Church, cove and coast path
Cwm-yr-Eglwys
A sheltered sandy-and-shingle cove where a surviving church wall faces the sea and two very different walks cross the Dinas Island peninsula.
- Best for
- Rockpooling, coast walks and church history
- Give it
- A beach visit or the three-mile circular walk
- Don't miss
- St Brynach's surviving west wall and bellcote
The Fox verdict
A cove shaped by church, storm and sea
Come for the sheltered beach and its church ruin; stay for a level wooded path or the higher Dinas Island circuit.
Cwm-yr-Eglwys brings its character together at the water's edge: a sandy-shingle beach, wooded valley and stream beneath enclosing headlands. The level valley path links the cove with Pwllgwaelod and the Sailors' Safety across the low neck of the peninsula.
Where to go
Places in Cwm-yr-Eglwys
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesCwm-yr-Eglwys Beach
A sheltered sandy-and-shingle beach with a stream, rockpools and a narrow slipway for small boats. Dogs are allowed, and the beach has earned Seaside and Green Coast awards.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour 15 minutes
- Locality
- Cwm-yr-Eglwys cove
- Access
- The beach is mostly covered at high tide. Parking is limited and charged at times; a public toilet is available.
Pentre Ifan Chambered Tomb
Wales's largest and best-preserved Neolithic dolmen (burial chamber), near Nevern.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Near Nevern
Pwllgwaelod Beach
The second beach on the peninsula's western side, reached from Cwm-yr-Eglwys by the valley path, with a car park, toilets and the Sailors' Safety pub.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour
- Locality
- Pwllgwaelod, on the western side of the Dinas Island peninsula
Food & drink
1 placeSailors' Safety
A beachside inn and seafood restaurant right on the sand, with outside seating and views across Fishguard Bay. The menu centres on local Pembrokeshire seafood with foraged ingredients.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour 15 minutes
- Locality
- Pwllgwaelod beach
- Access
- The pub is popular at lunchtime and in the evening, so book ahead.
Walks & outdoors
1 placeCwm-yr-Eglwys to Pwllgwaelod Valley Path
This purpose-built path crosses the wooded valley at the low neck of the peninsula, linking the two beaches without the cliff climb.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 25 minutes each way
- Locality
- The wooded valley between Cwm-yr-Eglwys and Pwllgwaelod
- Access
- The purpose-built path is level and wheelchair- and pushchair-friendly.
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Three ways to explore Cwm-yr-Eglwys
Signature outings
Take the level valley path
Follow the purpose-built, wheelchair- and pushchair-friendly route through the wooded valley between Cwm-yr-Eglwys and Pwllgwaelod.
Book the Sailors' Safety
Walk to the beachside inn at Pwllgwaelod for local Pembrokeshire seafood with foraged ingredients and views across Fishguard Bay.
Pause at Pwllgwaelod
Spend time at the peninsula's western beach, about a 20-minute walk from Cwm-yr-Eglwys and beside the Sailors' Safety.
The village story
The valley the sea remade
A surviving church wall, a sheltered beach and two routes across the Dinas Island peninsula tell the story of this tiny lost village.
A church at the edge of the cove
The wall stands on the beach. One end of a twelfth-century church — the west entrance and its bellcote — is all that survives of St Brynach's, and it sits in a seaward graveyard at the edge of the sand, headstones and sea wall arranged around it. A scale model of a Cwm Trader, the kind of coastal vessel that once worked this coast, is displayed by the gate. Coastal Cottages of Pembrokeshire call the view "arguably one of the most iconic landscapes in Pembrokeshire," and for once the marketing is doing the church a favour rather than the other way round.
Cwm-yr-Eglwys is a cove at the foot of a wooded valley, with a stream running through the middle of it and headlands closing it in on both sides. It sits on the eastern side of the Dinas Island peninsula — which is not an island but a peninsula, joined to the mainland by the low neck the valley path crosses. The name means "Valley of the Church," which was more accurate before the sea took most of the church.
The lost village and its beach
About ten people live here full-time, across 27 homes. That makes it, locally, the "lost village."
The beach is the reason to be here. It's sheltered and sandy-shingle, mostly covered at high tide, safe enough for swimming and snorkelling and good for rockpooling, with a narrow slipway for launching small boats. It has a Seaside Award and a Green Coast Award. Dogs are allowed. There's a public toilet and some parking, charged at times.
The valley path and the high route
There's no pub and no shop in the cove itself. The nearest pub is a twenty-minute walk away, and it's a good one to walk to. The Sailors' Safety sits right on the sand at Pwllgwaelod, reached by the flat 1.25-mile valley path — a purpose-built, level route through woodland that's wheelchair- and pushchair-friendly, which is rare on this coast. The pub does Pembrokeshire seafood with foraged ingredients: crab pasta, seafood chowder, lobster, mussels, fish and chips, fish finger sandwiches, and a nut or beef roast. Reviews warn it's packed at lunch and dinner, so book. The name refers to a light once kept burning as a guide to ships "or to warn smugglers that the revenue men were around."
The harder walk is the Dinas Island circular, about three miles of coast path over high cliffs to the 142-metre summit of Pen y Fan, with views across Cardigan Bay and Fishguard Bay and a decent chance of seals, choughs and seabirds. The cove has its own microclimate — sheltered enough to be "a few degrees warmer and drier than other parts of the Pembrokeshire coast," which is why the trees grow the way they do.
Dinas Cross connections and the August regatta
For the shop, part-time post office, garage and chip shop, you go a mile up to Dinas Cross, signed off the A487 between Fishguard and Newport. The T5 bus runs that corridor; the nearest station is Fishguard, six or seven miles west.
For the first two weeks of August the regatta takes over — sailing and rowing races, long-distance swims, sea fishing, diving competitions, and, for anyone under the age of caring who wins, a sandcastle-building contest.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Cwm-yr-Eglwys Beach — visitpembrokeshire.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Pentre Ifan Chambered Tomb — cadw.gov.wales statutory register or public authority
- Cwm-yr-Eglwys to Pwllgwaelod Valley Path — pembrokeshirecoast.wales other published source
- Pwllgwaelod Beach — visitpembrokeshire.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Sailors' Safety — visitpembrokeshire.com operator, sector body or destination organisation