Ffordd Pen Llech () is a public road in the town of

Harlech Harlech () is a seaside resort and community (Wales), community in Gwynedd, North Wales, and formerly in the Historic counties of Wales, historic county of Merionethshire. It lies on Tremadog Bay in the Snowdonia National Park. Before 1966, it ...

which lies within

Snowdonia Snowdonia, or Eryri (), is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in North Wales. It contains all 15 mountains in Wales Welsh 3000s, over 3000 feet high, including the country's highest, Snowdon (), which i ...

National Park, North

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

. It was once considered the steepest street in the world, although that title reverted to the previous holder

Baldwin Street Baldwin Street, in Dunedin, New Zealand, is located in the residential suburb of North East Valley, northeast of Dunedin's central business district. ''Guinness World Records'' calls it the steepest street in the world, meaning no street ga ...

on 8 April 2020.

Toponym

The name Pen Llech, derived from the Welsh words ''pen'' ("head", "end", "top") and ''llech'' ("flat rock", "slab", "smooth cliff") can be translated approximately as "end of the rock",Charnock, R. S. ''Local Etymology: A Derivative Dictionary of Geographical Names'', 1859, p.205 "head-stone", or perhaps "stony headland".Blackie, C. ''Etymological Geography'', 1876, p. 128

Description

Ffordd Pen Llech is one of two roads surrounding the

Harlech Castle Harlech Castle (; ) in Harlech, Gwynedd, Wales, is a Grade I listed medieval fortification built onto a rocky knoll close to the Irish Sea. It was built by Edward I during his invasion of Wales between 1282 and 1289 at the relatively modest ...

World Heritage Site and linking the higher town centre with Harlech railway station on the

Cambrian Line The Cambrian Line (), sometimes split into the Cambrian Main Line () and Cambrian Coast Line () for its branches, is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury in England, westwards to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli in Wales. Passenger train services ...

, as well as housing and camping areas close to sea level. Its descent of the

rock spur A spur is a lateral ridge or tongue of land descending from a hill, mountain or main crest of a ridge. It can also be defined as another hill or mountain range which projects in a lateral direction from a main hill or mountain range. Examples of ...

to the north of the castle gives it a tangentially measured gradient at its steepest section of 1:2.73. Whilst this translates to the vertical rise being 36.63% of the horizontal going, it is normal practice for UK highway authorities to round gradients to a nominal figure to avoid confusing road users with excessive precision; hence the warning sign at the top gives a slope of 40%. Previously, in common with all earlier gradient warning signs in the United Kingdom, the sign displayed an

arctan In mathematics, the inverse trigonometric functions (occasionally also called ''antitrigonometric'', ''cyclometric'', or ''arcus'' functions) are the inverse functions of the trigonometric functions, under suitably restricted domains. Specific ...

ratio of 1:, and was subsequently changed to the new standard of the tangent expressed as a percentage. The street is a two-way

single-track road A single-track road or one-lane road is a road that permits two-way travel but is not wide enough in most places to allow vehicles to pass one another (although sometimes two compact cars can pass). This kind of road is common in rural area ...

for the majority of its length. To avoid problems with vehicles meeting on the steepest part of the slope and being unable to restart, the lower portion of the road is a one-way descent.

World record

From 15 July 2019 until 8 April 2020, the street was officially named the "World's Steepest Street" by ''

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a British reference book published annually, list ...

'', a title previously given to

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. Guinness measures the steepest road based on the steepest 10-metre section of the road (there are no buildings on this 10-metre section of Ffordd Pen Llech). On 8 April 2020, Guinness announced that Baldwin Street was reinstated as the world's steepest street after determining that the best practice to calculate a street gradient is to take the measurement from the centreline. The new measurements found the street in Dunedin had a gradient of 34.8% while Ffordd Pen Llech's was calculated to be 28.6%. The World Atlas has previously given the accolade of steepest street to Canton Avenue in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. Unlike Fford Pen Llech, Canton Avenue is entirely residential, homes are built along the steepest stretch of road, and the road is open to two-way vehicle traffic at its steepest point.

Cycling

With its drop over a short distance, Ffordd Pen Llech is popular with cycling enthusiasts seeking extreme slopes. Its popularity is limited by the one-way system requiring downward travel only (UK law treats bicycles as vehicles and requires riders to observe all traffic signs), meaning that a cyclist would have to defy the

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

to attempt the ascent or make the upward journey via the adjacent road, Twtil, which has a shallower gradient of 25%.

Driving

YouTuber HubNut (Ian Seabrook) has driven the exact same Australian-built Ford Fairmont (Australia) car down Ffordd Pen Llech in 2023 and

, New Zealand in 2019.

References

{{portal bar, Roads, Wales Streets in Wales Roads in Gwynedd Harlech Roads in Snowdonia