Penwyllt Circuit

Penwyllt Circuit – extensive views in the less visited South West of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) Park, you look down the Upper Swansea Valley and beyond as you follow old railway lines and tramroads.

This enjoyable, circular walk takes you through a fascinating area full of remains from its industrial past in the South West of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park.

This is a grade 3 walk – routes with occasional long gradients, a solid but undulating surface in places and kissing gates or stiles. There are no seats.

Of interest

As you start out from Penwyllt – ‘the wild end’ in Welsh – it is difficult to imagine that this quiet former quarrying village was a major production centre for quicklime and brick in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The five limestone quarries and brickworks which operated here between the 1870s and 1950s must have been quite a sight and made quite a din.

Along part of the route you will be following the old Neath and Brecon Railway line where you may still detect buried sleepers.

You will spot several piles of stone which hint at this industrial past, including the remains of the old winding house.