Talgarth Walking Guide In the foothills of the Black Mountains www.visittalgarth.co.uk DL Talgarth walks V5 PRINT JUL2018.indd 1 15/07/2018 20:37 Talgarth Walking Guide Walk 1 Through Park Wood to Rhos Fawr, finishing via Pwll-y-Wrach Falls Page 4 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 12 km/8 miles Classification: Moderate to Hard Walk 2 Llanelieu and its Ancient Church Page 8 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 9 km/6 miles Classification: Moderate Walk 3 To Castell Dinas via the Gliding Club Page 12 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 11 km/7 miles Classification: Moderate Walk 4 Mynydd Troed and Penyrwrlodd Page 17 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 12 km/8 miles Classification: Moderate to Hard Walk 5 Town Walk around Talgarth Page 21 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 1.6 km/1 miles Classification: Easy Walk 6 Talgarth Towers Walk Page 25 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 6 km/4 miles Classification: Moderate Walk 7 Meadows, Moats and Mountains Views – a Bronllys Round Page 28 Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 11 km/7 miles Classification: Moderate 2 visittalgarth.co.uk DL Talgarth walks V5 PRINT JUL2018.indd 2 15/07/2018 20:37 Talgarth Walking Guide Welcome to Talgarth, at the foot of the Black Mountains in the eastern part of the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority. The name Talgarth means ‘front of the hill’. Talgarth is believed to have been the centre of the kingdom of Brycheiniog founded in the mid 5th Century. The kingdom was ruled by King Brychan. It is now a friendly riverside market town, with a recently restored corn mill and bakery. It is a lively hub for outdoor activities. Our area offers superb walking country, with diverse terrain ranging from the historic townscape in and around Talgarth to the northern escarpment and plateaux of the Black Mountains. This booklet describes seven circular walks, which are designed to help you discover some of the history, myths, and wildlife of the area and experience the wide range of landscape. Talgarth is one of the elite group of UK towns which has achieved Walkers are Welcome (WaW) status. Since 2013, we have organized the annual Walking Festival which takes place during the early May Bank Holiday. The Festival gives the opportunity for participants to explore the landscape around Talgarth, and to learn more about the traditions and culture of the inhabitants who have fashioned the landscape. Follow www.talgarthwalkingfestival.org for news of the events. We would like to see you come and stay in and around Talgarth, to enjoy and respect our countryside, to come back again and again, to go home refreshed, to tell your friends about us and to start planning your next visit. Further information about Talgarth is available at www.visittalgarth.co.uk Talgarth Walking Guide 3 DL Talgarth walks V5 PRINT JUL2018.indd 3 15/07/2018 20:37 Walk 1 Through Park Wood to Rhos Fawr, finishing via Pwll-y-Wrach Falls Start: Talgarth Main Car Park Grid Reference: SO 153 337 Distance: 12 km/8 miles Classification: Moderate to Hard START Walk out of the main entrance of the car park and turn left towards the town centre. Cross the medieval Tower Bridge, with the Mill upstream on the right. The TIRC with its medieval Tower is just after the bridge. In the town square, fork right up the Bank past the Town Hall. Follow the road up to the gates of St. Gwendoline’s Church and fork right along Church St. with the graveyard to your left, to continue to a fork (Point1). 1 Fork left and left again to walk uphill past some cottages and bungalows to a gate. Go through the gate on the left (Point 2) to walk straight up two fields with the hedge to your right. After crossing a stile near an electricity line, cross the middle of a field to a stile at the bottom of Park Wood. 2 Cross the stile and keep ahead to join a broad forest track (Point 3). Turn left onto this and follow it for about 2.5 km, ignoring any forks to the left. [Parts of the track are muddy in wet weather]. The track eventually climbs to a gate and a stile that leads to a meadow. Keep straight ahead to follow a line of electricity poles across the field. Join a track which leads to a gate onto a broad ancient track. Follow this to a gate that leads onto