A line of flat stones crosses the shallows of the River Ewenny just inland from the sea, and if the tide is right you can walk over them dry-footed. They are known as St Teilo's Steps, after the sixth-century saint said to have kept a wattled cell nearby. The crossing only works with a clear margin of two and a half hours either side of high water; if you have misjudged it, there is a footbridge further east that asks no such questions. On the far bank stand the ruins of Ogmore Castle.
The village proper sits at the mouth of the River Ogmore, on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, but its two pubs are a short way inland by the castle. The Pelican Inn faces the Norman ruins directly across Ogmore Road. It runs an ever-changing, seasonal menu across separate mains, pizza and dessert cards; the double chicken burger and sweet potato fries are what regulars come back for. Dogs are welcomed in the main bar, where there is a station with a water bowl and treats, and there is a garden with sea views. A few hundred yards on, the Watermill sits on the banks of the Ewenny in its old mill setting, family-friendly and known for a good Sunday lunch and generous servings. Its large beer garden is the thing people mention first.
The castle is worth the crossing. William de Londres founded it around 1106, and in 1116, when Welsh forces briefly drove out the garrison, it was the butler, Arnold, who held the place and was knighted for it, receiving Dunraven as his reward. The stone keep that Maurice de Londres raised in the 1120s is thought to be perhaps the oldest Norman keep in Glamorgan. A courthouse was built here in 1454 and stayed in use until at least 1631. It is Grade I listed, owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, and Cadw lets you in free. A ghost called the White Lady is said to guard treasure in a cauldron somewhere on the site; she led one man to the gold, then turned on him when he took more than his share.
The beaches, Hardee's Bay and Horseshoe Bay, give sand at low tide and sharp rock at high. Offshore lies Tusker Rock, a reef covered completely at high water that wrecked a great many ships over the years. In December 2025 hundreds of Victorian hobnailed shoes washed up on the shore, thought to be from a nineteenth-century wreck. West of the estuary rise the Merthyr Mawr sand dunes, among the highest in Europe, with the ruins of Candleston Castle at their edge and the lost village of Treganllaw buried somewhere beneath the sand.
Bridgend, three miles north, has the nearest station and the shops; the First Cymru 303 runs roughly hourly and reaches the village in about fifteen minutes. The poet Dannie Abse made his Welsh home here in the early 1970s, in a house called Green Hollows, and wrote of the place more than once. He came back to the same evening light off the estuary that you can still watch from the cliff path.