National Trail (signed with fingerposts and acorn symbols) for four miles via Whitesands Bay (734272), St David's Head (722279) and Arthur's Quoit (725281) to reach a short fingerpost (736287 – acorn symbols and ''YHA'') just before a stonewalled enclosure. Follow YHA up to right; in 100 yards bear left to follow broad grass track uphill with twin hump of Carn Llidi on your right. At saddle (739283 approx.), right along track to scramble up to summit of Carn Llidi (738280). Continue across two crests, descending by rock scramble to lower of two concrete wartime emplacements below Carn Llidi Bychan (735279). Turn left down path past Upper Porthmawr farm (737276) to reach Whitesands Bay car park (734272).

Length
5½ miles (7½ to return to St Justinian's via coast path)

Conditions
Some cliff-top stretches are narrow, other parts rocky underfoot. Climb to top of Carn Llidi involves a little scrambling. Wear walking trainers/boots.

Refreshments
Café and public loos at Whitesands Bay; Old Cross Hotel, St David's (01437 720394, www.oldcrosshotel.co.uk)

Accommodation
Old Cross Hotel, St David's (see above); www.welsh-cottages.co.uk for holiday lets.

Information
Tourist Information Centre, The Grove, St David's (01437 720392, www.visitpembrokeshire.com)

 

 Posted by at 00:00
Jun 252022
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
view north along the Wales Coast Path stile on the Wales Coast Path looking downhill to the Wales Coast Path 1 looking down on Mynachdy’r Graig, ‘the monks’ house on the rocks’ crumbling cliffs beyond Ffos-lâs farm coastal pastures approaching Mynachdy’r Graig, ‘the monks’ house on the rocks’ view north along the Wales Coast Path 3 view north along the Wales Coast Path 2 looking downhill to the Wales Coast Path 2

A cool, showery day over the hills of mid Wales, but a strip of blue sky and an onshore breeze were forecast for the coast of Cardigan Bay.

Clouds like grey cannon smoke rolled across the hilltops inland of Blaenplwyf. The Friesian cattle at Rhosfawr farm stared moodily at us as we passed. One cow was wearing an e-bell on her collar, designed to warn her away from the electric fence around the pasture.

In the rushy fields approaching Pentre we spotted a hornet in the grass, its wings too soaked with the morning’s rain to allow it to fly. Two dogs came barking to the farm gate, soon retiring after making their point. We followed a stony lane over the ridge and down towards a royal blue sea.

This section of the Wales Coast Path runs along cliffs of spectacular formation, undercut by the sea, bulging out in dark brittle rock topped with even more shaky clay. The string of coastal farms is threatened with ruin as the clifftops erode and crumple.

In medieval times this coast belonged to the rich and powerful Strata Florida abbey. Mynachdy’r Graig, ‘the monks’ house on the rocks’, was one of the abbey’s granges or outlying farms. Today, abandoned as a working farmhouse and less than forty metres from the ever-advancing cliff edge, its plain square dwelling and slate-roofed sheds are in the care of the National Trust.

Everything was utterly quiet and peaceful, the only sound the gentle wash of the sea on the rocky platform at the feet of the cliffs. A bevy of young choughs went cackling by, swooping like fighter planes. Outcrops beside the coast path were rock gardens of stonecrop, bell heather and wild thyme.

The path rose and fell for mile after mile, the cliffs and promontories of Cardigan Bay spread out from the Llŷn peninsula down to Pembrokeshire. As we stopped to admire the view, a big bird of prey came gliding by far below. Too bulky for a kite, too masterful in flight to be anything other than an osprey on a fishing expedition from its base up the coast at the Dyfi Osprey Project.

Its wingtips downturned, an arc of white feathers across its shoulders, it gave not a single flap, just cruised the wind, bigger and more powerful than anything else aloft. A most magnificent spectacle.

