Walks in Gower > Lodge Cwm and Llethrid Walk
Description: A great walk but with about 1 mile on the main road, the rest of the walk will get you really off
the beaten track, I would recommend taking the explorer map for Gower OS164. Very few people walk this way, but it's a beautiful walk through the wooded
valleys to Cillibion and Llethrid at the far side of the old deer park. Long enough to recommend taking a sandwich and drink.
Distance covered: 6 miles Average time: 4 hours Terrain: Easy under foot.
Ask one of us to point you to the 'Black gate' at the far side of one of the fields behind the house. Walk through the gate and follow the track in front of you straight on this is where you may find some mud in winter but you can easily find a way around it in the woods. The track your walking on used to connect the farm with more fields on the far side of the wood.
Follow the path until you reach a well made forestry track and turn right down the hill, after about three quarters of a mile you will reach a cross roads, turn left. In another 200yds you will see a track forking off to your left, follow this track, it takes you to Lodge Cwm.
History 
Its name comes from the old Lodge farm which was once situated at the head of the valley, all that remain of the farm are some ruined wall's in the wood. Also near the top of the wooded part of the valley is an old lime kiln on the right hand side of the path behind the kiln there used to be an old lunch house used by the gentleman who shot game in the woods in the days when the Vivian family owned the estate. If you look carefully at the rock face behind the kiln you will just make out the black soot still staining the face where the chimney was built into the rocks.
When you reach the Cwm you will cross a style into the farm land and follow the field boundary down the right hand side of the field, keep the strip of woodland on your right until you meet a farm track which crosses the wooded strip, follow it to the opposite side of the wooded strip and turn left again keeping alongside the boundary of the wood until you emerge onto Cefn Bryn common.
Walk out to the road and follow it to the right, turn right at the road junction and follow the road all the way back until it drops down around Llethrid barns to the narrow river bridge. Immediately after the bridge turn right through the wooden gate and follow the forestry track through the fields and back into the woods.
In the first clearing you come to you will find stacks of sawn timber and charcoal kilns, this is the home of Gower charcoal, there are some good information boards explaining the process. Off on your left is the entrance to tooth cave, it's the longest of Gower's caves and was occupied during the bronze age, the remains of six adults and two children were found here during excavations. Unfortunately the cave is gated and locked, its dangerous to visit due to flooded sections and some really tight squeezes. If you are a keen caver you will need to get in touch with south Wales caving club for more information.
Keep following the main track now for about one and a half miles through one cross roads where you will see the old head game keepers cottege nesstled in the woodland at the edge of the cwm, continue down the wide gravel track past Giants Grave on our right.
History
Giant's Grave is a Neolithic (4000-3000bc) tomb belonging to the so-called Severn-Cotswold group. The burial site was first located in 1869 when it was plundered for stone and re-excavated in 1960-61 by R J C Atkinson. Bone fragments belonging to 40 individuals have been recovered. All were adults except for three, also discovered were two rims of Neolithic pottery. Take a look at the rounded stones on the southern corner of the tomb, it is thought the stones were washed by a river which once ran along side the tomb but which has found its way underground into the limestone rocks below.
when you meet the tarmac lane at the end of the Cwm turn right and continue up the drive to the house.
Map
