Qualla: Fforest Fawr Geopark

Fforest Fawr Geopark: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GregZak, CC BY-SA 4.0. Most national parks tell you about the present: the views, the walks, the wildlife, the place to stop for tea. A geopark tells you about the past, and not the human kind. Fforest Fawr Geopark, in the western half of the Brecon Beacons National Park in southern Wales, covers three hundred square miles of mountain and moor that record nearly five hundred million years of Earth's history. In October 2005 it became the first geopark in Wales, joining the European Geoparks Network and the UNESCO-assisted Global Network of National Geoparks. The point of a geopark is simple. The rocks here have a story. If you know how to read them, the landscape becomes a library.

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Image: GregZak | CC BY-SA 4.0

Fforest Fawr Geopark: Five Hundred Million Years

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wilson44691, CC0. Walking south across Fforest Fawr, you walk through time. The oldest rocks in the geopark are in the northwest, dating from the late Ordovician period, around 450 million years ago, when this land was the floor of an ancient ocean south of the equator. South of that, Silurian-age...

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Image: Wilson44691 | CC0

Fforest Fawr Geopark: The Ice Came Through

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SNappa2006, CC BY 2.0. Then, much more recently, the ice came. During the Quaternary period, repeated glaciations carved the landscape we see now. Glacial till, the unsorted debris dragged under ice sheets, covers large parts of the geopark. The major valleys hold recessional moraines, the ridges of ru...

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Image: SNappa2006 | CC BY 2.0

Fforest Fawr Geopark: Going Underground

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Samasnookerfan at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The east-west belt of Carboniferous limestone running through the middle of the geopark has been dissolved by water into one of Britain's most impressive cave systems. Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, the Cave of the Black Spring, is the deepest cave in Britain at 293.5 metres, with passages to...

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Image: Samasnookerfan at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fforest Fawr Geopark: Seven Thousand Years of People

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FruitMonkey, CC BY-SA 3.0. The geopark celebrates not only the geology but the seven thousand years of human history recorded in it. Bronze Age standing stones, like Maen Llia, watch the moors. Bronze Age round barrows mark hilltops. Iron Age hillforts crown the high places, such as Carn Goch on the Black ...

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Image: FruitMonkey | CC BY-SA 3.0

Fforest Fawr Geopark: Where to Start

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Arpingstone at English Wikipedia Later versions were uploaded by Naturenet at en.wikipedia., Public domain. There is no single visitor centre anymore. The Waterfalls Centre at Pontneddfechan, on the southern edge of the geopark, was the main interpretive hub until 2016. Today information is scattered: walking guides, interpretive panels at major sites, the geopark website. The classic ...

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Image: Arpingstone at English Wikipedia Later versions were uploaded by Naturenet at en.wikipedia. | Public domain