Visitors to Corwen can now enjoy their own personal guided walk to help them explore the area’s fascinating past through the Heather and Hillforts Project.
Using the latest technology, visitors are able to access a new audio tour from the town centre to the Iron Age hillfort of Caer Drewyn (known locally as Mynydd y Gaer) on site via their mobile telephones or by downloading the free mp3 version from the internet.
Visitors can choose to follow the trail from start to finish, or to simply dip in where they would like to. An introduction to the contents of each audio point is available on the www.ygrugarcaerau.co.uk  www.heatherandhillforts.co.uk  and visitors can choose which audio points are of special interest to them.
The audio heritage trail is a new approach to interpretation of the area that people can access whilst in the countryside through their mobile phones. The audio tour enables the provision of site specific information, without having a visual impact on the setting.
Erin Robinson, Heather and Hillforts Interpretation Officer said: “The trail gives visitors the opportunity to walk the popular route with a number of experts to hand and gives visitors the unique chance to be shown around this fascinating area by the people who live in it, work in it and love it.
“The audio points are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and as they are accessible through the internet or through your mobile telephone, there is no inconvenience of picking up a handset and returning it at the end of your walk, and having to do this by a certain time.”
The trail is the second of a series of audio trails for Denbighshire’s upland heritage. The Moel Famau Audio Heritage Trail, which leads people from Moel Famau car park (Bwlch Pen Barras) to the Jubilee Tower, was launched last autumn.
The phone numbers used for the trails are local rate numbers and calls can be included in visitor’s free minutes. The tours are available in MP3 format on the Heather and Hillforts Project website www.heatherandhillforts.co.uk, which will also include the tours in written format, reconstruction drawings, aerial photographs and videos of the landscape in use, in the coming months.

The three year Heather and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Scheme is developing a £2.3 million initiative for upland conservation work and has received a grant of £1.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Call 01490 555123 for the Corwen/Caer Drewyn trail, 01352 230123 for the Moel Famau trail or visit www.heatherandhillforts.co.uk.

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Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. Website: www.hlf.org.uk
 
Fast facts on HLF

• The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded £190million of grants in Wales across more than 1,700 projects since 1995.
• We have invested £30 million in land and biodiversity projects, preserving 1,500 hectares of our natural heritage - that’s an area the size of over 2,000 rugby pitches.
• HLF has invested over £25 million in projects to preserve Wales’ industrial heritage. Big Pit at Blaenafon was voted ‘Museum of the Year’ after its lottery funded makeover, winning the coveted Gulbenkian Prize, the UK’s biggest arts prize.
• HLF’s biggest ever grant award in Wales was £10.75 million for Swansea’s National Waterfront Museum, which opened in October 2005.
• It is estimated that every £1million of HLF funding attracts £800,000 from other sources, making a huge impact on conserving Wales’ heritage for the future.
• Fifty percent of HLF grants have been awarded to charities, community groups or voluntary organisations.
• Over £75 million of HLF’s grants in Wales have helped to save, conserve and open up the country’s historic buildings and monuments.
• HLF funding reaches every corner of the country. We have supported schemes for Beaumaris Old Courthouse in Anglesey, the restoration and conservation of Cardiff Castle to Newport’s Belle Vue Park.