Exploring the estate at Llanerchaeron

Buff-tailed bumblebee in meadow, Llanerchaeron | © National Trust Images / Victoria Squire

Any time of year is great for visiting the estate at Llanerchaeron. In spring, flowers carpet the woods and in summer the estate is full of song and colour. Autumn brings beautiful colours to the woods, while winter sees early birds nesting in unusual places.

Summer highlights on the estate

In summer, the meadows are full of pink, white and yellow flowers, tiny florets appear in panicles on grasses beneath skipping butterflies and the swifts will be screaming overhead. Redstarts and nuthatches nest on the estate itself – in buildings and old tree holes.

Otters

This is a good time to spot otters on the river in the early morning. In the evening, brown long eared bats unfold their ears and fly from the top of the house, noctule and serotine bats feed along the hedgerows and Daubentons bats swoop over the river.

An otter pauses in the leaves on a riverbank at Stackpole, Pembrokeshire. — Summer is a good time to spot otters at Llanerchaeron | © National Trust Images / Jim Bebbington

Walking the estate

There are plenty of walks here at Llanerchaeron for you to enjoy. Why not enjoy a walk around the estate during opening hours, or perhaps a wander around the parkland.  

Perhaps you would like a stroll through the woods, looking out for wildlife by the river Aeron running alongside the path. The fantastic ground flora in the woods is one reason it is protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest.  

The farmyard at Llanerchaeron

The stockyard on the farm at Llanerchaeron was perfectly designed to house and rear the livestock to supply the estate with meat and cereal crops.

When you visit, have a look around the stockyard to see if you can work out what these buildings were used for.

There are still Llanwenog sheep and Welsh pigs on the parkland, sometimes they can be seen on the farmyard, giving you a clue to the use of the buildings.

The Geler Jones collection

Housed in a purpose-made building at the bottom end of the estate, just off the farmyard is private collector Geler Jones’s treasure trove of early 20th-century agricultural and domestic machinery and implements, as well as horse drawn carts and carriages, and a magnificent steam engine named ‘Glenys’.