People power on the Llŷn peninsula: pubs, honesty shops and views

Cliff sits in his farm truck scanning the hillsides with powerful binoculars, warning that “it’s the rams” because they can stray at this time of year. Below the house where I’m staying, once my landlord’s great-grandmother’s home, the village that supported a pub, a shop and a school has shrunk; yet the Llŷn peninsula is fighting back, opening community pubs, restaurants, cafés and shops that, together with the Wales Coast Path, make the area rewarding to explore.

From the summit of Craig y Garn the view is dazzling: Yr Wyddfa white with ice to the east and the Irish Sea on both sides to the west, with Garn Ganol’s granite standing out on the north coast. I head down a steep valley to the shingle beach at Nant Gwrtheyrn, a settlement revived as a Welsh-language cultural centre by Dr Carl Clowes in 1978, then loop back over the hill towards Tafarn y Fic, one of Britain’s first community pubs, opened in 1988.

Wales, Llŷn peninsula

llŷn, community pubs, honesty shops, coast path, yr wyddfa, nant gwrtheyrn, welsh language, carl clowes, garn ganol, shingle beach