How hard is it? 7 miles, moderate one-way coast walk

Start: Blaenplwyf, near Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales SY23 4DJ (OS ref SN 576755)
Finish: Llanrhystud, near Aberaeron SY23 5DQ (OS ref SN 539697)

Getting there: Bus T5 (Aberystwyth – Cardigan)
Road – Blaenplwyf is on A487 between Aberystwyth and Llanrhystud

Walk (OS Explorer 213): From bus stop south along A487. At end of houses, right (boulder, green cabinet) up lane. In 100m through gate on right (573754); keep right of Rhosfawr farm sheds, then right up field track to road (570755). Left; in 100m, right (stile, yellow arrow/YA) to road at Pentre (568753). Right; in 50m right up lane beside Llain Bach. In ½ mile, meet Wales Coast Path/WCP near Ffos-lâs farm (560755). Left on WCP. In 4½ miles, with caravan site in view ahead, descend long slope; through gate (535705), right (WCP) to kissing gate, then fingerpost (534703). Left off WCP here; follow YAs to Banc (539703). Down drive; in 50m right (gate, YA), anticlockwise round scrub patch to stile in corner (YA); down scrubby hillside with hedge on left. In 200m hedge turns right; left over stile in corner here (539701, YA); right down green lane to road (538699). Left to A487 and bus stop in Llanrhystud. Bus return to Blaenplwyf.

Lunch: Black Lion, Llanrhystud SY23 5DQ (01974-202338, @blacklion.llanrhystud.9) 

Accommodation: Aelybryn, Llangwyryfon, Aberystwyth SY23 4EX (01974-241744, aberystwythbedandbreakfast.co.uk)

Info: walescoastpath.gov.uk; visitwales.com; dyfiospreyproject.com
@somerville_c

 Posted by at 02:14
Dec 112021
 


First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
view north from foot of The Skirrid 1 fabulous barn, Llanvihangel Court view north from foot of The Skirrid 2 view north from foot of The Skirrid 3 view north from foot of The Skirrid 4 Skirrid peak from western side 1 Skirrid peak from western side 2 Skirrid peak from western side 3 path to the peak 1 path to the peak 2 Skirrid peak from northwest 1

The River Severn’s estuary was at a fantastically low tide as we crossed the ‘new’ bridge on a day of no cloud whatsoever. Looking seaward through the stroboscopic flicker of the bracing wires, we could see the tidal outcrop of the English stones fully exposed and slathered in red mud.

Downriver, the little hump of Denny Island off Portishead stood marooned in a huge desert of sand. Other sand and mud banks lay around the widening tideway like beached whales.

We were heading to Llanvihangel Crucorney, a placename whose sound put the immortal walking writer John Hillaby in mind of ‘a toy train scampering over points’. Llanvihangel Crucorney lies in the River Monnow valley that forms the eastern boundary of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons. It’s a great jumping off point for walks westward into those mountains, but today we were aiming east to climb The Skirrid (Ysgyryd Fawr, the ‘big split one’), a tall hill that lies north-south with its head cocked and spine raised like an alert old dog.

The Skirrid is made of tough old red sandstone lying in a heavy lump on top of thin layers of weaker mudstone – hence its history of slippage and landslides. We came up to it in cold wind and brilliant sunshine across fields of sheep, skirting its western flank through scrub woods, gorse bushes blooming yellow and holly trees in a blaze of scarlet berries, with the dark purple crags of the northern end hanging over little rugged passes of landslide rocks fallen in a jumble.

The ascent is short, steep and stepped, but it’s the sort of ‘starter mountain’ that families with six-year-olds can manage. Many were out – mums, dads, children, students, ‘maturer’ folk such as us.

Once at the peak in this unbelievably clear weather we gasped to see the landscape laid out in pin-sharp detail a thousand feet below and fifty miles off – Malverns, Black Mountains; farmlands rising and falling towards Gloucestershire and the Midlands; the slanting tabletops of Penyfan and Cribyn over in the Brecon Beacons; Cotswolds, Mendip, Exmoor; and the south Wales coast trending round into far-off Pembrokeshire.

