The Teifi Valley Trail

Exploring the Teifi Valley Trail

In the elevated and windswept Cambrian Mountains of North Ceredigion, the River Teifi commences its journey to the Irish Sea. From the artificially created lake of Llyn Teifi, the embryo waterway tumbles from its moorland birthplace to Strata Florida in the valley below and to its first contact with the abundant history, culture, industry, and communities for which the river has been an essential feature in the intimate relationship between human kind and the local environment.

Covering a distance of some 80 miles, the Teifi Valley Trail lies mainly in Ceredigion, though significant sections pass into Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, linking, as it does, the communities of Pontrhydfendigaid, Tregaron, Lampeter, Llanybydder, Llandysul, Newcastle Emlyn, Cilgerran, Cardigan and St. Dogmaels. It also connects two locations of great historical and ecclesiastical importance at the former Abbeys and seats of learning at Strata Florida and St. Dogmaels. Facilities for trail users are available in all of these communities.

While the towns and villages provide opportunities for refreshment and hospitality, the entire route is truly rural, embracing a pastoral agricultural economy, together with nature reserves, woodlands, floodplains and marshes, and finally the estuarine panoramas towards the coast.  The Teifi Valley is justifiably renowned for its amazing diversity of habitat and wildlife from upland to maritime and all that subsists between. It is a natural treasure trove to the passionate and the passer-by alike.  

This is also a profoundly historic part of Wales, and the countryside through which the trail passes still bears witness equally to the ancient and to the relatively recent industrial past. While ruined castles reveal evidence of past conflicts, the shells and ruins that once were mines, factories and mills tell of industrial endeavour, of one-time wealth, and of the sometimes destructive exploitation of natural resources.