The Cymru Cycles

The Cymru Cycles The Cymru Cycles is a Welsh heritage project created by Nathan Williams. www.cymrucycles.com

Through books, articles, maps, and illustrations, it explores the landscapes, history, folklore, and people of Wales as one connected story.

✝️Dark-Age Tywi Valley: How Saint Teilo's Church Shaped LlandeiloLong before the present medieval church was built, this...
28/07/2026

✝️Dark-Age Tywi Valley: How Saint Teilo's Church Shaped Llandeilo

Long before the present medieval church was built, this hilltop overlooking the Tywi Valley was already home to one of Wales' earliest Christian communities. Around the sixth century, Saint Teilo is believed to have established a small llan here, a sacred enclosed settlement that gradually grew into the town of Llandeilo.

The first church was probably little more than a modest timber building with a thatched roof, surrounded by a circular enclosure containing simple timber houses, workshops, gardens and a cemetery. Rather than serving only as a place of worship, the llan was the centre of community life. Travellers found hospitality here, children received religious instruction and local people gathered for baptisms, festivals and important meetings. Over time, the settlement became one of the most important ecclesiastical centres in southwest Wales.

By the ninth or tenth century, the community had grown prosperous enough to commission beautifully carved stone monuments such as the remarkable square-headed cross now preserved inside the church. Standing over two metres high near the entrance to the sacred enclosure, its intricate interlace symbolised eternal life while proclaiming the Christian identity of everyone who entered. More than a thousand years later, this surviving fragment offers a rare glimpse of the thriving early medieval community that once flourished here.

🧭 Did you know?

The name Llandeilo simply means "The sacred enclosure (llan) of Teilo." Many Welsh place names beginning with Llan- preserve the memory of early Christian communities founded over 1,400 years ago.

📖 St Teilo's Church is just one chapter in the much longer story of the Tywi Valley. From ancient seas and Bronze Age cairns to Iron Age hillforts, Roman gold mines, medieval castles and modern farming, every generation has left its mark upon this remarkable landscape.

🔗 Explore the complete story in my latest Discovering Cymru article:
www.cymrucycles.com/post/tywi-valley-through-time

27/07/2026

⛪ Dark-Age Tywi Valley: St Teilo's Church – 1,500 Years of Christian Worship

Standing above the Tywi Valley, St Teilo's Church has been a place of Christian worship for around 1,500 years. Tradition records that Saint Teilo founded an early timber church here during the sixth century, beside a natural spring that became an important source of fresh water for both the early community and the growing settlement of Llandeilo.

This short reconstruction follows the story of the site through time, from Saint Teilo's original church to the larger early medieval church that stood here centuries later. Discover how faith, landscape and history combined to create one of Wales' most enduring places of worship.

🎥 Turn on your sound and watch with subtitles.

Have you ever visited St Teilo's Church?

📖 Explore the complete story in my latest Discovering Cymru article:

🔗 www.cymrucycles.com/post/tywi-valley-through-time

🏺Ancient Tywi Valley: Inside One of Wales' Largest HillfortsStanding on the summit of Garn Goch today, it's easy to over...
27/07/2026

🏺Ancient Tywi Valley: Inside One of Wales' Largest Hillforts
Standing on the summit of Garn Goch today, it's easy to overlook what once occupied this windswept hill. Beyond the scattered stone walls and great cairns lie the remains of one of the largest Iron Age hillforts in Wales, overlooking the Tywi Valley more than 2,000 years ago.

The immense dry-stone ramparts enclosed around 19 hectares of hilltop, creating a defended settlement where families lived in circular timber roundhouses with thatched roofs. Excavations have uncovered houses, hearths and storage pits, showing that Garn Goch was far more than a refuge in times of war. It was a thriving farming community that raised livestock, cultivated the surrounding land and controlled an important route through southwest Wales.
Its location was carefully chosen. From the ramparts, almost every approach to the Tywi Valley can be seen for miles. The enormous stone defences protected the settlement while proclaiming the wealth and power of the people who built them.

One of Garn Goch's greatest mysteries survives at its highest point. A large Bronze Age cairn stands within the hillfort, built more than a thousand years before the settlement itself. Rather than removing this ancient monument, the builders enclosed it within their defences, suggesting it retained its significance long after its original purpose. Even today, the pronounced hollow at its centre raises intriguing questions about its construction or later history.

🧭 Did you know?

The walls of Garn Goch stretch for almost a kilometre around the hilltop. Built entirely from locally quarried limestone without mortar, they remain one of the most impressive Iron Age stone fortifications surviving anywhere in Wales.
Garn Goch is just one chapter in the much longer story of the Tywi Valley. From ancient seas and Ice Age glaciers to Bronze Age monuments, Roman forts, medieval castles and modern farming, every generation has left its mark upon this remarkable landscape.

