Pembrey 5m (Carmarthen Ramblers)

On Saturday 21st September the Carmarthen ramblers were lead on an interesting five-mile walk that incorporated forestry, woodland, a nature reserve, the remains of a fourteenth-century mansion house, Pembrey Mountain and about four and a half miles of the St Illtyd’s Walk. The weather for the day was fine with clear blue skies but with a stiff breeze in places.

The walk started from the car park at the Penybedd picnic area from where they immediately picked up the St Illtyd’s Walk long-distance track and followed the flat forestry road through Penybedd Wood for about half a mile then onto a track to pass a number of Dutch Gable style houses before reaching Penybedd.

Turning right here they crossed the main railway line and A484 Kidwelly to Llanelli road and the bed of a disused railway line – now a popular cycle track - to shortly turn right onto a grassy causeway into Ffrwd Farm Mire Nature Reserve where they crossed a boardwalk and stopped to appreciate the information boards. These show that the nature reserve is part of the Gwernydd Penbre site of Special Scientific Interest and that the reed beds are home to many interesting species such as otter, water rail, reed and sedge warblers.

They crossed the marsh on an embankment path alongside an old canal for about three-quarters of a mile to meet the B4317, which they crossed to enter the driveway of Coed following the signs for the Pembrey Mountain Walks. This took them into Coed Rhyal as they contoured around the foot of the hill behind Ffrwd before climbing through the woodland into the open fields on top of Pembrey Mountain where they stopped for lunch with fine views of the low lying marshland around Kidwelly and lower Gwendraeth Valley and across The Burry estuary to Whitford Burrows and Llanmadoc Hill on North Gower.

Their route took them down a path to meet the mountain road where they left the St Illtyd Trail. A few metres further on they reached Pembrey Court Farm where they stopped to view the remains of the largest surviving pre-Renaissance manor house in Carmarthenshire whilst Brenda related its’ history.

The last half-mile of the route followed a footpath down to the main road in Pembrey then into Factory Road to cross the railway bridge and finished back at Penybedd car park.

Points of interest

Saint Illtyd’s Walk is a 103km / 64 mile long waymarked long-distance footpath that runs from Pembrey Country Park through rural eastern Carmarthenshire and Neath Port Talbot to end at Margam Country Park south of Port Talbot. Saint Illtyd (or Illtud) was a late fifth/early sixth-century Welsh saint.

The route skirts the fringes of Burry Port, heading east to the Lliedi reservoirs then to Pontarddulais. It then turns northeast heading up onto Mynydd y Gwair then heads southeast to the Swansea Canal north of Pontardawe. The route then climbs east over the northern end of the Mynydd Marchywel ridge and down to cross the River Dulais at Crynant. From there it climbs steeply up through forestry to Sarn Helen and then steeply down to Resolven in the Vale of Neath. Passing Melincourt Falls it climbs again and then turns southbound for Cwm Afan. From there it runs through Afan Forest Park to the village of Bryn thence through more before dropping down to Margam Country Park.

Penybedd Wood used to be the nursery for Pembrey Forest, one of the earliest Forestry Commission Plantations in Wales. Now comes under Natural Resources Wales. The Pen-y-Bedd Trail follows sandy tracks through Corsican pine trees. This area was once the site of a Royal Ordnance factory which closed in the 1960s and the walkthrough Pen-y-Bedd Wood passes by some industrial remains.

Nowadays Pen-y-Bedd Wood is the home of the Pembrey Conservation Trust who carry out many practical tasks in Pen-y-Bedd and in Pembrey Forest.

Six Dutch-Gable Houses were built after WW1 under a Lloyd George scheme to provide ‘Homes for Heroes’. 18 ex-soldiers settled there.

Ffrwd Farm Mire Nature Reserve site is bordered by the towpath of the disused Ashburnham Canal, built by Lord Ashburnham at the end of the 18th century to carry coal from mines in Coed Rhyal to the coast. It was later linked to the Kidwelly –Llanelli Canal, itself replaced by a mineral railway that is now a cycle path.

The reserve is owned and managed by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales. Part of the Gwernydd Pen Bre SSSI and is a nationally important wetland that contains a range of habitats. A boardwalk and small picnic area were installed some years ago.

Cwrt Farm was once a fine country house, owned by the Ashburnham family for many years. It was an integral part of the cultural, political, economic and social framework of Pembrey since early in the 14th century. The last Lord Ashburnham died in 1924. The Friends of Court Farm was established in 2006 with the aim of restoring the building.