The highest mountain in Britain south of Snowdonia, Pen y Fan is the Beacons’ great flat-topped summit — and it’s a straightforward half-hour drive from The Old Exchange.
The classic route from Pont ar Daf climbs a well-engineered stone path over the shoulder of Corn Du (873m) before the final pull to the top, where the glacially-carved escarpment falls away beneath your boots and, on a clear day, the view runs to the Bristol Channel.
Go early for sunrise and you’ll share the summit with a handful of head-torches rather than a conveyor belt of walkers — one of the great easy-access mountain moments in Britain.
Worth knowing
- Pen y Fan and Corn Du were once known together as Cadair Arthur — “Arthur’s Seat”.
- Both summits are crowned by Bronze Age burial cairns roughly 4,000 years old.
- The obelisk below Corn Du remembers Tommy Jones, a five-year-old who was lost on the mountain in 1900 — a moving landmark on the ridge.
- This is the mountain of the SAS “Fan Dance”: a 24 km loaded march over the peak and back, still used in special forces selection.
- The mountain is cared for by the National Trust, which continually rebuilds its heavily-walked paths.