A ramble in the Ceiriog Valley

David Lloyd George, the last Liberal Party Prime Minister of Britain, described the Ceiriog Valley as ‘a piece of heaven that has fallen to earth’. For 18 miles (29km), from its source on the slopes of Mount Fferna in the Berwyns to its meeting with the Dee, the beautiful Afon Ceiriog meanders through oak woods, rocky hillsides and fertile cattle pastures. Yet in 1923 city planners wanted to turn this little piece of heaven into a huge reservoir. If these planners had won the day, the locals living within an area of 13,600 acres (5,504ha) would have been evicted from their homes. Fortunately parliament denied their whims.

While Glyn Ceiriog is the largest village, Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog is the most beautiful. Lying by the confluence of the Ceiriog and a tributary, the Gwrachen, it was a natural fording place for drovers bound for the markets of England. You’ll be using some of their old roads on this walk. The village and its church take their name from the 5th-century missionary, St Garmon. The present church is early Victorian and, unusually, has two pulpits. A mound in the churchyard, known as Tomen Garmon, is believed to be a Bronze Age burial mound and the place where the missionary preached.

While Glyn Ceiriog is the largest village, Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog is the most beautiful. Lying by the confluence of the Ceiriog and a tributary, the Gwrachen, it was a natural fording place for drovers bound for the markets of England. You’ll be using some of their old roads on this walk. The village and its church take their name from the 5th-century missionary, St Garmon. The present church is early Victorian and, unusually, has two pulpits. A mound in the churchyard, known as Tomen Garmon, is believed to be a Bronze Age burial mound and the place where the missionary preached.

From The Hand, take the eastbound lane past the church and uphill, with the pastures of the Ceiriog below to your left.

Leave the lane for a farm track on the left. This track ends at a barn. Keep to the right of the barn and aim for a gate beyond it. Through the gate maintain your direction, over the shoulder of a grassy knoll, then aim for a stile in a fence ahead. Beyond this, cross another field down to a stile to the left of a gate, after which go over a stile on the right.

Bear left, crossing two small streams to join a track past Ty’n-y-fedw farm. Don’t go through the gate, but follow a grass path right beside the fence, shortly entering a wood.

Keep ahead to the far end of the woods. Emerging into a field, go straight ahead to go through a gate at the corner of a farm lane. Turn right uphill and shortly after bear right on a rising farm track. Ignore the left fork track to reach a lane. Cross to the ongoing track, which climbs the high pastures.

At a crossroads, turn right along a green track – part of the Upper Ceiriog Way. This heads southwest towards the green hill known as Cefn-Hîr-fynydd.

After about 300yds (274m) leave this track through a gate on the right. Head west by the right edge of the main rushy area and towards Pen y Glôg’s sparse crags, to find the small stile in the next fence, then the waymarked metal/wooden fence beyond it. Through the gate head downhill below a low clump of rocks, and aim for the distant farm of Cyrchynan-isaf.

Lower down, a developing grassy track runs on through the valley of Nant y Glôg, contouring the lower slopes of Pen y Glôg.

After swinging right with the lively stream the track terminates by a lane to the south of Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog. Turn right along the lane past several attractive cottages and the village school to arrive by The Hand pub and hotel in the village square.