A Weekend In... Clyro, Powys, Wales

the times Saturday March 19 2016 Travel 35 TAMARA HILLS Baskerville Hall Hotel A weekend Need to in... Clyro, know Where to stay Powys, Baskerville Hall Hotel (01497 820033, baskervillehall.co.uk) has Wales marvellous views and B&B doubles from £120. The Baskerville Arms (01497 820670, he snow-sprinkled slopes baskervillearms.co.uk) of the Black Mountains are has simple but gorgeous, looking like comfortable B&B doubles icebergs sliding along a from £69. Cwmhir Court ridge beneath a crisp blue (cwmhircourt.com) T sky as we amble up a lane offers self-catering to the Baskerville Hall accommodation in Clyro. Hotel (not a car in sight). The silhouette of an eerie-looking Victorian building Where to eat emerges (with no vehicles in the car The Wye Knot Stop park) and we enter the reception (with café in Llyswen no receptionist around). A sign with a (wyeknotstop.co.uk) does picture of Sherlock Holmes smoking excellent sandwiches, a pipe reads: “Only drinks purchased cakes and teas; perfect here may be consumed here: it would be for after a long walk. a shame to have them confiscated.” The Blue Boar on Castle The suitably mysterious hotel, on the posthumously, with much vivid books and faded novels by the skip-load. tall Herbert Rowse Armstrong, a lawyer Street in Hay-on-Wye, just edge of the little village of Clyro in description of his movements by foot in From Richard Booth’s Bookshop who disposed of his domineering wife below Hay Castle, offers Powys, likes to play up its Sherlock the surrounding area. Recognised as a (Booth began the self-styled “town of with the assistance of arsenic, which he good pub food at connection, although the master sleuth minor classic, the diaries capture daily books” tradition in Hay in 1962), we pick claimed in court to be weed killer “for reasonable prices, with would perhaps have concentrated on life in and around Clyro and Hay-on- up the excellent little Blue Guide to Hay his dandelions”. After seeming to get two roaring fires. bigger crimes than guests sneaking in Wye, the little market town a mile to and take it, appropriately enough, to the away with it, Armstrong was hanged in illicit booze. His creator, Sir Arthur the south, with its annual literary Blue Boar pub for another pint of 1922, after attempting to see off a Further information Conan Doyle, visited what was then festival now held at the end of May. “Butty’s”. The history of the town’s pivotal professional rival by similar means. Visit Wales (visitwales.com) Clyro Court, the home of the Walkers and visitors of any sort are position in skirmishes between the Welsh It’s a story fit for Sherlock — and Baskerville family, many times — advised to pick up a copy to pinpoint and the English and its book-dominated Clyro and its environs feel bursting with during which he came up with his spots described by Kilvert, who died recent years are covered, as is the tale of such intrigue. Go for a weekend. Just title The Hound of the Baskervilles. from peritonitis in 1879 aged 38. the Hay Poisoner. don’t forget your walking boots. The author eventually set the After taking a look at the charming This was a certain five-feet-nothing Tom Chesshyre book (published in instalments in grey-stone St Michael and All Angels’ 1901-02) in Devon, apparently Church in Clyro, where Kilvert was a because the Baskervilles wanted to curate (a plaque marks the house in “ward off tourists”. which he lodged opposite the Baskerville Nowadays the opposite seems to be Arms) and where tombs are inscribed true. As well as the prominent with the name Baskerville, my brother Sherlock-conscious hotel — spookily and I set forth into the green-gleaming quiet when we passed by in February — landscape. We head in the direction of there’s the Baskerville Arms, the only the village of Painscastle, with a pub in the village (population about diversion into the Begwyn Hills, 600), where a sculpture of a black dog National Trust-owned land. with pointy ears sits above the entrance Here the legend of the hound feels as though keeping evil spirits at bay. It strong as we follow narrow tracks across is said that Conan Doyle was partially windswept rolling grassland populated inspired by a local legend of hounds at by sheep, and with the occasional sheep’s nearby Hergest Court. The owner of skull by the trail. Our way leads to a these bloodthirsty beasts, so the story little copse on a hill where a sign tells us goes, would set them upon walkers. that red kites can be seen in these parts, Do not, however, let this put you off a although we don’t glimpse one. The stroll. This is prime walking territory, ground is springy — “elastic turf”, with footpaths, hills, ridges and Kilvert said — and the views of the moorland aplenty. Indeed, Clyro’s more Brecon Beacons are awe-inspiring. We renowned literary connection is that it stop in Painscastle for a reviving pint of was where the Rev Francis Kilvert lived Butty Bach ale (from the Wye Valley in the 1870s, writing his sharp-eyed and Brewery) at the Roast Ox Inn, with its humorous diaries. These were published crackling fire and crooked floors, then trudge back across hills to Clyro. Over a long weekend, our Kilvert-like perambulations include an eight-mile tramp along a muddy section of the River Wye from Llyswen through farmland and back down a steep bridleway. We shun a trail through the hills from Hay Bluff (too windy with 50mph gusts) but take on another part of the river from the village of Llowes to Clyro, then on to Hay-on-Wye. Hay is a big reason to visit Clyro, and it’s impossible for the bookish not to be stopped in their tracks. A pamphlet in the first bookshop we visit says there are 21 booksellers in town. Our perusal in muddy boots (not frowned upon by owners) uncovers obscure biographies, first editions (£35 for Graham Greene’s St Michael and All Angels, Clyro The Comedians at one shop), histories, travelogues, histories, Victorian railway.

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