Craig y Forwyn (meaning "Maiden's Crag" in English) is a

crag Crag may refer to: * Crag (climbing), a cliff or group of cliffs, in any location, which is or may be suitable for climbing * Crag (dice game), a dice game played with three dice * Crag, Arizona, US * Crag, West Virginia, US * Crag and tail, a ge ...

Conwy County Borough Conwy County Borough ( cy, Bwrdeistref Sirol Conwy) is a county borough in Wales. It borders Gwynedd to the west and south, and Denbighshire to the east. Other settlements in the county borough include Abergele, Betws-y-Coed, Colwyn Bay, Con ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, located less than a mile south of

Llanddulas Llanddulas is a village in Conwy county borough, Wales, midway between Old Colwyn and Abergele and next to the North Wales Expressway in the community of Llanddulas and Rhyd-y-Foel. The village lies beneath the limestone hill of Cefn-yr-Ogo ...

, near the village of

Rhyd y Foel Rhyd-y-foel is a small village near the coast of north Wales in the area of Rhos in the County Borough of Conwy, Wales. It is named after the old ford (Welsh: ''rhyd'') over the River Dulas. It lies at the foot of the western slopes of Pen ...

. The cliff is composed of

carboniferous limestone Carboniferous Limestone is a collective term for the succession of limestones occurring widely throughout Great Britain and Ireland that were deposited during the Dinantian Epoch of the Carboniferous Period. These rocks formed between 363 ...

and is of interest to geologists as a source of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s and to rock climbers as a fine cliff with many interesting climbing routes.

Rock climbing

Craig y Forwyn reaches a height of , and

rock climbers Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically an ...

have identified and rated more than 160 routes for ascending it. The rapidity with which the rock dries makes the cliff a useful climbing venue after rain has fallen.

Location

The cliff lies on the west bank of the Afon Dulas, which reaches the sea at

, and is slightly inland of the belt of carboniferous limestone that runs along the coast from

Great Ormes Head The Great Orme ( cy, Y Gogarth) is a limestone headland on the north coast of Wales, north-west of the town of Llandudno. Referred to as ''Cyngreawdr Fynydd'' by the 12th-century poet Gwalchmai ap Meilyr, its English name derives from the Old N ...

Point of Ayr :''There are two other similarly named points in the British Isles: Point of Ayre, Isle of Man and Point of Ayre, Orkney, Scotland.'' Point of Ayr ( cy, Y Parlwr Du) is the northernmost point of mainland Wales. It is situated immediately to ...

, about three miles west of

Abergele Abergele (; ; ) is a market town and community, situated on the north coast of Wales between the holiday resorts of Colwyn Bay and Rhyl, in Conwy County Borough and in the historic county of Denbighshire. Its northern suburb of Pensarn lies ...

. The Dulas passes through a gap in the limestone belt, the strata of which dip from the north or northeast. This band of limestone is less than a mile wide. The summit of the hill is above sea level.

Geology

The cliff's carboniferous limestone is underlain by a seam about a foot thick of impure

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...

and a narrow stratum of bituminous

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especia ...

. This bears impressions of fossil plants including ''

Lepidodendron ''Lepidodendron'' is an extinct genus of primitive vascular plants belonging to the family Lepidodendraceae, part of a group of Lycopodiopsida known as scale trees or arborescent lycophytes, related to quillworts and lycopsids (club mosses). T ...

'', '' Poacites'' resembling leaves, and ''

Encrinite Encrinites are a type of grain-supported bioclastic sedimentary rock in which all or most of the grains are crinoid ossicles. In older literature, the word is sometimes used to refer to individual fossil crinoids, but this usage is obsolete. D ...

''. Another stratum lower down the cliff is of pebbles of a greenish sandstone, and this contains fossils of

bivalve molluscs Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, biva ...

as well as more sections of ''Encrinites''. Nearby is

quarry, which produces a particularly porcelain-like limestone that has been used architecturally for such buildings as St Margaret's Church,

Bodelwyddan Bodelwyddan () is a village, electoral ward and community in Denbighshire, Wales, approximately 5 miles (8 km) South of Rhyl. The Parish includes several smaller hamlets such as Marli and Pengwern. Bodelwyddan is home to over sixty listed ...

, commonly known as the "marble church".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Craig Y Forwyn, Conwy Landforms of Conwy County Borough Cliffs of Wales