Foel Fraith is a hill in the

Black Mountain Black Mountain may refer to: Places Australia * Black Mountain (Australian Capital Territory), a mountain in Canberra * Black Mountain, New South Wales, a village in Armidale Regional Council, New South Wales * Black Mountain, Queensland, a loca ...

in the county of

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire ( cy, Sir Gaerfyrddin; or informally ') is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known ...

, southwest

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

. It lies within the

Brecon Beacons National Park The Brecon Beacons National Park ( cy, Parc Cenedlaethol Bannau Brycheiniog) is one of three national parks in Wales, and is centred on the Brecon Beacons range of hills in southern Wales. It includes the Black Mountain ( cy, Y Mynydd Du) in ...

and

Fforest Fawr Geopark Fforest Fawr Geopark is a Geopark in the Brecon Beacons National Park, south Wales. It is the first designated Geopark in Wales having gained membership of both the European Geoparks Network and the UNESCO-assisted Global Network of National Ge ...

. Its plateau-like summit attains a height of above sea level. To the north the subsidiary summit of Cefn y Cylchau reaches , and to the southeast is the subsidiary summit of Carn Fadog or Cefn Carn Fadog, which reaches a height of .

Geology

The hill has a split personality with its northern slopes dominated by the succession of

Carboniferous Limestone Carboniferous Limestone is a collective term for the succession of limestones occurring widely throughout Great Britain and Ireland that were deposited during the Dinantian Epoch of the Carboniferous Period. These rocks formed between 363 ...

rocks and its southern slopes by the Twrch Sandstone (formerly known as the 'Basal Grit') of the overlying

Marros Group The Marros Group is the name given to a suite of rocks of Namurian age laid down during the Carboniferous Period in South Wales. These rocks were formerly known as the Millstone Grit Series but are now distinguished from the similar but geogra ...

, but also dating from the

Carboniferous period The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carboniferous ...

. In common with the regional trend the rock strata dip moderately to the south though locally the beds overlying the limestone have foundered as this soluble rock has dissolved away over millennia. There is an extensive area of

shakehole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...

s across the entire hill. Carn Fadog is similar in character. Its summit plateau conceals three small bodies of water. On its flanks are numerous quarries both for limestone and for gritstone.British Geological Survey 1:50,000 map sheet 230 'Ammanford'

Access

The hill is designated as open country so freely accessible to walkers. A long bridleway runs north to south from Cwm Sawdde Fechan to Cwm Twrch on the eastern side of Foel Fraith and Carn Fadog. The

Beacons Way The Beacons Way (Welsh: Ffordd y Bannau) is a waymarked long distance footpath in the Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales. It is a linear route which runs for east to west through the National Park, and passes many of the most important landma ...

from Abergavenny to

Llangadog Llangadog () is a village and community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales, which also includes the villages of Bethlehem and Capel Gwynfe. A notable local landscape feature is Y Garn Goch with two Iron Age hill forts.The Welsh Academy Encycloped ...

crosses Foel Fraith from east to west.

External links

images of Foel Fraith & surrounding area on Geograph website

References

{{Reflist Hewitts of Wales Mountains and hills of Carmarthenshire