Pen-Y-Dinas Hillfort, The Great Orme, Llandudno

I hadn’t particularly planned on walking up the Great Orme on this trip since I’d been up there before, but then found myself doing so on three different occasions. On this journey I simply decided I was still in a walking mood after being at the Happy Valley Botanical Gardens so I followed the road from the top of the gardens until I came across a trail going upwards and decided to see where it went. At it turned out it was to the site of the Pen-Y-Dinas Hillfort.

I know, hard to spot. These are all that remain of a late pre-historic hillfort of over 60 roundhouses and three or four defensive ramparts. It’s hard to really make out but there is a helpful signpost with some information to mark the spot.

Just nearby is something else also worth noting – The Rocking Stone or Tudno’s Cradle. It’s supposed to be a judgement stone – the accused would stand on it and if it didn’t rock they were found guilty and thrown to their deaths on the rocks below. Of course it never rocks and people do stand on it today, but I didn’t think it was wise to tempt fate myself!

The views are definitely another reason to walk up the Great Orme.

And closer to that you can see some of the lovely locals in the form of Llandudno’s famous Kashmiri goats. They roam freely all over the Great Orme and are quite well camaflouged at times – I didn’t spot these ones at first because they were on a ridge just below me.

You might have seen footage of them roaming into Llandudno itself during COVID-19 lockdowns. They are beautiful goats and generally quite docile but are still wild animals so it pays to be sensible and not get too close. The goats were imported to Europe from India for their wool. George IV liked them so much that he created the Royal Windsor Herd and Queen Victoria was later gifted a pair in 1837. At some point Lord Mostyn, who owned much of the land around Llandudno, acquired a pair that were released onto the Great Orme in the late 1800s and they’ve been thriving there ever since.

It’s a lovely place to walk and there wasn’t a single other person about when I was there, just me and the goats which made for a nice peaceful atmosphere.