The route starts from a village with a salty past. Port Eynon, on the southern tip of the Gower Peninsula, was named after an 11th-century Welsh prince who built a castle here (no trace of it now remains). Despite the growing demands of recreation and tourism, this seaside village retains much of its ancient character with narrow lanes and a Norman church.
The village was once a haven for a rough breed of seaborne adventurers, and in the late 18th century, when smuggling was in its heyday, up to eight customs and excise men had to be stationed in the village.
To the south of the village is the Salt House, consisting of the remains of several fishermen's cottages (visible today are the foundations of two that were occupied until the 1860s). Salt for curing fish was made there by evaporating seawater; the sea reaches the old walls at high water, and at low tide the remains of other structures are visible, including stone vaults that once formed a quay. The original Salt House was a fortified mansion belonging to John Lucas, a 16th-century adventurer.
Further south along the rocky shore, Port Eynon Point offers a good view back to the curved beach and westwards along the coast. Below the point lie two ridges of sand and rock that can be approached from the shore but are cut off by spring tides: the easiest to get to is Sedger's Bank, while Skysea lies further from the shore.
A cave lies at the tip of Port Eynon Point, reachable at low tide via a track along the shore from the Salt House. Prehistoric bones have been found inside the cave, but this site does not really compare with other caves further along the walk.
Around the headland are Overton Mere and Culver Hole, the focus of many local legends. The hole's outer wall of masonry, built in the narrow cleft between two cliffs that fall steeply to the sea and pierced with windows, stands 60 feet (18 metres) high and is almost impossible to scale without using ladders or climbing gear. Inside there are some stone shelves along the walls, which may have been nesting holes for pigeons (some people think this intriguing structure was a dovecote for the now-vanished Port Eynon Castle, since a similar structure has survived at nearby Oxwich Castle). Others maintain that Culver Hole was a smuggler's den.
Yet another theory suggests it was a Celtic hermit's retreat dating from earlier centuries. John Lucas of the Salt House was reported to have rebuilt 'Kulverd Hall' and used it as a stronghold, giving rise to the fanciful legend of a secret passageway leading to the Salt House through the limestone cliffs.
From above Overton Mere, the clifftop path leads westwards towards three of the most interesting caves in Glamorgan. Longhole Cave on Overton Cliff is about 130 feet (39 metres) above the high watermark and is reached by a footpath branching off the main track. Animal remains and prehistoric artefacts have been discovered here by archaeologists, many of which are now in the British Museum and the National Museum of Wales.
Paviland Caves lie lower down the cliffs near Foxhole Slade. These are difficult to find and extremely dangerous to approach due to incoming tides and crumbling cliff paths. The larger cave, Goat's Hole, has yielded some of the richest finds in Britain for archaeologists: a headless skeleton stained red, named the Red Lady of Paviland, was unearthed from its floor in 1823, and by 1913 over 800 implements along with many Ice Age animal bones had been discovered.
The route back to Port Eynon follows well-trodden footpaths and quiet byways inland across beautiful farmland. The trig point near Hills Farm offers a fabulous panorama of the South Gower headland on a fine day, from where there is an easy descent back to Port Eynon village.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
