Hunter-gatherers camped on Burry Holms some 9,000 years ago, leaving behind flint tools and charred hazelnut shells that archaeologists found in a 1998 dig. By the Iron Age, people had built a hillfort here, digging a ditch and bank across the headland’s neck that survives today. A hermit or small monastic community later lived on the island’s eastern side: a document from 1195 calls it the hermitage of St Cenydd, and the low walls of a chapel and living quarters from that period still stand.
Cross the sand from Llangennith, at the north end of Rhossili Bay, only around low tide, and check the posted safe crossing times before you set out — the flats fill quickly once the tide turns. Worm’s Head, Rhossili’s other tidal island, lies a few miles south across the bay, and St Cenydd is remembered too at St Cenydd’s Church, back in the village.
