Qualla: Preseli Mountains

Preseli Mountains: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andrew Howey, CC BY-SA 2.0. Around 3000 BC, a community of Neolithic stoneworkers in what is now north Pembrokeshire began breaking blue-grey dolerite away from the cliffs at a place called Carn Goedog and a rocky outcrop called Craig Rhos-y-Felin. Some of the stones they detached weighed two or three tonnes. They lashed them to wooden sledges, dragged them down to lower ground, and then - through some combination of overland haulage, river barges, and willpower that archaeologists still argue over - moved roughly eighty of them across 180 miles of southern Britain. They reassembled them on Salisbury Plain as the inner ring of what is now the most famous prehistoric monument in the world. The Preseli Mountains, where this work began, are not high. The highest peak, Foel Cwmcerwyn, rises only 1,759 feet above sea level. But they are the source of Stonehenge.

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Image: Andrew Howey | CC BY-SA 2.0

Preseli Mountains: The Range You Can Walk in a Day

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cleopatra Browne, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Preselis stretch about 13 miles east-west, from near Newport to Crymych, entirely within Pembrokeshire and mostly within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The ancient ridgeline track is known as the Golden Road, eight miles of moorland walking that has carried travellers...

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Image: Cleopatra Browne | CC BY-SA 3.0

Preseli Mountains: The Stonehenge Connection

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Holkham, CC BY-SA 3.0. For decades, archaeologists assumed the bluestones came from a single peak called Carn Menyn. Recent geological work has shown that theory to be incorrect. The stones come from multiple sources along the northern flanks of the Preselis, principally Carn Goedog - a dolerite outcro...

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Image: Tony Holkham | CC BY-SA 3.0

Preseli Mountains: A Landscape of Stones

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ceridwen, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Preselis are dotted with prehistoric remains in a density that no other Welsh mountain range matches. Pentre Ifan, on the northern slopes, is the largest dolmen in Wales - a 5,000-year-old burial chamber whose capstone seems to balance impossibly on three pointed uprights. Be...

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Image: ceridwen | CC BY-SA 2.0

Preseli Mountains: Slate, War, and Damselflies

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Deborah Tilley, CC BY-SA 2.0. Slate quarrying was once an important industry in the Preselis. The 19th-century workings at Rosebush, Tafarn-y-Bwlch, and elsewhere closed mostly by the 1930s. Preseli slate was too dense for roofing but ideal for machining; a workshop at Llangolman still uses it for crafted goo...

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Image: Deborah Tilley | CC BY-SA 2.0

Preseli Mountains: Walking the Golden Road

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dylan Moore, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Preselis fall under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 as open country, which means walkers have freedom to roam across most of the unenclosed land. The Golden Road is the obvious route, but every village around the range has its own approach: from Crymych in the east...

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Image: Dylan Moore | CC BY-SA 2.0