The Arabian desert?
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The small, sleepy village of Merthyr Mawr, not far from Bridgend, is home to both 267 people, according to the 2011 census – and the second largest sand dune in Europe. Only the Dune of Pilat on France’s west coast is greater.
Glamorgan’s unsung dunes are sometimes known as the South Wales Sahara and cover some 800 acres, reaching 200 feet in places. The reserve’s peak, crowned with the accolade of second highest in Europe, is known as the Big Dipper.
The eagle-eyed among you might have spotted the sand dunes, which rest on the banks of the Bristol Channel, in the 1962 classic film, Lawrence of Arabia, in which Merthy Mawr stands in for an Arabian desert, while the dunes have also starred in episodes of Doctor Who, which uses nearby Cardiff for much of its shooting.
The dunes have history, too. Once part of a continuous belt of sand that ran all the way along the coast from the Ogmore Estuary to the Gower Peninsula, one of the largest dune complexes in the UK, today that chain has been broken but it remains a Site of Specific Scientific Interest (SSSI), thanks to its important plant and invertebrate life, including the exceedingly large Great Green Bush-cricket.
Candleston Castle, as seen from the dunes
On the edge of the dunes is perched Candleston Castle, the ruins of a 14th century fortified manor house, while among the dunes numerous prehistoric burial sites have been discovered.
The dunes host a trail running race each year and are also home to long walks and sandboarding and dune-sledding, essentially adult and infant variations on the same activity. Outside nearby Bridgend is Island Farm, a Second World War POW camp and the scene of the largest escape attempt by German POWs in the UK, when 70 prisoners made a break for it after tunnelling beneath the perimeter fence.
Another area of sand dunes in Wales is currently in the news, too, after archaeologists believed that Newborough Warren on Anglesey could be covering a lost medieval village.
As part of a nationwide project considering how climate change is affecting the Welsh coast, researchers hope to uncover a small series of ruins dating back to the Dark Ages, centuries after the Romans abandoned it.
Last year, a dig at Newborough Warren uncovered a house buried in the dunes.
The UK’s finest dunes
Sefton Coast
The largest dune system in England is found on the Sefton Coast, Merseyside, not far from Crosby Beach, where Antony Gormley’s 100 cast-iron lifesize figures are dotted about the sand.
Crosby Beach
Credit: © National Geographic Image Collection / Alamy/National Geographic Image Collection / Alamy
Sandwood Bay
Sandwood Bay is one of the most remote beaches in the UK, a four mile hike from a road near Blairmore in the Scottish Highlands. Marram-grass and sand dunes await those who make the trip.
Drigg Dunes
Drigg Sands offers an escape from other tourists in the Lakes
Credit: Christine Rose Photography/Christine Rose Photography
Drigg sand dunes boasts more than a thousand of acres of pristine dunes that sweep their way down to the coast from the mountains of Scafell Pike behind. It’s an excellent way to escape the crowds of the Lake District’s more popular locations.
The world’s finest
Dune 7, Namibia
Dune 7 is regarded as the world’s biggest, at around 1,256 feet above sea level.
Namibia’s Dune 7
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The Great Dune of Pilat, France
The Great Dune of Pilat is Europe’s biggest at 377 feet tall in places. The wind shifts the dune as much as 16 feet a year, forcing it swallow trees from a neighbouring pine forest.
The White Sands, New Mexico
The White Sands National Monument of New Mexico resembles as much a snow-covered plain as it does a desert.
The White Sands of New Mexico
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Publish date : 2017-07-10 10:44:00
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