Route: Plynlimon to Llanidloes
Distance: 11.75 miles (19km)
Notes: Before even beginning this walk, you need to hike up Plynlimon to reach the starting point which will add a further 3.75 miles (6km) to your hike. |
Reaching the source
To undertake a walk that has its starting point high in the watery wastelands of Plynlimon means adding to your journey before you even begin, because of the need to first trek up to the source of the Severn in order to follow the river downstream.
The nearest point to the source which is accessible by road is the picnic area and car park at Rhyd-y-benwch in Hafren Forest - where you'll also find an excellent board showing all the forest rails on offer. Taxis from Llanidloes to Rhyd-y-benwch are inexpensive, and provide the fastest way of reaching the picnic area, though a Royal Mail post bus also operates.
From Rhyd-y-benwch turn down a path that leads instantly to the Severn, a more slender version of what will be encountered later in the journey. Pass a ford and go forward onto a boardwalk, which can be very slippery after rain.
The attractive waterfall at the end of the boardwalk was used by generations of shepherds for washing their sheep and is worthy of attention before continuing on a waymarked route (blue and white-banded posts) through trees and on past a flume station to meet a broad stony track.
At its confluence with the Afon Hore, the Severn changes direction with a path skirting trees to the first bridge-crossing of the river.
Cross the bridge and turn right, following the waymarked Severn Way for some two miles along a new path running closely along the banks of the Severn.
On reaching the top forest track, turn right and then left, walking through a plantation alongside the Severn before emerging, at a stile, onto the bleak open hillside of Plynlimon.
The highest point of this upland expanse (Pen Pumlumon Fawr, 752m/2,467ft) is still some distance away, but the source of the Severn is much closer, and you are guided to it by an intermittent line of white topped posts. Only near the very source is the going less than straightforward and even here the worst of the peaty hollows can be avoided by simple circumnavigation.
The official source - a small reedy pool - is marked by two large posts.
Click here to continue the walk from the Source to Llanidloes. Check out our Llanidloes Town Site
Walk details provided by the Severn Way Partnership.
Severn Way website
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your comments
MD Stagg UCW Somerset Cheltenham
Correct Clywedog is one of the very best dam construction works and an impressive sight, but then so are the Elan Claerwen of much greater ancient status and yet functioning well today as arranged by Victorian engineers ... good at hydraulics river but poor at coastal ... comment on Clevedon ... another photograph of Elan in flood spill over the stone would be good and the scour holes below are well worth a visit when travelling between UCW research IH and Somerset in the July 1968...
Tue Apr 15 11:45:41 2008
Marigold Taylor Loughborough LEICS.
Any suggestions for short easy terrain for beginner to walk over 7 days?
Fri Feb 1 15:35:30 2008
Michael Dennis Stagg
Plumlumon Arwystli to Hafren gauge was well instrumented in 1965. 1968 and has the most fabulous high stand forest with leaf litter if it has yet to be felled, but do not fall in the deep drainage. There are great sites of trees lined forest road and culverts in deep regolith mass made by Commission, possibly the best forest and least well know which makes it good to walk in, equal to the Scots remote stands as spectacular land but with a softness Scotland cannot meet because of the weather and round landscape. Do not fall in the reservoirs Rheidol and Clywedog on the very steep hillsides with no beach form but the Rheidol outfall stilling pool weir (slate crest curtain fall) is worth a visit and Clywedog is as good as Elan and Hoover dams and Zambezi. Not many know that. Do not fall into a weir or flume slot in the streams either, nor down a mine drift, or works wheel slot. Very dangerous off track.
Fri Mar 16 15:12:36 2007
If you've done the Severn Way walk - or if you've got a question about the route - fill in this form.
If you don't want to tackle the 210-mile Severn Way in one go, try a shorter sections. This one starts at the river's source in Pumlumon and ends in the market town of Llanidloes. 