Nearer at hand a grey streak of softly glimmering sea showed the tide rising in the Severn Estuary past Brean Down’s promontory, the slight disc of Flat Holm and the hump of her sister island Steep Holm, their lower edges lost in mist so that they looked like floating islands in some fabulous sea.
How hard is it? 6½ miles; strenuous short climb, some stumbly parts.

Start: Skirrid Mountain Inn, Llanvihangel Crucorney, Abergavenny NP7 8DH (OS ref SO 326206)

Getting there: Bus X3 (Hereford-Abergavenny)
Road – Llanvihangel Crucorney is on A465 (Abergavenny-Hereford)

Walk (OS Explorer OL13): Opposite church, lane (gateposts) to cross A465. Down drive; right at wall (325204); follow Beacons Way/BW arrow waymarks. Pass wood-framed barn; in 100m, right (328202, BW, gate). Follow BW across fields to lane at Pen-y-parc (336192). Right; beyond ‘Steppes’ house, left (332191, stile); follow BW to foot of Skirrid (333186). Right on path along west side of Skirrid to rejoin BW at southern foot of mountain (327169). Follow BW up to Skirrid summit (331183). Return; in 200m, sharp left beside hollow (331181); path descends to north foot (333185). Retrace BW back to lane at Steppes (332191). Left; in ½ mile, opposite Llwyn Franc, right (325190, gate, fingerpost ‘Crossways’). Follow hedge on right to gate/stile (325192). Half left across field, crossing Great Llwyn Franc drive (324193); on down to Crossways House (323200) and Llanvihangel Crucorney.

Lunch/Accommodation: Skirrid Mountain Inn, Llanvihangel Crucorney (01873-890258, skirridmountaininn.co.uk)

Info: Abergavenny TIC (01873-853254, visitwales.com)

 Posted by at 01:32
Oct 022020
 


The River Severn’s estuary was at a fantastically low tide as we crossed the ‘new’ bridge on a day of no cloud whatsoever. Looking seaward through the stroboscopic flicker of the bracing wires, we could see the tidal outcrop of the English stones fully exposed and slathered in red mud. Downriver, the little hump of Denny Island off Portishead stood marooned in a huge desert of sand. Other sand and mud banks lay around the widening tideway like beached whales. Unwary strangers might even suppose you could cross the five miles from the English to the Welsh bank on foot and do no more than bespatter your spats. And maybe you could, if you were able to walk on water while negotiating quicksand, slow mud, sudden drops, fathomless pools, and the second highest tidal range in the world sneaking round the corners to cut you off.

Over in Wales we hightailed it to Llanfihangel Crucorney, a placename whose sound put the immortal walking writer John Hillaby in mind of ‘a toy train scampering over points’. LC lies in the River Monnow’s valley that forms the eastern boundary of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons. It’s a great jumping off point for walks westward into those mountains, but today we were aiming east to climb The Skirrid (Ysgyryd Fawr, the ‘big split one’), a tall hill that lies north-south with its head cocked and spine raised like an alert old dog.

The Skirrid is made of tough old red sandstone lying in a heavy lump on top of thin layers of weaker mudstone – hence its history of slippage and landslides. We came up to it in cold wind and brilliant sunshine across fields of sheep, skirting its western flank through scrub woods, gorse bushes blooming yellow and holly trees in a blaze of scarlet berries, with the dark purple crags of the northern end hanging over little rugged passes of landslide rocks fallen in a jumble.


The ascent is short, steep and stepped, but it’s the sort of ‘starter mountain’ that families with six-year-olds can manage. Many were out – mums, dads, children, students, ‘maturer’ folk such as us, all hurrying to revel in this one-in-a-thousand day before the threatened reintroduction of lockdown in Wales should come into force.

 

Once at the peak in this unbelievably clear weather we gasped to see the landscape laid out in pin-sharp detail a thousand feet below and fifty miles off – Malverns, Black Mountains; farmlands rising and falling towards Gloucestershire and the Midlands; the slanting tabletops of Penyfan and Cribyn over in the Brecon Beacons; Cotswolds, Mendip, Exmoor; and the south Wales coast trending round into far-off Pembrokeshire.