📖 Explore the complete story in my latest Discovering Cymru article:
🔗 www.cymrucycles.com/post/tywi-valley-through-time

21/07/2026

🏰 Ancient Tywi Valley: Garn Goch – One of Wales’ Largest Iron Age Hillforts

Perched high above the Tywi Valley, Garn Goch is one of the largest and most impressive Iron Age hillforts in Wales. Over 2,000 years ago, its massive stone ramparts enclosed a thriving community of roundhouses, livestock and farmland, while commanding spectacular views across the surrounding landscape.

This short reconstruction brings the hillfort back to life, showing how Garn Goch may have looked during its height. From the surviving cairn and fallen ramparts to the settlement once contained within them, discover how this remarkable hillfort overlooked the Tywi Valley long before the Romans arrived.

🎥 Turn on your sound and watch with subtitles.

Have you ever visited Garn Goch?

📖 Explore the complete story in my latest Discovering Cymru article:

🔗 www.cymrucycles.com/post/tywi-valley-through-time

🌿Natural Tywi Valley: How the Tywi Created One of Wales' Most Fertile LandscapesThe broad green fields of the Tywi Valle...
15/07/2026

🌿Natural Tywi Valley: How the Tywi Created One of Wales' Most Fertile Landscapes

The broad green fields of the Tywi Valley weren't always here, they were built by the river itself. Over thousands of years, the River Tywi has continually eroded, transported and deposited sediment, slowly creating the fertile floodplain that supports farming and wildlife today.

During floods, the Tywi spills onto its floodplain carrying huge quantities of suspended sediment. As the water spreads out, it slows and drops its load. Coarser material settles closest to the river, while fine silt and clay are carried further across the valley. Each flood leaves behind only a thin layer of fresh sediment, but after thousands of years these layers have built the deep, nutrient-rich soils that make the Tywi Valley one of Wales' most productive agricultural landscapes.

The rounded pebbles scattered across the river's banks tell part of the story. Broken from the mountains upstream, they have been rolled, scraped and knocked together during their journey downstream, gradually becoming smoother with every mile they travel.

As the river winds across the valley, water flows fastest around the outside of each bend, eroding the bank and carving steep river cliffs. On the inside of the bend, the current slows, allowing gravel, sand and smaller sediments to settle and build gently sloping point bars. This constant erosion on one side and deposition on the other causes the river to migrate sideways, gradually reworking the entire valley floor.

🧭 Did you know?

The River Tywi's clean, fast-flowing water supports one of Wales' most important river ecosystems. Salmon, trout, otters, kingfishers and dippers all depend on the healthy habitats created by its ever-changing channels and gravel bars.

The fertile floodplains of the Tywi Valley are just one chapter in the much longer story of this remarkable landscape. From ancient seas and Ice Age glaciers to medieval castles and modern farming, every generation has left its mark upon the valley.

📖 Explore the complete story in my latest Discovering Cymru article:
🔗 www.cymrucycles.com/post/tywi-valley-through-time

🏭 Industrial Snowdonia: How Quarrymen Carved a MountainStanding at the edge of Dinorwig Quarry, it's hard to believe tha...
10/07/2026

🏭 Industrial Snowdonia: How Quarrymen Carved a Mountain
Standing at the edge of Dinorwig Quarry, it's hard to believe that this vast landscape was created almost entirely by human hands. What was once a mountainside became one of the largest slate quarries in the world, where generations of Welsh quarrymen extracted the stone that roofed towns and cities across Britain and beyond. Few places demonstrate humanity's ability to reshape the landscape on such a remarkable scale.

The work began by blasting huge blocks of slate from the mountainside using black powder. Skilled quarrymen then split these blocks by hand with hammers and chisels, producing thin roofing slates renowned for their strength and durability. Once finished, the slate was transported down the mountain by a remarkable network of inclines, tramways and narrow-gauge railways, before continuing to Port Dinorwig (Y Felinheli) for export across Britain and around the world.

The quarry transformed north Wales. At its peak, more than 3,000 quarrymen worked at Dinorwig, producing around 100,000 tonnes of slate every year. Entire communities grew around the industry, with new homes, schools and chapels built to support the thousands of families whose livelihoods depended upon the mountain. By the late nineteenth century, Dinorwig had become the second largest slate quarry in the world, helping Welsh slate earn an international reputation for quality.

🧭 Did you know?

In 2021, the Slate Landscape of Northwest Wales, including Dinorwig Quarry, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of how the Welsh slate industry transformed both the landscape of north Wales and roofing across the world.

The slate quarries of Llanberis are just one chapter in the much longer story of Eryri. From Ice Age glaciers and prehistoric monuments to early Christian communities, Welsh princes and mountain farming, every generation has left its mark upon these remarkable mountains.

📖 Explore the complete story in my latest Discovering Cymru article:
🔗 www.cymrucycles.com/post/eryri-through-time

Address

Hirwaun
Aberdare

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Cymru Cycles posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category