It might be stretching things slightly to say that the limestone pavements around Eryrys (near Yr Wyddgrug/Mold) are as spectacular as those in say Malham Cove in Yorkshire. But they’re well worth a visit, especially as they’re only 10 minutes from the roadside, and handy for a quick walk in a spare hour or two, and they’re a lot less crowded than Malham too!

If you park in the village of Eryrys, and walk down the lane to the right of the Sun Inn, there’s a few footpaths on the right – the one just after the water treatment works is probably the most direct. You’ll hit a fence/wall combo near the top which looks to block your way, but although there’s no stile, there’s a fairly easy unofficial crossing point over the fence and wall, where a hundred others have crossed before, and once over the wall/fence, you’re on ‘Open Access Land’ and free to roam at will on the triple tops of Bryn Alyn, rather than having to stick to footpaths.

The lack of a stile highlights an issue though – access to open access land is not always that open. The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 freed up most of our hilltops to the right to roam, but it didn’t give anyone the responsibility of making sure we could actually get onto it!