Valeways Millennium Heritage Trail
This route forms a loop of 115km around the Vale of Glamorgan with a total ascent of about 2000m, connecting places of cultural and historic interest — to tick all the cultural boxes, you will need a few there-and-back diversions, most of them fairly short. The distances quoted here do not include these diversions, which are shown clearly on the map.
The natural start and finish might be considered to be St Fagans, home of the National Museum of History (Sain Ffagan Amgueddfa Werin Cymru), however visitors arriving from elsewhere might prefer to start and finish at Llantwit Major, which has rail connections, and good bus links to the southern parts of the loop.
There are bus connections on or near the route at St Fagans, St Bride’s-super-Ely, Peterston-super-Ely, Llechau, Pentre Meyrick, St Brides Major, Wick, llantwit Major, Cowbridge, RAF St Athan, Rhoose, Barry and St Nicholas. There are rail connections at llantwit Major, Rhoose and Barry.
The section between St Fagans and Peterston-super-Ely (a little over 7km) will be traversed in each direction unless you decide to walk it only once: there is a two-hourly bus service between these two points.
Maps are provided as below.
| St Fagans to Llechau 19.0km; 310m ascent | Map |
| Llechau to St Brides Major 18.3km; 290m ascent | Map |
| St Brides Major to Llantwit Major 19.3km; 407m ascent | Map |
| Llantwit Major to RAF St Athan 18.6km; 317m ascent | Map |
| RAF St Athan to Barry 18.6km; 292m ascent | Map |
| Barry to St Fagans 21.0km; 366m ascent | Map |
Observations
The bus stop for the sectional start/endpoint at RAF St Athan is (as mapped) about 1.3km off-route.
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