Nearer at hand a grey streak of softly glimmering sea showed the tide rising in the Severn Estuary past Brean Down’s promontory, the slight disc of Flat Holm and the hump of her sister island Steep Holm, their lower edges lost in mist so that they looked like floating islands in some fabulous sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 19:43
Dec 052009
 

First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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When the supreme egotist and ferocious walker George Borrow ascended Plynlimon in 1854, he called at the Castell Dyffryn Inn to engage a guide, ‘a tall athletic fellow, dressed in a brown coat, round bluff hat, corduroy trowsers, linen leggings and highlows.’ This splendid chap proved reluctant to take the East Anglian writer to the source of the River Rheidol – ‘the path, sir, as you see, is rather steep and dangerous’. But Borrow, collecting material for his classic travelogue Wild Wales, was in no mood to be gainsaid. ‘It is not only necessary for me to see the sources of the rivers,’ he informed his guide, ‘but to drink from them, that in after times I may be able to harangue about them with a tone of confidence and authority.’

Three rivers have their source close together on Plynlimon’s rough summit – Rheidol, Wye and Severn. Jane and I, having no need to harangue about them, were aiming simply to get to the top of the mountain. Our walking companion, Liz Fleming-Williams, surveys the region’s peat bogs for the Countryside Commission for Wales, a calling that has led her to the kind of revelation on the hilltops that Burrow would have empathised with, a sense of how closely Welsh poetry, music, art and language are bound up with this beautiful and sombre landscape.

We strode up the old miners’ track towards a long-abandoned lead mine in the southern flank of the mountain; then on up a faint track through heather and bilberry, reindeer moss, black peat hags and bent grass. ‘Listen!’ said Liz, holding up a finger. Not a sound, bar the complaints of sheep and the hiss of wind.

Up in the summit shelter, two Cornish surfies had arrived from their camp on the shores of Nant-y-Moch reservoir below. Hospitably they poured us tea, and we took in the hundred-mile view: Preseli Hills in far off Pembrokeshire, a huge arc of Cardigan Bay, the Llŷn Peninsula misty on the horizon; Cader Idris, the Brecon Beacons, the mountains of Snowdonia. Only the semaphore arms of a windfarm, sited smack in the middle of an ecologically sensitive peat bog nearer at hand, told of the greedy crassness of man. George Borrow would have had a crisp harangue suitable for the subject at his fingertips. But for now we had to make do with the cheep of pipits and the sigh of the cold mountain wind.

 

Start & finish: Eisteddfa-Gurig car park (OS ref SN 799841) – £3 charge

Getting there: 4½ miles east of Ponterwyd on A44, Aberystwyth-Llangurig

Walk (5 miles, moderate, OS Explorer 213): From car park, up farm drive past ‘Caution, children playing’ notice. Right through yard past dog kennels. In 30 yards, bridleway sign points left; bear right through gate (797841) along stony track. Ignore first right turn; follow track as it curves right over stream and climbs for 1 mile to old mine. Just before it swings right to cross Afon Tarennig (795897), white arrow/green background on post points left up faint track. Follow this for ¾ mile to summit of Plynlimon (789869).

Descending: turn back with fence on your right, and keep near it. Cross stile at 787857. Left at forestry (784851): follow fence with trees on your right. Cross stile at 786849; continue along fence, to meet rough road back to car park.

NB: Family-friendly. Hill-walking gear. Track from mine to summit hard to find in mist.

Lunch: Picnic

Accommodation: Ffynnon Cadno B&B, Ponterwyd (01970-890224; www.ffynnoncadno.co.uk)

Dinner: George Borrow Hotel, Ponterwyd (01970-890230; www.thegeorgeborrowhotel.co.uk)

Information: Aberystwyth TIC (01970-612125); www.visitwales.co.uk

Wild Wales by George Borrow (Bridge Books)

 

 Posted by at 00:00