Craig y Parc
A trail that bridges the gap between two ancient hillforts, skims along the bones of an old railway track and then climbs into lush green woodland, it makes the perfect start or end point to a route reaching right the way up from Cardiff to Pontypridd and beyond.
It isn’t every day you can bag two hillforts within half an hour! The Llwynda-Ddu hillfort and Craig Y Parc hillforts are remnants from the Iron Age. Often wrought in wood and earthworks, they predate castles by over 1000 years meaning that what little remains of the original structure is usually seen only as a smooth gradient in the ground.
Yet you can discern a lot simply by standing in the spot. Consider how far you can see, whether the hills are wooded or not. In your mind, piece together what borders it was built to guard and how many people might have fit within the enclosure in times of need. When visiting hillforts, it’s a chance to flex your imagination and consider a world built in wood rather than stone, secured with iron and warmed by fire.