Llangollen: Crags, Castles and Cistercians

Richard Hardy

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From the fantastic preserved railway station beside the Dee in the centre of Llangollen, the walk takes you up to visit Wales' highest castle, Castell Dinas Bran, before following the Offa's Dyke path beneath the cliffs of Eglwyseg through woodland to reach the Cistercian ruins at Valle Crucis. From here a short climb and descent leads to Horseshoe Falls, built by Thomas Telford to separate the Dee from the canal, then a flat, canalside walk, with perhaps some horsedrawn canal-boats for company back to the start.

Wales - North Wales - Denbighshire - Berwyn

Features

Ancient Monument, Birds, Cafe, Castle, Church, Flowers, Food Shop, Gift Shop, Good for Kids, Great Views, Hills or Fells, Industrial Archaeology, Museum, Pub, Public Transport, Restaurant, River, Tea Shop, Toilets, Waterfall, Wildlife, Woodland

22/02/2018 - Rhodri Thomas

An excellent walk with great views.There are no longer any ladder stiles on this walk, they have all been replaced with traditional stiles.The time suggested is accurate.Navigational instructions are good.

13/09/2012 - Richard Hardy

I've downgraded the dog friendliness of the walk as a result of Barries comments. If you're dogs aren't good with stiles then they may need to be lifted which may not be appropriate for larger dogs

13/09/2012 - Richard Hardy

Barrie, thanks for your comment, sorry that you had trouble with the stiles, but great that you loved the walk. When I wrote the walk up we only had our dog Blue with us and he is a bit of a stile master, I suspect our new dog Robbie would have struggled so I've amended the dog friendliness of the walk in line with your comments.

31/08/2012 - Barrie Fearnley

CORRECTION to my previous comment: It is the fencing either side of the stiles that has the barbed wire top and bottom, not the stiles themselves, which are easy for humans.

29/08/2012 - Barrie Fearnley

DOG OWNERS BEWARE....I did this beautiful walk some time ago on my own with no problems. Yesterday I took my friend and her dog ... with problems. We had to back-track twice as the stiles had no way through for her medium sized dog. They were too high for him to jump or climb and were tightly wired with barbed wire top and bottom. (Midway between 9&10 and near point 13 making the river crossing impossible.) We detoured along roads to the Abbey not feeling inclined to try the ladder stiles at 16 & 17. I realise that 'Walkingworld' cannot do much to make the stiles dog friendly, but a mention of potential difficulties could be included in the description of the walk.

21/04/2012 - keith evans

Done this walk many times as it is only 20 miles away. Walked on 20/04/12 and discovered that at waypoint 9 the stile has been re-instated.

07/10/2011 - Richard Hardy

With reference to Karen's comment below, it is generally only dairy bulls and cows with calves that are problematic Walkingworld provide advice about cattle on the site. http://www.walkingworld.com/Articles/General-info/Getting-started/Cows-and-bulls.aspx In all my years walking I've never had any problems with cattle, with or without my dogs, so please don't let them put you off.

01/10/2011 - karen mcdermott

My husband and I did this walk on a lovely day, Sept 28th. There were lots of people out walking and families. The walk is beautiful but we did encounter cattle on 2 occasions, the first at point 9 down the grassy track the field you bear left across had lots of cattle and a bull who wasn't so keen on us but later let 2 older walkers pass through. And again before the abbey there was a ladder stile into a field full of cows with calves and we crossed it with others luckily. But apart from that the walk was very interesting.

25/02/2011 - Judy Brua

This is a lovely and varied walk - castle, ruined abbey, river, canal. It is a hard haul up to the castle at the beginning, but after that it is pretty easy. We walked in poor visibility and we had a bit of trouble finding the way off the top of the hill with the castle at Waymark 5. A bit confused because we did find a kissing gate but it wasn't that pictured at Waymark 6 (which is further down the hill). But as long as you aren't leaving the hill the same way you came up, there is basically only one way off, which is the route you want.