15 pretty places to visit in Wales that are still a secret (2024)

Depending on how strictly you disseminate fact from legend, Wales is a land of witches, Neolithic burial mounds, giants, Kings and anthropomorphic beasts with heroes, from Arthur to Merlin that seem equally at home in comic strips as they do than in academic treatises. But why pick hairs about the verity of some of the legends when the landscapes are this abundantly fecund and gorgeous? Whether you hanker for the truth or bathe in the myths, here are 15 of the most exquisite secret spots in Wales to track down for yourself.

North Wales and Anglesey

The Gop, nr Prestatyn

For a nation that loves place names with multiple vowels, there’s a simplicity to the name ‘Gop’, which undermines its caliginous origins. Four miles south of Prestatyn, the views of the Clwydian Hills from the summit would have been, and still are, impressive enough. So what motivated the construction of an extra mound of earth to raise the peak even higher is a mystery. Regardless, the result is the second-largest artificial Neolithic burial mound in the UK. Prehistoric remnants have been found in the mound itself and in the nearby caves where, one can only assume, maledictions were once intoned to ancient, and perhaps rather demanding, Gods.

How to get there: Park on the High Street in the village of Trelawnyd (on the A5151) and follow the gravel path that leads off the street. Follow the yellow signs to the Gop

Puffin Island

As the name strongly implies, you will see puffins here, but they’re dwarfed by the great cormorant population, which outnumbers the human population by an easy piece of math: around 750 to precisely none. Uninhabited for centuries, Puffin Island, lying off the eastern coast of Anglesey, was a monastery before it was moved to the mainland at some point in the sixth century. Seals are here most of the year and, while you can’t set foot on the island anymore, it’s easy to see the birdlife from the boat trips that chug around the perimeter. When not gazing upon the razorbills and guillemots, take a look at the old quarries; this is where the limestone that built Caernarfon Castle was built, and it was where Thomas Telford sourced the raw material for his bridges that defined the first wave of the Industrial Revolution.

How to get there: The island is four miles from Beaumaris. Two operators, Seawake and Seacoast Safaris offer guided boat trips around Puffin Island

Melin Llynon

Formerly Marcus Wareing’s head pastry chef in London, Richard Hold chose to swap shortcrust for canvas sails when he moved back to his home island of Anglesey to oversee the revival of Melin Llynon, the only working windmill in the whole of Wales. Dating back to 1775, this is the sole functioning survivor of what were once over 50 windmills scattered across Anglesey. The emphasis here isn’t on producing expensive bread but on using the flour to make doughnuts and chocolate, both are for sale in the café called ‘Minut’ alongside the windmill’s own gin, worth buying for the wonderfully retro bottle label alone.

How to get there: Take the A5025 from Holyhead inland for around fifteen minutes

Snowdonia and The Llyn

Parc Glynlifon

The immense redwoods, waterfall, amphitheatre, fountain and carved wooden animals that are scattered around this eight square mile realm are here thanks to Thomas John Wynn, the second Lord Newborough, who planted over four million trees on this land so many that in 1828 he received a Gold Medal from the Royal Society of Arts. Magnificent as the parks are, the story of the Grade I-listed manor house is the most fascinating reason to come at the moment. Empty for three years and going quickly to seed, Plas Glynllifon was the location for the Prince of Wales’s Investiture Ball back in 1969. With plans to turn the mansion into a luxury hotel having recently bitten the dust, now is the time to visit (though you can’t go inside) to see a historic home with a very uncertain future.

How to get there: Twenty minutes drive from Bangor to the North and Porthmadog to the South. Head along the A499 until you reach the large arch entrance (parcglynllifon.cymru)

Black Rock Sands, nr Porthmadog

Once one of the busiest slate ports in the country, Porthmadog has long been in a state of post-industrial slumber. There’s a slew of well-known sights in the vicinity, such as the Ffestiniog Heritage Railway and the Italianate village of Portmeirion. But far more worthy of your time is the lesser-known village of Morfa Bychan and Black Rock Sands, Wales’ only ‘drive on’ beach. You literally can park on the sands (though it’s advisable to check when the tide comes in), such is the immense size of what, despite the name, is actually a beach of creamy, yellow-coloured sands with rock pools and headland caves you can clamber into at low tide.

How to get there: It’s an easy ten-minute drive from Porthmadog on the A497 straight to Morfa Bychan, then follow the signs to the beach.

