Llangatwg Quarry on Mynydd Pen Cyrn at The Black Mountains

Just south of Crug Hywel (Crickhowell) are some excellent man-made cliffs; the Llangattock (Llangatwg) quarries. They are carved into the north facing slops of Mynydd Pen Cyrn and give rise to a striking landscape with good views to the north.

Whilst this page is not of the usual layout, it does have some nice pictures of the quarries and shots from the area showing some of the mountains to the north. It’s main reason for being here is because I’ve been having loads of trouble getting proper click-able thumbnails to work, with the right surrounds, and captions you can reach, and this page has been something of a guinea pig for resolving the problems. Looks like I’m pretty much there

The quarries extend for around 3 miles along the Llangatwg escarpment, and their main reason for being there was the construction of the Brecon and Monmouthshire and Brecon canal between 1797 and 1812. Tram roads linked the quarries with Llangattock wharf, the Gilwern iron works in the Clydach Gorge and with the Garnddyrys iron works at Llanfoist. There are also abandoned kilns very near to the quarries, used in the production of lime. Lime was used in the iron making process, and had applications in agriculture where it was used for soil ’sweetening’.

Finally, at the base of the cliffs can be found entrances to the longest cave system in the UK (at over 28km of passages), Daren Cilau. The entrance was a very small hole in the base of the cliff; I would have had to wriggle in as even on my hands and knees the roof would have been too low. Shining a torch inside did not reveal how long this tiny passage was as it curved almost straight away. We were all very intrigued about this, and want to go inside to explore; however Axeman pulled up a bit of information about the cave system on his iPhone, and it turns out the entrance crawl is over half a kilometer long… maybe another day.