Foel y Ddinas Merionethshire

Images are sourced within 2km of 52.860978/-3.5578824 or Grid Reference SH9530. Thanks to Geograph Open Source API. All images are credited.

Ridge leading SSW from Foel Goch towards Foel y Geifr

Colin Park

Edge of forestry

North-east of Foel Goch above the Hirnant valley.

John H Darch

Fence in the valley

John H Darch

Early morning in Cwm Hirnant by the ruin at Foel -y-ddinas

Colin Park

Forestry road near Ystrad-y-groes

Steven Brown

Farm buildings in Cwm Hirnant

Roger Davies

Cattle enjoying an early morning paddle

Roger Davies

Lane passes through Cwm Hirnant

Roger Davies

Forestry quarry

A magnificent exposure of a fault-plane cutting across rocks of the Foel-y-Ddinas Mudstones, which belong to the Hirnantian stage at the very end of the Ordovician Period. The Forestry Commission must be commended for creating so much new rock exposure when the network of forest roads was built. Now, with maturing trees and self-sown recruits, the site has a pleasant and dramatic aspect.

Jonathan Wilkins

Forestry track

Angular rubble and dried brashings make a hard contrast with regenerating forest on the slope of Foel-y-Ddinas. In the background the lower part of Cwm Hirnant stretches out through the forest.

Jonathan Wilkins

Forest track 2

It was most generous that the Forestry Commission should make such a fine track for us to traverse the remarkably steep slopes of Foel-y-Ddinas above Bwlch yr Hwch.

Jonathan Wilkins

Cleaved mudstones

The Foel-y-Ddinas Mudstones belong to the Hirnantian stage of the Ordovician Period, and are exposed all along the forestry road that circles the eponymous peak of Foel-y-Ddinas. It is interesting to observe the change of dip of the beds, which is not related to the way that the rock breaks along well-defined planes, or cleavage. Here the cleavage is inclined steeply to the lower left of the image, while the bedding is much less obvious and inclined slightly less steeply to the right. This can be seen most clearly in the middle and upper parts of the image.

Jonathan Wilkins

Frost-shattered outcrop

Strongly-cleaved outcrops of the Foel-y-Ddinas Mudstones have weathered and shattered under glacial and peri-glacial conditions. In the left of the image the resulting frost-shattered outcrop has collapsed so that the individual slatey shards are aligned with the outcrop surface. To the right, the original cleavage orientation has been maintained except where soil movement downhill has rotated the shards progressively, giving the appearance of a folded outcrop.

Jonathan Wilkins

Farm access road leading to Gwern-yr-ewig

A forestry road rises from Cwm Hirnant and continues as the access to the farm at Gwern-yr-ewig; Foel Cwm-Sian Llwyd is the moorland mountain seen across the valley.

Trevor Littlewood

Route of public footpath descending towards Gwern-yr-ewig

Gwern-yr-ewig is a farm on land north of the Penllyn Forest. The view is along the line of a path descending northwards from a forestry road at the edge of the trees through the agricultural land about the farm.

Trevor Littlewood

Foel-y-ddinas

Foel-y-ddinas is a collection of farm buildings in Cwm Hirnant below the coniferous plantations on Craig Foel-y-ddinas.

Trevor Littlewood

Field near Maesafallen

Maesafallen is a farm in Cwm Hirnant, a valley dominated by coniferous plantations rather than farmland; both landscapes are seen here from the valley's minor road near to the narrowness of Bwlch yr Hwch.

Trevor Littlewood