Inland North Wales

Clywedog Trail

At just over seven miles long, this is a trail that can completed in one day, taking you from the dull, suburbs of Wrexham onto a journey back to the origins of the Industrial Revolution. Take a hike up the heather-strewn moor at World’s End to look down upon the valley, which was once choked with mines dredging a lead ore called galena from the deep; there’s one engine house and pithead derrick left at Minera to give you an idea of the bellicose industry that once swamped the area. The trail continues along the River Clywedog. Keep going, and you’ll see a section of the mighty earthen barricade of Offa’s Dyke, built by the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia in the late 10th century. Continue through the verdant woods to the Bersham Ironworks where cannons used in the Napoleonic and American Civil Wars were fashioned.

How to get there: Park in Wrexham town centre and catch a bus from outside the fire station to Minera Post Office, which takes around 25 minutes. From here you can walk the whole trail, leaving you only a mile or so to walk back to town afterwards.

Cambrian Coast

Mwnt

A fantastically isolated hamlet, Mwnt is home to one of Wales’ least known, but most captivating bays. Dolphins and seals pop up here from time to time though it’s also worth looking into what may be the loneliest looking chapel in Wales (and there’s some strong competition for this title), above Mwnt’s whitewashed cliffs. Dating back to the sixth century, you should watch your step around this solitary white-washed ecclesiastical outpost. In 1155, invading Flemings were annihilated by the Welsh in a battle here and human skeletons dating from the conflict are still occasionally being dug up to this day.

How to get there: Cardigan is the nearest town of any size. From here, take the Maes Y-Dderwen to Gwbert Rd (B4548)

Llandanwg Beach

When the sand dunes on Llandanwg beach shift and tilt, the first casualty is the minuscule Saint Tanwg church. A sporadic battle to stop this most precarious place of worship from being swallowed whole by the sands means local volunteers can sometimes be seen digging the structure out so that worship can continue. The waters are beloved by fishermen for the plentiful bass, mackerel and dogfish, but the real star here is the beach itself, a graceful, curved ribbon that, on all but the busiest days of summer, you’ll have mostly to yourself. The gently shelved beach floor makes this a perfect swimming spot too.

How to get there: The nearest town is Harlech. From here, head southwest on the B4573 towards Bron Y Graig for half a mile, take a left onto the A496 for around a mile, then turn right onto Llandanwg.

Cawtell-y-Bere

Deep in the folds of the all but impenetrable Dysymni Valley, lies one of the most elegiac and magnificent castle ruins in Wales. Castell-y-Bere was built by Llewelyn The Great in 1221, originally in order to protect his cattle range. But, after being besieged on two separate occasions by Edward the First’s troops in the 13th century, it has been left to the elements for the last seven centuries and counting. It’s a lonely place today, with the remnants of the massive towers casting a forbidding shadow over this jagged outcrop. The view from here has barely changed since Edward’s troops decided that, even by their standards of hard living, this castle was too remote and barren to sustain.

How to get there: Castell-y-Bere is a long way from anywhere, but the most logical starting point for a day trip is from the coastal town of Barmouth, from where it’s a 20-mile drive along the A470.

Ynyslas Fossilised Forest

At low tide, the gnarled, contorted, stumps of the fossilised forest reveal what the Bronze Age era Ceredigion coastline would have looked like. An otherworldly vista of wildly inchoate, blistered, petrified remnants of ancient pine, alder, oak and birch stumps emerging from the sand, the forest here would have flourished around five thousand years ago. Scattered between the villages of Borth and Ynyslas, excavations have unearthed the skeleton of an auroch (an ancestor to domestic cattle), as well as human footprints and burnt stones from ancient hearths. Violent storms a decade ago ripped away vast amounts of sand from the beach, making the ancient forest more visible right now than it has been for centuries.

How to get there: From Aberystwyth, it’s a fifteen-minute drive along the B4572 to the Ynyslas/Borth beach.

Brecon Beacons and Powys

Staylittle to Dylife walk

Situated at the northern end of the vast Llyn Clywedog reservoir and just above the Clywedog River, Staylittle is the very quintessence of the isolated, deep-Welsh hamlet, named after a blacksmith whose alacrity at shooing horses earned the smithy the nick-name ‘stay-a-little’. Take the mountain road from here for an hour-long walk that will take you past the immense ravine of the Twymyn River before you reach Dylife. Once a lead mining town with a two thousand-strong population and a reputation as being a den of gambling, drink and vice, the mine closed in 1896, and there are now only around thirty residents left in this remote scattering of dwellings. There may be more visitors in the future if the plans by the owners of the currently closed village pub are approved for a glamping spot with five mirrored dome pods on the grounds of the old boozer.

