The way points of this bicycle route:
This section starts from the Roman auxiliary fort at Neath (NIDVM) and follows Sarn Helen faithfully where it is widely held to run. It incorporates the fortlet and watch tower on Hirfynydd and leaves Sarn Helen in Banwen. It's designed as a circular route and as it's not too long I've been working on a return leg that reduces the time spent on the A-roads. Still debating whether to turn the route around and run it backwards.
Your first point of interest is the ruins of the south-west gate of NIDVM auxiliary fort behind the railings adjacent to the A474. Contine north-east along Roman Way.
Turn right at the end of the road.
On the next corner, again behind railings you can see the ruins of the south-east gates of the fort.
Retrace your route back and make for the main road (A474).
Turn right onto the A474 (Neath Abbey Road).
Make your way onto the foot bridge (you may want to get off and push over here if there are a lot of people around, which there can be).
Interestingly, this journey along an ancient Roman road is intertwined with other modes of transport old and new. Over the bridge you cross a major local trunk road (A465), a frieght railway and the River Nedd and you will follow the old Neath Canal for some distance on a part of the National Cycle Network. The main railway link between Swansea & West Wales and London is over the next bridge just upstream.
Turn left off the road just before you cross the canal and join the canal towpath. This is part of the National Cycle Network (NCN) route 47. Take car not smack your head as you pass under a number of low bridges!!
The pretty St. Iltyds church is on the opposite canal bank.
As you pass the locks, stay on the towpath on the left side of the canal.
After the long sweeping bend to the left in the canal, with the bottled gas depot on the left, you need to join the road crossing the canal.
Turn left at the bridge onto Dulais Fach Road
The road quickly crosses the River Nedd, Take the first right after the bridge into Station Road.
Bear right towards the river and go under the A465 dual carriageway bridge.
As you emerge from under the bridge, turn right onto the A4109 (Main Road) and cross back over the river.
Turn right onto Ynysygerwn Avenue (B4242) signposted Glynneath.
The recognised entrance onto this off-road section of Sarn Helen starts here. Not far after the short dual carriageway section the entrance nestles amongst the trees on the left and could be easily missed. I'll throw in some pertinent notes or instructions, but most of the route over Hirfynydd and into Banwen should be well waymarked as a byway (it's a legal vehicular right of way so don't be suprised to see 4x4's and trials bikes using it), follow these until my notes advise differently.
Keep straight-on at the junction with the track up to the farm.
Go straight-on up the hill at the crosssroads.
Keep right at the ruined farm buildings.
Stay on the main track which does a quick left-right here and picks up a lane running between two drystone walls.
At this point the track leaves open moor and farmland and enters Rheola Forest starting with a short sharp climb.
I've not been able to work out where, but somewhere here you should pass through or very close to the Hirfynydd fortlet. If anyone knows where exactly it is, please let me know!
Straight on at the T-junction in the fireroads.
There's a little deviation here in the route, I'm not sure why - just follow the track.
Go straight-on at the crossroads to a track skirting the forest.
Cross the fireroad, and bear to the left up a steep rough climb. You re-enter Forestry land here.
The forestry ends on your left and you continue along with the outside edge of the forest on your right for some distance now.
Just a hundred metres or so before re-entering the forest on your left is the Hirfynydd Roman watch tower. Thought to be a fortified watch tower.
Go back into the forest staying straight-on.
Go straight-on across a major fireroad.
Again, the forestry on the left ends and your track continues to skirt the forest on the right.
Ignore the track leading off to the right.
Ignore the track leading off to the right. The track ahead does a quick left-right and re-enters the forest for a short distance.
After a quick left-right the forest on the left is replaced by an opencast coal mine.
The track leaves the opencast behind after the long sweeping curve to the right and enters the forestry again.
When you reach the major junction of fireroads and dirt tracks the official right of way follows the fireroad off to the left. However you could follow the 1st dirt track to the left and arrive at the same place. Sarn Helen's exact route along this end of the Hirfynydd ridge has meen ambiguous to say the least. However, from here on the area has been heavily quarried for coal. Thus any trace of Sarn Helen is long gone.
At the next major junction you should go straight-on though I bear left onto lesser track as it's more interesting.
Where the minor track meets the fireroad you could turn right to get back to the true right of way. However not far along here the right of way becomes impossible to find. Over the fireroad diagonally to the left and down the steep slope is a footpath much more in the spirit of Sarn Helen. You can see it almost lines up with the street ahead and below you in Banwen, named Roman Road. This in turn stretches away across the main road towards the auxiliary fort at Coelbren.
Turn Left onto the main track and back onto the byway under the pylon wires.
Go straight-on onto Roman Road.
