waters of Carmarthen Bay at Llansteffan, navigable since Roman times.
The long track beneath the northern slopes of Y Mynydd Du (Walk 18)
The west of the county is more rolling and largely given over to beef and dairy farming. It is also where you will find the county town, Carmarthen, the most important town in west Wales for almost 2000 years and the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the whole of Wales since Roman times.
The south of the county is bordered by Carmarthen Bay, abutted to the east by the Gower Area of Outstanding National Beauty and to the east by Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. In between these two ‘book ends’ lie 129km of golden sandy beaches, ever changing river estuaries, awe-inspiring castles and pretty coastal towns, now all linked by the Carmarthenshire section of the Wales Coast Path. It is here that the largest town in the county can be found, Llanelli, situated in its southeastern corner, on the Loughor Estuary and famous for its proud rugby tradition, but also for its tinplate industry. It is in this area that Carmarthenshire’s chief coal deposits were found, an extension of the South Wales coalfield, with most of the mining occurring in the Gwendraeth Valley and Llanelly districts. The county has few other mineral deposits of note. Limestone was quarried and burnt in the Black Mountains, mainly for agricultural use, but metallic ores are rare, with small quantities of iron-ore being mined in the hills around Llandeilo and Llandovery and much smaller quantities of gold being extracted near Pumsaint.
History
Carmarthenshire is dotted with prehistoric remains, including burial chambers, standing stones, hill forts, tumuli and stone circles, very few of which have been excavated adequately and few of these have been dated scientifically. One exception is Coygan Cave, a limestone cave near Laugharne, now destroyed by quarrying but which was extensively excavated and produced archaeological finds that included two hand axes of Mousterian type associated with Neanderthals, from about 50,000 years ago. Other palaeo-ecological work has shown that human exploitation of this region occurred from round about this time, albeit with varying and uneven intensity, but particularly the expansion of activity from the late Neolithic, which can be equated with a general growth in settlement and agriculture, similar to the rest of the British Isles.
When the Romans invaded Britannia in AD43, Carmarthenshire formed part of the lands of the Demetae tribe, a Celtic people of the late Iron Age. Following their submission, the Romans built a fort at Carmarthen, Moridunum, followed by others at Loughor, Llandeilo and Llandovery. They also had a settlement at the Dolaucothi Gold Mines near Pumsaint.
When the Romans departed, South Wales returned to the same structure of small, independent kingdoms as in the Iron Age, with the Demetae taking control of Carmarthenshire, enlarging the town of Moridunum and using it as their capital, thus making it the oldest, continually inhabited settlement in Wales. The town eventually became known as Caerfyrddin, anglicized into Carmarthen, which subsequently gave its name to the county.
During the fifth and sixth centuries, Carmarthenshire’s inhabitants became more civilised and were also introduced to doctrines of Christianity, thanks to a group of hard working Celtic missionaries, notably St David and St Teilo. In the ninth and 10th centuries, the influx of Irish from the west and British from the east began to test the tribal boundaries and in AD920, Hywel Dda, the prince of South Wales, scrapped old kingdoms and created four new ones, Gwent, Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth, the latter including the region of Carmarthenshire.
In 1080 the Normans first appeared on the shores of Carmarthen Bay and following numerous skirmishes, conquered Deheubarth in 1093. By the end of King Henry I’s reign, in 1135, the great castles of Kidwelly, Carmarthen, Laugharne and Llanstephan had been constructed. Although the former kingdom of Deheubarth briefly re-emerged in the 12th century under Maredudd ap Gruffydd and the Lord Rhys, the Normans soon re-exerted control and Deheubarth ceased to exist as a kingdom after 1234. By the Statutes of Rhuddlan (1284), Edward I formed the counties of Cardigan and Carmarthen and in the ensuing years, the prosperity of the new county increased considerably, resulting in Edward III naming Carmarthen as the foremost town in Wales for the wool trade.
Afon Teifi at Cenarth (Walk 2)
In the reign of Henry IV, Owain Glyndwr, the last of the Welsh Princes, upset the apple cart for a time, having obtained the assistance of an army of 12,000 men from France and, being joined by several of the Welsh chieftains, he set about regaining control of the country. Unfortunately for him, his battle plan was flawed, particularly with regard to a lack of artillery to defend his strongholds and ships to protect the coastline, and in 1409 he was driven out of the area by the superior resources of the English. Amazingly, he was never captured, despite a huge ransom on his head.
Following the Civil War in the 17th century, the castles of Carmarthenshire that had supported the royal cause soon fell to the parliamentarian forces, resulting in Cromwell ordering their dismantling and so preventing their use in any further skirmishes.
Old barns at Ty hen (Walk 3)
In the ensuing years, the great Welsh spiritual and educational movement had its roots in the little village of Llanddowror, where the celebrated and pious vicar, Griffith Jones, had become the founder of the Welsh circulating charity schools.
Nature reserves and wildlife habitats
In a county as large as Carmarthenshire, and with so many diverse habitats, it is not surprising that nature and wildlife is well catered for. The county is justly renowned for its magnificent coast, quiet estuaries, steep wooded valleys and vast expanses of mountain and moorland. On top of this there are hundreds of kilometres of hedgerow and hedgebank, many of which are of historical importance. With the patchwork of woodlands throughout the county and the thousands of acres of fields, it soon becomes evident that the biodiversity is huge. Add to this the rich abundance of species that live in the sea and on the seabed around the Carmarthenshire coast and the wildlife habitats increase even more.
The magnificent ruins of Laugharne Castle (Walk 26)
The Mynydd Du, in the east of the county, falls largely within the boundaries of the Brecon Beacons National Park and all the protection legislation that that affords. There are 12 nature reserves, cared for by the Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and 81 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), covering over 17,000ha and ranging in size from small fields to long rivers, disused quarries to large areas of mountainside, and this excludes the ones that are found in the Carmarthenshire part of Brecon Beacons National Park. There are two Special Protection Areas (SPA) and seven Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), sites considered to be of international importance for nature conservation. Carmarthenshire also has five Local Nature Reserves (LNRs), sites designated by local authorities as supporting a rich variety of wildlife or geological features and which allow local people contact with the natural environment. The RSPB have a reserve at Gwenffrwd-Dinas, in the north of the county and there is also the splendid National Wetlands Centre Wales, on the Bury Inlet, where it is possible to see wild birds up to 50,000 strong during the winter months.
Market hall, Laugharne (Walk 26)
Transport
Swansea, Llanelli and Carmarthen are the main transport hubs in the area, all being on the inter-city route from London Paddington to South and West Wales.
