Spectacularly located at the bottom of cliffs with a ruined harbour, Victorian brickwork buildings, beehive kilns and a remote beach for a sheltered swim this is a treasure trove for explorers. Once used to make fire bricks from locally quarried quartzite to line steel-making furnaces, the work stopped in the early twentieth century. Today most of the buildings and much of the equipment remain on the site and this Scheduled Monument is now a romantic ruin. You can spend hours poking around the quarries, crushing house, moulding and drying sheds, kilns, engine and boiler houses, chimneys, warehouses and a quay. In the right conditions it is also possible to swim from the white pebble beach through the rock arch.
Getting there Park at layby off A5025 (Grid ref SH 40891 93551) between Bull Bay and Cemeas. Walk along lane to Porthwen Farmhouse and Castell. Turn west on coast path; descend to Porth Wen brickworks.