At the junction with Main Road this our split point where we end the NIDVM/Hirfynydd section of Sarn Helen and commence the return journey. Straight-on is the start of the next section, the Coelbren/Ystradfellte section. Turn left onto Main Road.
Merge onto the A4109 (still Main Road).
Main Road becomes Wembley Avenue.
Wembley Avenue becomes Onllwyn Road.
Bear left onto the road in front of the chapel.
Go straight-on at the end of the short road into a bridleway through the trees.
At the junction with a much more heavily used track turn left. I'm not sure this is the proper right of way but if it's not it's a sensible alternative to a track that has obviously all but disappeared.
The lane opens into an area of rough land. Make a left and head for the tree line.
Turn/bear left to jon the tree line and follow the tree line with the trees on your right.
Turn right onto a heavier used track.
Bear left after the road starts curving around to the right.
Keep left at the fork.
Turn right at the T-junction.
Turn right at the crossroads and briefly join the major track.
Take a left to join a minor lightly used track and follow this towards the houses.
Follow the bridleway between the houses.
Go straight across the residential street and into the bridleway between the houses opposite.
Bear left at the back of the properties ahead.
Leave the bridleway straight-on and join the street Heol Hen.
Straight-on at the crossroads into Pen y Banc Lane.
Bear left in front of the cemetry onto a bridleway which skirts the cemetry on your left.
The bridleway does a right-left, crosses another track and becomes a tree lined lane.
The trees peter out, but the bridleway remains a bounded lane.
Turn left next to a rectangular pond onto a well used track
A little before you cross the railway turn left and run almost parallel to the railway.
Turn right at the T-junction.
Stay straight-on at the next T-junction (near a railway bridge)keeping roughly parallel with the railway.
Turn left at a crossroads (I think) near to a bridge across the railway.
Go straight-on across a well used track and stay straight-on for some distance through the forest.
As you emerge from the Forestry keep the treeline to your left.
Half way through the hard left bend, you need to find a lightly used track heading away from the trees. If you can see two tracks, it's the one on the left.
Stay straight-on on the bridleway as it crosses another track.
Merge left onto another track. The track becomes more heavily used.
Follow the bridleway around the right hand edge of the farm and pick up the farm access road (Brynawel Road). Follow Brynawel Road all the way down under the railway bridge to the junction with the A-road.
Crynant Square: you have a couple of options here. I turn left onto the A4109 (Neath Road) it's a busy major local road, but is not too hilly. Further along this you have the option of another low traffic route. Or you can go straight-on into Maes Mawr Road and follow this very hilly but low traffic road to Cillfrew and then Cadoxton south-west of Aberdulais.
If you're fed up with traffic , just after the mining museum and the wasteland beyond it, take a right and follow the slightly more hilly low traffic lane to Aberdulais.
Still on the A4109, it's now New Road.
Here you meet back up with your out-bound route. In-bound from here is just a retrace of your steps out-bound. New Road becomes Main Road (still A4109).
If you followed the 2nd low traffic route, you'd come out here and turn right onto Main Road.
Just over the river bridge, turn left under the dual carriageway. If you'd used the first low traffic route you'd turn left in Cadoxton onto the main road, come straight across the big roundabout, down this road and rejoined the route here.
Turn left onto Dulais Fach Road.
Just before you cross the canal turn right off the road onto the canal towpath.
NCN route 47 may peel off to the right, but stay on the towpath.
Turn right into Bridge street just after passing under the railway.
Cross over the footbridge.
Go right onto Neath Abbey Road
Go left into Roman Way.
Turn next right.
Welcome to Bikely, take a step by step tour of this path:
Press Start Tour - then use the navigation buttons below to move along the path.
Sarn Helen is the name given to a number of Wales’ Roman roads. The roads were built after the conquest of the Welsh tribes to create a network of all-weather routes linking the Romans' forts. "Sarn Helen" is a misnomer meaning Helen's Causeway or Road and refers to Elen, a Romano-British princess and the wife of the emperor of Britain, Maximus. Whilst she is fabled to have got Maximus to build roads across Wales to help defend it, it is considered that Elen is from a much later period than the roads themselves. These roads suggest a route from a fort in Neath in South Wales all the way up to a fort near Conwy in the north. Parts of Sarn Helen (such as this) are off-road and make for interesting MTBing, but much of Sarn Helen is tarmac or obliterated. However, I’m inspired by the idea of a south to north route split into bite sized chunks, which follows Sarn Helen or haunts its surrounding countrtside and visits the Roman sites along the way. See plot #1 for a description of this section. WIP.
Tagged with: Recreational, MTB, Steep, Intermediate, Offroad, Low traffic, High traffic, Rough, Rural, Scenic