Felindre Common. Go through and fork immediately right to walk uphill with the fence/hedge on your right. Continue to the very top and keep straight ahead to join a lane (Point 4). [If clear, there are impressive views of the Northern Escarpment of the Black Mountains, including Hay Bluff, Twmpa, Rhos Dirion, Y Das, Y Grib and Mynydd Troed. In the distance there are views of Pen-y-Fan in the Brecon Beacons.] Cwnstab Rhiw from track the Descending 4 visittalgarth.co.uk DL Talgarth walks V5 PRINT JUL2018.indd 4 15/07/2018 20:37 LOOK OUT FOR Old Gwernyfed A manor house had been built on this site by the late medieval times but was re-built in the 17th Century. There were formal gardens and fishponds laid out behind the house. The stone pillars that survive from this time show where the gated entrance to the manor house stood. Today the entrance to the Jacobean manor house along with its attached farm buildings is past two stone lions that stand guard, paws raised to catch the unwary visitor. Look down the tree lined driveway to the front of the house, on either side there are round towers that may have been store rooms and the upper parts dovecotes, a source of fresh meat in winter. The west wing of the house is a ruin, the result of a fire in the 1780s. 3 Turn left to follow this lane onto open common land. Fork half right to follow a faint track uphill, towards the high point of the common. You pass a pond as you climb the slope. Follow the track which runs alongside a wall on your right. Keep straight ahead to drop slightly and then turn right to ford a stream in a gully. Fork left to take the upper path that contours about 50 m above the forest. Follow the contouring path around the hillside to a gate in a fence which runs up the hillside. [To ascend to the Black Mountains plateau, turn left after going through the gate and follow the track up Rhiw Cwnstab] 4 Go through the gate, and follow the track down to the right for a few metres and then take a left-hand path to cross a stream. Continue along the path which contours across the hill side. Stay on this until it crosses a stream in a deep gully. Just after this, turn right around a daffodil field [impressive blooms in early spring] and follow a track down to where it re-crosses the stream to a stile. Follow the grassy track down past a house and a small nature reserve. 5 Cross the road and cross a stile ahead. Keep right to a waymark post and then turn right, with the hedge to the right, to cross a footbridge. Now keep straight ahead, crossing a succession of stiles, until the path drops to cross a tree-lined track by a large stone post. Bear right here and aim for woodland in the bottom right hand corner of the field, where a stile leads onto a lane (Point 5). 6 Turn right and walk along the road for 100 m to a gate on the left. Cross this and follow the woodland path alongside the stream, ignoring any tracks that head right uphill. Continue over a stile and down steps to Pwll-y-Wrach waterfall (Witches Pool). Care is needed here as it is often muddy and slippery. From here, continue downstream to a path junction and bear right, onto a well-surfaced path with a handrail that leads up to a lane. Turn left onto this lane to drop back down into Talgarth. Talgarth Walking Guide 5 DL Talgarth walks V5 PRINT JUL2018.indd 5 15/07/2018 20:37 LOOK OUT FOR Pwll-y-Wrach The ancient and secluded woodland of Pwll-y-Wrach (The Witches Pool) hides many a secret, apart from the birds and wild animals. Access to this nature reserve is easy with footpaths from the car park to the pool itself. However it can become very muddy under foot. Watch for the blue fl ash of a kingfi sher; listen to the call of the birds; the scuttling of the animals in the undergrowth, even the bark of an otter. Breathe in the heady fragrance of the wild fl owers and you soon begin to imagine St Gwendoline herself, the patron saint of Talgarth Church, bathing in Pwll-y-Wrach. But there’s a darker secret. Was it a scream of a jay you heard or the screech of a witch? Was the pool used in medieval times and after to decide whether witches were innocent or guilty? What do you think? Pwll-y-Wrach 6 visittalgarth.co.uk DL Talgarth walks V5 PRINT JUL2018.indd 6 15/07/2018 20:37 Walk 1 Through Park Wood to Rhos Fawr, fi nishing via Pwll-y-Wrach Falls 4 5 3 2 1 fi nish | start © Crown Copyright 2017.