How to get there: Staylittle is an hour’s drive from Aberystwyth on the A487. Park up in the village and begin the walk from here to Dylife.

Llangmmarch Wells

The smallest of what was, in Victorian times, a well-known quartet of Powys spa towns that saw brisk business from Londoners keen to recuperate from the smog-choked capital, today Llangmmarch Wells is barely even a village. It's one main street consisting of a typically spartan-looking Methodist chapel, a minuscule Post Office and a narrow strip of terraced cottages with lace curtains. On the edge of the village lies the Lake Country House Hotel, a mock Tudor country house originally built in the late 19th century to accommodate the spa crowd. These days, there’s a modern spa lodge on-site offering extremely high-end facials, massages and manicures. But, intriguingly, the ruins of the original pump room haven’t been touched for decades. Ask the hotel owner, Pierre, nicely, and he’ll direct you to the forgotten spa. There’s no footpath or signs; you’ll have to stomp through tangles of blackberry bushes to reach the ruins on the river’s edge, all but swallowed whole by a miasma of willow herbs, fox gloves and the branches of beech and oak trees. The slate roof has long since collapsed but the clear remnants of a pavilion and a pump room can still be made out. It’s incredible to think there were once two trains running directly from Euston daily to this forgotten spot, depositing hordes of coughing Victorian gents.

How to get there: From Cardiff, it takes just under two hours by road to reach Llangmmarch Wells. Follow the A470 to B4601 in Powys for 40 miles then take the B4520 and B4519.

The Radnor Forest

Once a royal hunting ground for Norman kings and said to be the place where the last surviving dragon in Wales is either resting or hiding, the clefted valleys of the Radnor Forest also hide a waterfall whose name at first appears Australian, such is the literality of the description. Water-Breaks-Its-Neck is best seen in winter when the cascade is at its frothy, furious best; The mist from the falls creates its own microclimate, meaning there’s an unusually deep green fecundity to the area. In summer, it’s safe (and warm enough) to go for a paddle here, too.

How to get there: It’s a two-hour drive from Cardiff by road, following the A470 and then the A44. Park in the Warren Wood car park and follow the blue way markers for the one-hour forest walk to the waterfall.

South West Wales

Nevern

Secluded in the folds of the valley of the River Severn, not far from Pembrokeshire’s Preseli Hills, Nevern is little more than a scattering of houses; yet this oddly dark and mysterious place is also home to the ruins of a 13th-century castle that sits high on a bluff above the village. The churchyard of St. Brynach is home to a ‘bleeding’ yew tree, named for the viscous dark red sap that oozes from its bark. One local legend suggests that the bleeding won’t cease until there is a Welsh prince on the seat at Nevern Castle once again. A one-hour walk away is the 13-foot-high cromlech at Pentre Ifan. This is the largest burial stone in Wales, and though it looks precarious, it’s been here for four thousand years, looking out over the stark and slightly eerie, bare landscape of those jutting Preseli hills.

How to get there: The nearest town of any size is Cardigan. From here, it’s a 20-minute drive to Nevern, using the A487 and B4582.

Stack Rocks and the Green Bridge Of Wales

On this part of the Pembrokeshire Coast, from the village of Bosherston to the coast, the MOD has firing ranges so the access roads aren’t always open. If the barriers are open, then keep going to the end of the road, where you’ll see a series of what look like ancient limestone tower blocks jutting out of the sea. Covered in lichen, there’s a real ‘end of the earth’ feel here, particularly when you spot the nearby chapel at Flimston, once a hamlet whose inhabitants were forcibly and permanently evacuated by the MOD. From here, it’s about a hundred-yard walk along the cliff tops is the colossal limestone arch that rises from a natural platform on the rocks, known as the Green Bridge Of Wales. Most days, your only company here will be some bellicose guillemots and kittiwakes.

How to get there: Check the government site for the latest info on when the access road through the army range is open so you can reach Stack Rocks and the Green Bridge. From the hamlet of Merrion (on the B4319) take the lane that runs through the MOD range which leads straight to Stack Rocks.