Brecon Beacons National Park: Curated Guides and Seasonal Planning Resources

Wales' newest national park protecting the mountain heart of South Wales

Bannau Brycheiniog National Park

Bannau Brycheiniog National Park protects a mountainous landscape in the heart of South Wales that has been shaped by hundreds of millions of years of geological processes and millennia of human activity. The park's three mountain ranges—the Black Mountains, the Brecon Beacons and Fforest Fawr, and the Black Mountain—form a continuous highland massif of Old Red Sandstone that rises dramatically from the surrounding lowlands. This geological foundation has created the distinctive scenery of bold escarpments, rounded summits, and steep-sided valleys that defines the area. The park stretches from Llandeilo in the west to Hay-on-Wye in the northeast and Pontypool in the southeast, encompassing not only the high mountain ridges but also the river valleys, forests, and farmland that form the wider cultural landscape. Beyond its natural beauty, the park holds significant archaeological evidence of human occupation from the Neolithic period onwards, with Bronze Age burial cairns, Iron Age hillforts, Roman forts, and medieval castles scattered across the hillsides. The 2023 renaming to Bannau Brycheiniog—derived from the Welsh words for 'peaks' and the ancient kingdom of Brycheiniog—reflects a deliberate effort to centre Welsh language and heritage in the park's identity, though the English name 'Brecon Beacons' remains widely used by visitors and locals alike.