Book Direct | Self Catering & Holiday Cottages in Carmarthenshire

More About Cottages in Carmarthenshire

Ferryside looks across the estuary at Llansteffan and the castle on the headland opposite. Kidwelly has one of the best-preserved castles in Wales at the top of its town, and you can climb up onto the gatehouse.

Inland the country lifts. Llandeilo and Llangadog sit under the Black Mountain, and the road that climbs over it to Brynamman leaves the trees behind within a mile. Ammanford is on the edge of the old coalfield at the foot of the same hills.

In 1136 the Welsh rose against the Normans, and in this corner of Wales a woman led them. Gwenllian was the daughter of the prince of Gwynedd and the wife of the prince of Deheubarth, which was the kingdom covering most of the south-west.

Her husband had ridden north to ask his father-in-law for help. While he was gone the Norman lord of Kidwelly moved, so Gwenllian raised what men she could and marched on the castle herself, with two of her sons alongside her.

She was beaten in the field just north of the castle. Her son Morgan was killed trying to protect her, and Gwenllian was captured and beheaded on the spot where she fell. The field is still called Maes Gwenllian, the field of Gwenllian, and a spring rises in it.

It did not go the way the Normans wanted. Her death set off a rising that swept them out of west Wales. Her youngest son was four years old when she died. That was Rhys ap Gruffudd, the Lord Rhys, and he took Kidwelly Castle himself in 1159 and ended up ruling the whole region.

You can walk round Kidwelly Castle, which is one of the most complete in Wales. There is a great gatehouse to climb and a curtain wall standing above the Gwendraeth. The town below is small and largely ignored, which is part of the appeal.

Four miles down the coast is the best beach in the county. Cefn Sidan runs eight miles north-west from Burry Port along the front of Pembrey Forest, and it holds a Blue Flag again in 2026. No beach in Wales got one earlier.

The sand is so flat that wrecks show through it. The hull of the SS Paul still shows at low tide. There are anchors at the main entrance as a memorial to the ships that came to grief here, and pine woods run the whole length of the back of the beach.

Inland the county climbs, and you can still drive the lanes around Llanpumsaint and Llangadog for half an hour without meeting anybody. Llandeilo sits under the Black Mountain at the top of the valley. Ferryside looks across the Tywi estuary at Llansteffan and its castle on the headland.