“One of the emotional centres of my life,” is how Bruce Chatwin described the Vale of Ewyas, a remote Shangri-La buried deep in the Black Mountains, the easternmost massif of the Brecon Beacons National Park. The fugitive author of The Songlines, whose novel On the Black Hill was set here, was merely one in a long line of writers, artists, hermits and monks who have sought refuge in this hidden corner of Wales.
Squeezed against the border with England, the head of the valley, in particular, holds an undeniably special atmosphere. Once in the fold of its steep, bracken-covered sides, the rest of the world can seem oddly distant. No mines or quarries mar the sheep pastures and ancient hedgerows spread across its floor. Only the medieval ruins of Llanthony Priory, built on the site of a church founded by St David in the sixth century, suggest the place was ever anything more than it is today: a profoundly beautiful, but largely forgotten sanctuary.
That this is the prettiest of all Welsh valleys few would deny. But to fully appreciate why, you have to follow one of the old pony trails zigzagging up its flanks through the ferns to the round-topped, heather-covered moorland plateaux beyond. Looking down the Vale, the exquisite symmetry of its glaciated sides is fully revealed, along with the drama of the valley’s setting. When clouds swirl about their ridges, as they do most days, and great beams of sunlight sweep across the fields, the Black Mountains embracing Ewyas certainly live up to their name.
[1] Facing the Church of St Mary’s, go through the metal gate to your right and follow the track down to the stream. Cross the footbridge and continue past the Victorian Baptist Chapel on your left, passing through a five-bar gate to reach Blaenau Farm. The footpath runs between the barn and farmhouse, then around the back of the latter, through a second five-bar gate and onwards at a more level gradient up a wide stream bed.
(A) Judging by the age of the yews ranged around its cemetery, the village was probably considered sacred centuries before the Church of St Mary, the older of its pair of chapels, was erected in 1762. Only 8m/25ft long internally, the building can barely accommodate a congregation of twenty – although most people who pause here these days tend to do so for solitary contemplation. “I lift up mine eyes to the hills from whence cometh my salvation,” proclaims the inscription on the window pane behind the altar, its letters barely distinguishable from the backdrop of rain swept ridges and sky.
After crossing a brook, you arrive at a waypost with a yellow arrow: follow this to the left of the hedgerow ahead, then contouring across a field to a stone stile and along the left edge of another field to arrive at a wooden stile where the path drops steeply into a stream gulley. Beyond it, a wider track funnels you towards Ty’r-onen farm, then via tarmac to the Vision farmstead.
[2] Just before you reach the Vision’s driveway, find a path on the left immediately after a metal gate (marked “To the hill/ Offa’s Dyke”). Go up the wooden steps to a stile; follow the path a short distance uphill until you see a waypost pointing right through a gap in the hedge. Having skirted along the bottom edge of the field beyond, the trail then swings left to begin a steep climb through the woods.
(B) The film adaptation of Bruce Chatwin's novel, On the Black Hill, was set in the Vale of Ewyas. The opening sequence of the movie roves at bird’s-eye level over the mountains rising immediately behind the Vision’s barns, where Offa’s Dyke Path snakes along the England–Wales border. Flagstones airlifted into place by helicopter to prevent erosion of the fragile peat hags nowadays pave this popular long-distance route, which follows the 172-mile line of earthworks erected by the Saxon King of Mercia in the Dark Ages to mark the extent of his territory – a kind of low-budget “Great Wall”.
Turn right when you reach the stile and open moorland at the top, then keep to the clear path as it zigzags uphill through the bracken via series of four sharp switchbacks.
A pair of stone markers stand at the final hairpin turn, from where our path arcs across the steep hillside above the Nant Vision stream gulley. Be sure not to be tempted left, up what at one point looks like the main path but isn’t; keep instead on a steady, straight traverse above the gulley. After crossing the stream this eventually brings you out on the paved Offa’s Dyke Path at its intersection with the Olchon Valley track.
