Mar of To & Fro shares a Days of the Month post at the start of every month and this one inspired me to write this post. Today is Old Rock Day which is apparently to celebrate rocks – see this for more info. If you ask me what my favourite “rock” is I would have to say, slate. I LOVE slate… Welsh slate in particular. I’m from a slate mining town in North Wales and grew up surrounded by beautiful slate slag heaps. Some people might find them depressing but honestly, there is nothing that says home more than seeing those slate heaps.
Now I’m not going to share photos of slate but I am instead going to share a lovely walk through the old slate mines with you. I’ve done a fair bit of walking with my Taid, Dad and Jimmy Jones* when I was a child. It was Taid’s favourite pastime! After he died I gathered all of his photos and started scanning them and I can tell you, there’s so many photos of his walks!
(* if you read this post, the very first photo is actually me and Jimmy in Cwm Orthin! How funny!)
Here’s just one of those photos:
Anyway I digress. As an adult I haven’t done that much mountain walks but a couple of years back hubby and I did walk from Tanygrisiau over to Llanfrothen over the pass between the Moelwyns and the Cnicht.
It’s a fairly lengthy walk – not sure if it was 7 miles in total. But you get to walk through amazing scenery! From Taid’s house we walk up to the teeny village of Dolrhedyn and then up to the old slate mines of Cwm Orthin.
Cwm Orthin has a large lake and the footpath takes you along the lefthand side of the lake so you don’t actually get to explore the mines – unless you take a quick detour. Along the lefthand side of the lake there’s the old quarrymen houses and an old chapel which have both now fallen into disrepair. I actually remember when this chapel had four walls standing!
From there you walk up again to the old mines of Rhosydd. Up there you’re standing between the Moelwyns on the left and Cnicht on your right and are looking down to Cwm Croesor.
From Rhosydd you walk down to Cwm Croesor but along the way have to navigate a steep incline to make it to the road. That was fun!!
Once you get to the footpath/road at the bottom of the Cwm you’re on a steady decline all the way to Llanfrothen. You walk through the tiny village of Croesor although to be fair there is a cafe/gallery there and an outdoor pool. Well there used to be a pool there when I was a child, made up by having a little diversion in the river to a man made slate pool.
Along the road down you will walk past many of the houses that are owned by the Brondanw Estate. You can tell if they’re part of the Brondanw Estate by their white and green colouring. Further down the road you will also pass Plas Brondanw which was the home of the late Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (the designer and creator of Portmeirion). The original house was burnt down in 1951 and apparently Sir Clough was devastated. He had an urn placed near the house which is still there today. On our walk we didn’t go passed it as it was slightly out of the way. But I’ve been told that the urn can be seen from Sir Clough’s bedroom window. Not sure if that’s true or not!
A little walk further down the road you join the main road which leads into Llanfrothen itself. We walked down to the pub – Brondanw Arms or as the locals know it, “Y Ring”. No-one knows why it’s known as the Ring but that’s what I know it as. After a long walk I can tell you that the pub was a very welcome sight!
One tip, be sure to take money/card with you so you can have a fantastic pub lunch! We forgot our wallet/purse so had to settle for a drink only with what little cash we had in our pockets. Since I don’t drink I settled for a lemonade but the hubby had a pint!
After recovering we managed to convince someone to give as a lift home – I wasn’t going to walk back over the mountain that’s for sure!
I haven’t done this walk often but I couldn’t recommend it enough! I would love to do it again this year. This time with the dogs. Possibly not the girls because it would be too much for Little Miss’ tiny legs at the moment!
What do you think? Interesting walk or not?
Such a interesting day to celebrate, eh? And what a beautiful walk. I love seeing what the mountains look like in other parts of the world. Thanks for sharing!
We live just outside Cardiff and had a few holidays in North /Mid Wales when I was a child – I remember visiting the slate mines. Looks a lovely walk. We hope to take the children to explore more of Wales. My parents are from Plymouth but since we’ve lived here since 1967, they’re known as Nain and Taid to my kids.
Such gorgeous scenery you have around you, lucky lady! Knew nothing about Old Rock Day before, so thank you for educating me! 🙂
Wow, the scenery is just breathtaking. I’m visiting Wales for the first time in February, I’m hoping to see some of it for myself then 🙂
Lyndsay xx
It’s a beautiful place! Hope you have a great time. Which part of Wales are you visiting? x
Oh I am so lucky to live here. Can’t imagine living anywhere else. When I went to Florida on honeymoon they tried to sell us a timeshare and when I said I wasn’t interested he was all “what’s wrong with you woman?!” My response was, “have you seen where I live?!” 🙂
I hadn’t heard of it either! But what an interesting thing to celebrate though! x
Ahh I love my slate mines! You really ought to visit again – there’s underground trampolines and zipwires and everything here now! 🙂 x
It is! And I would never have heard about it if it hadn’t been for your Days of the Month post so thank you! I love my Moelwyns (name of the mountains we walked in). It’s home! <3
Wow what breathtaking photos! I didn’t know anything about Old Rock Day, thanks for allowing me to learn more 🙂
What a beautiful looking location! iv never heard of rock day before, though I do love ruins. I’d love to visit Wales one day, never left my beautiful Scotland before 🙂
The scenery looks amazing and I’m sure the fresh country air must have done you the world of good. How long were you there for?
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It looks beautiful, all the photos are gorgeous. xx
It is beautiful but then again I am biased! 🙂 x
It’s an amazing place! I live there – so lucky!! 🙂
Definitely worth a visit! I’ve only been to Scotland once – and that was only to Edinburgh. I hadn’t heard of rock day either but I googled it and it seems to be a celebration of rocks!!
The photos don’t do it justice if I’m honest! 🙂 Such a beautiful place but then again I would say that! x
Gorgeous pics! The fresh air at this time of year really does you the world of good xx #justanotherlinky
Very lucky you are x
Thanks! I honestly don’t remember when we did this walk but this was a while ago now. Will do it again this year hopefully! x
Looks like a great walk and gorgeous pictures. Thanks for linking up to #justanotherlinky xx