Great British walks

In the second of an exclusive series of British walks, TV presenter and architectural expert Dan Cruickshank gives us a tour of the most easterly peaks in the Brecon Beacons - the Black Mountains

From tiny villages set in rolling green landscape of picturesque hills and valleys to long,narrow valleys and isolated farms, uncover some of Wales’s most wonderful views from heath-covered ridges.

Each month, Dan will be featuring a different walk in the UK for you to enjoy. Simply print out this page and take it with you.

If you've done the walk, please let us know. We'd love to hear about your experiences.

You begin to sense more strongly that you are entering an ancient and once very dangerous and contested borderland. This was the scene of occasional conflict for more than 1000 years, a no-man’s land, the domain of border raiders, war-parties, paroling legionaries and men-at-arms.

On the west, just beyond Penyclawdd far, is an old motte - the raised earthern mound that marks the site of an ancient frontier post. Get your bearings here - there is a railway line on the east - then head northwest and you come to a T-junction, head north. You will pass Stanton on the east and another welcome pub, then you arrive at Pont-Rhys-Powell.

Now you dive deeper into the Black Mountains, along narrow and undulating road that carries you into the enchanted world of the remote and beautiful Vale of Ewyas. At this point determine your position in relation to the Sugarloaf - it lies directly to your southwest - then head north west to Neuadd.

Deep into the Black Mountains

You pass Henllan and are enfolded within the Vale by the looming Black Mountains. There is a sense of isolation that makes it easy to connect with the sensation of those who travelled this road in the past.

Then comes the great architectural wonder of the journey - just to the north east of the road, snug and close into the rising ground, are the substantial remains of the Lllanthony Priory. The priory was founded in 1108 as a place of solitary prayer and meditation for Augustinian canons - men who perceived the spiritual power and potential of the site.

But, as well as being men of God these men were also Normans and so the foundation here of an Augustinian priory was also an act of territorial acquisition by the Anglo-Norman’s of England. As such, of course, it was deeply resented. During this period, the foundations of religious houses were often an intensely political action - a means of spreading and consolidating Anglo-Norman control and culture.

This may well have be the case at Llanthony Priory, founded by Norman nobleman Hugh de Lacy. He was joined by Ersinius, a former chaplain to Queen Matilda, the wife of Henry I. To add injury to local pride, the pair of Norman grandees decided to found their religious house on the site of an ancient Welsh Chapel dedicated to St. David.

Welsh monasteries and ruins

So, at a stroke they obliterated Welsh culture and religion while imposing their own. The turbulent consequence of this Norman invasion of the Vale of Ewyas is etched in the proud and defiant fabric of the priory. Grabbing the opportunity offered by the anarchy in the Anglo-Norman world following the death in 1135 of Henry I, the Welsh raided the priory and the canons retreated to Gloucester.

However, the site was not abandoned; instead, money was ploughed into the beleaguered monastery and its architecture grew - grand, intimidating, fortified - an alien presence in a hostile land. When at the height of power in around 1400 the priory must have been a truly astonishing sight in this elemental mountain landscape.

The priory held its own until the Reformation. It was suppressed in 1538, and fell into private ownership, and gradually into ruin. What you see now - the mighty towered west end of the church, some of the nave and the transepts and presbytery date from 1180-1220.They are a remarkable example of the transitional style from Romanesque favoured by the Normans into the first phase of Gothic.

The late 12th century infirmary also survives - now transformed into a parish called, most satisfactorily - St. David’s. During the late 19th century the ruins were transformed into a picturesque residence that, in 1807, was purchased by the poet Walter Savage Landor. It is Landor’s house, incorporating monastic remains and the west towers of the priory church, which now houses the Abbey Hotel and pub. This is a fine place to stay the night, with a walk up the adjoining hillside before bed.

The river Dol Alice and Capel-y-ffin

Next morning, head north-northwest. Beside the river towards Dol Alice and then Capel-y-ffin, which lies just 2000 yards to the west of the ancient Welsh English boundary of the 1300 year old Offa’s Dyke. The road rises high and the views are open and breathtaking.

Capel-y-ffin is a tiny village, its houses gathered around an informal crossroads with, at its heart an old and primitive chapel. Plain inside and lit by oil lamps (at least until recently) its burying ground is packed with mouldering gravestones.

Nearby, from 1928, lived the eccentric and sexually peculiar arts and crafts designer Eric Gill. He lived in the former and ill-fated ‘monastery. It was founded and built a decade earlier by the equally eccentric, and austere, Joseph Leycester Lyne (or Father Ignatius as he liked to be called) who liked nothing better than to be humiliated and abused - spat at and trampled upon - by his followers. It was here that Gill, surrounded by his loving dogs, designed the beautiful Perpetua and Gill Sans type faces.

Castles and Georgian architecture

At Capel-y-ffin you are about 14 miles from Abergavenny and with 8 miles still to go to journey’s end. Carry on to the north to Gospel Pass, with the prehistoric ‘Lord Hereford’s Knob’ to the west and then a stone circle near Cwmcoynany.

Pass Cusop and the beautiful waters of the Dingle and then descend into the beautiful and once fortified border town of Hay-on-Wye. The walls have gone but the castle - founded by the Norman’s survives.

The dominant architectural character of the town is Georgian and its world famous collection of bookshops. Hay is not only one of the prettiest towns in Britain but also one of the most stimulating and civilised. After this walk, a day or two to recover in Hay sampling its wares is essential.

You can see more of Dan Cruickshank in his BBC series 'Adventures in Architecture'

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