[3] There is a choice of routes at this stage -
If you wish to walk the shorter, less strenuous route straight to Hay Bluff, turn left on to Offa’s Dyke Path, and keep to the flagstones all the way, bearing left at the only junction passed (at SO251361), which is marked with a National Trust waystone. Rejoin the main route slightly before [4]
The more challenging route to Olchon Valley only adds 4km/2.5miles to the standard route, but it can feel like a lot more because of the additional 580m of ascent and descent. Even so, it’s well worth the effort. The start of an old drove track descending from Offa’s Dyke ridge into the Olchon Valley is marked by a small cairn and inscribed waystone. If you can’t see these at the point you join the flagstones of Offa’s Dyke Path, then you’ve probably been drawn up one of the pony trails that drift left above Nant Vision, emerging too far North-west – in which case, turn right onto Offa’s Dyke and walk a short way downhill until the trail levels off, where you should easily spot the stone marker and cairns.
(C) A forgotten enclave of derelict pink-stone farmsteads and ancient fields, the Olchon is worked by shepherds who pasture their flocks on the eponymous Black Hill of Chatwin’s novel – a 640-metre razorback ridge which locals insist resembles a recumbent cat. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see them gathering up the sheep on horseback – one of the great spectacles of the Welsh borders.
From the crosspaths at SO2703109, the drove track falls NE down the flank of the valley, bending sharply right after 10 mins. Ignore the path running straight on at the bend, and continue instead down the main track as far as a waypost (at SO273325), 3 or 4 mins further on. This flags the path going down left to the valley floor, which you’ll reach after crossing two metal gates. Once at the lane, turn left and follow the tarmac North-west. After half a mile, the road bends sharply right to cross the river. Just beyond the bridge, head left along the drove track signposted “Public Bridleway”.
This well-worn track will take you out on to open moorland and all the way up the head of the valley – one of the finest miles of footpath in the Welsh Mountains. A small cairn marks the spot where another path arrives from the right (from the Black Hill). From here, the trail curves gently below the ridge. The end of the alternative route along Offa’s Dyke Path meets this route at SO251361.
[4] A long, straight stretch of paving stones takes you to the trigpoint at the top of Hay Bluff (677m/2221ft). (Do not take the Offa's Dyke path, which forks right, as indicated by a stone waymarker.)
(D) Hay Bluff, highpoint of the magnificent scarp shelving into the greener pastures of mid Wales, brings Offa’s Dyke ridge to an abrupt, and spectacular, end. A superb view ranging from the Cotswolds, Malverns and Shropshire Hills to distant Cadair Idris extends from the trigpoint, from where, on an exceptionally clear day, you can even pick out the top of Snowdon, 129km/ 80miles to the north. Even in the depths of winter, the skies here tend to be filled with parascenders and gliders taking advantage of the famous updrafts. Windblown Gospel Pass , below the Bluff, marks the low point in the Black Mountain scarp. Populated by wild ponies and scraggy sheep, the col is thought to have taken its name from a meeting that was convened here in 1188 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who’d come to assert his authority over the Welsh church and drum up support for the Third Crusade. Accompanying him was the chronicler Geraldus Cambrensis, a writer whose account of the journey survives in his book, Itinerarium Cambriae (“Itinerary of Wales”). “About an arrow-shot broad, encircled on all sides by lofty mountains,” was his description of the Vale of Ewyas, now revealed in all its glory below the pass.
Turn left here and follow the boggy path running along the level top of the scarp edge, which drops more steeply as it descends Ffynnon y Parc to reach the Gospel Pass. Cross the road and pick up the heavily eroded path continuing uphill from the col. This becomes better surfaced as it joins a path coming up from the left, and drifts right along the rim of the scarp to arrive at Lord Hereford’s Knob (or Twmpa) – another superb viewpoint overlooking the Wye.
[5] The onward route South-east from Twmpa along the top of the moorland ridge is level and simple to follow. Turn left from the trigpoint, and follow the obvious trail South-east via a succession of cairns to a slight summit at SO238339, from where you begin the day’s last descent, down a spur known as Darren Lwyd. Keep left for the best views over the valley.
[6] The finest panorama of the route is from the spot where Darren Lwyd steepens dramatically above Capel-y-ffin, marked by an unusual rectangular cairn. From here, the path falls very steeply downhill, veering left, then sharply right to avoid the sheerest section of the slope.
When you intersect another path towards the bottom, head straight across it until you reach a fence and large alder tree, where you turn left onto a track following a stream bed downhill over a stile and through a stand of trees. This brings you out at a gate leading to a pair of stone cottages; continue along the path between them, and cross the stile ahead into a field. In the bottom left corner of the field you will find a stile opening onto the lane where a right turn takes you back to Capel-y-ffin.