The Mountain
The path towards the summit of Holyhead Mountain — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Holyhead Mountain (Mynydd Tŵr) is the highest point on Anglesey at 220m (722ft) — a real mountain in miniature, its heathery, rocky mass rising straight from the sea at the island’s north-west corner. The summit panorama is out of all proportion to the climb: the whole of Anglesey and the Snowdonia skyline one way, and on clear days the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland and the Isle of Man across the water.
Routes Up
The shortest ascents start from the South Stack road (RSPB car park) or from Breakwater Country Park — allow 45–90 minutes up depending on route, on good but rocky paths. The finest circuit combines summit and coast: up from the country park, over the top, down to South Stack for the seabirds, and back along the coastal path past North Stack and its fog signal station — a half-day that stands with any coastal walk in Britain.
Twenty Centuries on the Slopes
The Anglesey Coastal Path on Holy Island — Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
The mountain wears its history openly. On its lower southern slopes stand the Tŷ Mawr hut circles, the stone foundations of a settlement occupied from prehistory into the Roman era; the summit itself carries the remains of Caer y Tŵr, an Iron Age hillfort later used as a Roman watchtower site, signalling to the fort at Caer Gybi below — where St Cybi’s Church now stands. The Victorian quarrymen who built the breakwater took seven million tonnes of stone from the mountain’s seaward flank; their workings are now the country park. Few small mountains carry so much story.
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