Cors Fochno

Cors Fochno is a raised peat bog beside the village of Borth in Ceredigion. It lies on the south side of the Dyfi estuary and forms part of the Dyfi National Nature Reserve. In 1976 it became Wales’s only UNESCO biosphere reserve. A boardwalk starts at the northern edge and runs along the bog’s border and through surrounding woodland. The surviving core covers the largest expanse of primary near-natural raised bog in an estuarine setting in the United Kingdom. The site supports several varieties of peat moss and carnivorous plants. It also holds significant populations of common cottongrass and round-leaved sundew visible from the boardwalk. In 2019 the extremely rare Irish Lady’s-tresses orchid was discovered here, and the colony has persisted into 2024. Rare wildlife includes otters, red kites, peregrines and wintering hen harriers. Welsh Mountain Ponies graze the area alongside adders, badgers and a range of woodland birds. Beyond its ecology, Cors Fochno appears in popular culture. Borth and the bog form the backdrop to a 2013 episode of the television series Y Gwyll. The same landscape appears in Nancy Bond’s 1976 novel A String in the Harp. Visitors follow the boardwalk through bog and woodland, seeing mosses, sundews and the occasional orchid while watching for birds and ponies.