AbstractRecent work in the Shelve Ordovician Inlier has produced a variety of evidence for a period of deformation dominated by a braided system of dextral oblique‐slip faults of pre‐upper Llandovery age. Displacement amounts along individual fault strands are generally less than 2 km, but the aggregate displacement across the whole Inlier up to and including the Pontesford‐Linley Fault, must have been much greater. The fault structures found in other parts of Wales are compared to those of the Shelve Inlier, and it is concluded that this style of faulting was of importance in Wales, though it was mostly of pre‐Silurian age. The significance of the fault systems in terms of the late Precambrian to early Caledonian structural framework of Southern Britain is discussed with reference to examples from other parts of th