The best place to forage in South Wales

Llansteffan

The south of Wales has some amazing scenery and couldn’t make a better spot to do some foraging, with its large patches of wild garlic and Samphire-covered marshes, it offers a little bit of everything. The number one place to go in the south of Wales is Llansteffan, sitting on the mouth of a huge estuary that contains a large commercial cockle gathering section on the beach, as well as numerous edible plants surrounding the castle sitting on the hill.

(The small but quaint castle sitting on the hill next to the village of Llansteffan)

That’s not to say there aren’t plenty of other great foraging spots around the south, especially in the Swansea Bay and Pembroke areas, but nothing beats the all-in-one gathering experience you can get at Llansteffan.

Where is Llansteffan and why you should go there

Just over 6 miles slightly southwest of Carmarthen, Llansteffan sits on one of the corners of a huge estuary that has 3 main river systems connecting into it. The village itself is quite small but very popular with tourists during the summer due to the large flat sandy beach and the castle ruins on a hill to the south. The beach is very flat and smooth and makes the perfect place for cockles to breed in huge quantities, leading to the areas further out becoming commercial cockle-gathering sites.

(Taken from one of the castle towers showing the village’s main car park and most popular area of the beach)

There are few rocks on the beach but still enough for mussels and limpets to be present, and during the lower tides of the year, other treats like razor clams can also be found. The hill the castle sits on is surrounded by woodland and contains a few tasty treats, but it’s very big and you may have to walk around the coast a little to find some of the better edible wild plants.

As for what you can find there, here’s a short list of the things I have personally found within 1 mile of the village:

Seafood

Cockles – Literally any amount you can be bothered to pick up, and according to www.llansteffan.com, the daily limit for non-licensed gathering is 8kg per person per day.

Mussels – Generally found in patches on isolated rocks and wooden posts on the beach, but still a good amount of them.

Limpets – These can be found on any of the rock formations that are submerged during high tide.

Winkles – can be found in abundance in the rock pools towards the top of the beach.

Shrimp and rock prawns – Even though they are tiny, they sometimes cluster in the rock pools after getting cut off by the tide, but for any real amount you’ll have to get yourself a push net and walk the surf at low tide.

Crabs– You will only find shore crabs and sometimes the smaller brown crabs that come closer to shore. They may not be big but they make good eating and are easy to gather in large amounts.

Razor clams – can only be found at the very lowest of tides, and requires a bottle of salt to spook them out of their holes.

Fish – Flounder can be caught all along the estuary, with the best spots being where the river starts to thin out, directly across the beach from the car park. The occasional bass is sometimes caught here along with various other fish, but this is the place to go for flounder.

Plants

Wild Garlic – completely covers one side of the hill the castle sits on.
Onion grass – found in clumps around the castle hill and all along the coast to the south.

Samphire – If you go directly west from the village, there is a large salt marsh where you can find samphire, but it is best to go across the land to avoid the rivers that separate parts of the beach.

Seaweed – Because the beach is so smooth and flat, it is best to go to the southern point where the sea comes closer to the rocks, but then again seaweed isn’t hard to find on any UK beach.

Elderberries – There are numerous isolated elderberry trees appearing in hedgerows and on the edge of the castle hill woods.

Blackberries – Again, these are pretty much everywhere

Nettles – Same as above

Chestnuts and Acorns – Various trees dotted around the castle hill woods.

The standard UK foraging laws apply to all land that isn’t private, which in Llansteffan means staying out of the grounds of the large estate that can be seen up the hill from the car park. The borders are clearly marked and the estate’s land mostly just covers farmland.

A word of Warning when foraging the beaches of Llansteffan

The beaches are very flat and you can easily go out as far as 500 meters away from the land at low tide. The sea comes in very quickly here and it’s easy to get cut off by the tides. There are numerous streams and small rivers that form on the beach and these can fill up behind you when the tide comes in, and I have personally had to wade through them more than once after not realizing how fast the tide comes in.

(A view from about 150 meters away from the shore showing one of the rivers that can fill up behind you and cut you off from the village)

If you go to the salt marshes to the west of the village be very careful not to get stuck in the mud, and be aware that these also fill up very quickly when the tide starts to come in. The safest way to forage around this estuary is to arrive at high tide and follow it out over the next hour to make sure you do not get cut off.