Carningli mountain stands at 347 metres or 1,138 feet high above the surrounding area and offers stunning panoramic views of Pembrokeshire. Once a volcano, Carningli is around 450 million years old. Its name translates from Welsh as the Mount of Angels and comes from a legend about a holy man from Ireland, St Brynach, who came to Wales to follow in his friend St David’s footsteps. Brynach was said to be very dedicated to his religion and lived alone among the rocky outcrops of Carningli where he would pray and talk to angels. Those rocky outcrops, or ‘tors,’ and the shattered rocks on Carningli’s slopes are evidence of weathering processes such as freezing and thawing, which operated during cold periods at the end of the last ice age.
At the summit of Carningli are the remains of a large Iron Age hillfort, while on the lower slopes there is evidence of Bronze Age settlements. There was also once a tramway on Carningli, carrying broken stone from a small quarry down to a crushing plant on the Cilgwyn Road. Carningli was designated a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1954 to protect its delicate environment. The area is particularly important for damselflies and rare plants and is covered in a patchwork of different environment types including dry heath, wet heath, fen acid grassland, and marshy grassland.