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The old county of Brecknockshire, or Breconshire, now forms the southern portion of the new the administrative county of Powys
“Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a . . . “ but no one dares continue that libellous and scurrilous rhyme in Brecknockshire, one of the most Welsh of counties, well endowed with good samples of all the scenic beauties for which the principality is famous, and yet remote and inaccessible enough to leave Nature victorious in her eternal struggle with civilisation.
Geographically the county falls into three sections. The first is the nameless tangle of hills north of the Yrfon valley, a region so wild and desolate that the very presence of man seems an intrusion. Here the traveller can still enjoy the sensation – a sensation all too rare – of meeting natives who cannot speak a work of English and answer interrogatories with the verbal hieroglyphics of the Welsh tongue.
The second contains the great ridges of the Mynedd Epynt and the Mynedd Bwlch y Groes on the west and the Black Forest on the east, and lies between the valleys of the Wye and the Usk. The “Wye Valley,” to the average tourist, means the well-known stretch of the river from Ross to the Severn, but the initiated know that its upper reaches form the most fascinating and delightful boundary between Brecknockshire on the one side and Radnorshire and Herefordshire on the other.
In one of the most charming sectors of the valley stands Builth, where evil-smelling waters of medicinal properties attract all sorts and conditions of men at certain seasons. Not that Builth is wholly given over to the “crocks” its own quiet charm, the lure of the mountains around and the valleys of the Wye and the Yrfton, make it a popular resort. It has its little place in History, too. Some say that in pre-Conquest times it was the head-quarters of an independent state, and after the Conquest brought the Norman invaders into the very heart of Wales it attained great strategic importance. Of the castle they built there nothing remains, but for centuries it was the advanced outpost of the hated foreign foe. The great Llewelyn, last of the native princes, could hold it in large measure responsible for his somewhat ignominious death. In 1260 he razed this symbol of foreign dominion to the ground, but another sprang from its ashes, and when the Welsh prince attempted to renew the feat of 1260 twenty years later he had the misfortune to be surprised and killed in a petty skirmish in the valley of the Yrfon close to the town. Cefn-y-Bedd, the “Ridge of the Grave,” still recalls a story of unutterable melancholy to Welsh ears.
No less beautiful than the valley of the Wye is that of the Usk which intersects the very heart of the county. Here the hills, especially the Brecon Beacons on the south, rise so steeply from the river that the valley forms a deep and highly picturesque trench. At the junction of the Usk with its tributary the Honddu, is Brecon, or Brecknock, the capital of the county and as peaceful and picturesque a county town as one could wish to see. As might be expected, the hard and unmusical name of “Brecon” (and still more “Brecknock”) does not commend itself to the Welsh, who call it, very appropriately, “Aberhonddu.”
That Brecon and its neighbourhood had a certain military importance in early times is amply borne out by the existing traces of occupation for military purposes. At Gaer, three miles form the town, is the site of an important Roman station which some authorities pronounce to be the ancient Bannium. After the Roman garrison departed a veil is dropped, through which dim figures peer, half historical, half legendary, until after the Norman Conquest, when the stage is again occupied by thoroughly substantial and tangible people. Bernard de Newmarch defeated the Welsh in Brecon at the close of the eleventh century, and used the material of the Roman fort at Gaer to build his castle.
Such remains as there are of Brecon Castle give little idea of its military importance or the part it has played in history from time to time. The Ely tower, now in the grounds of the Castle Hotel, is called after Morton, Bishop of Ely, who was sent there as a prisoner by Richard III, his custodian being the Duke of Buckingham. Before long gaoler and prisoner were busily plotting the dethronement of the King, and the result of their machinations was that, though Buckingham lost his head, Morton escaped to France, invited Henry Tudor to claim the crown, and set in motion the sequence of events which led up to Bosworth field.
Brecib may well be proud of its parish church, once the priory church of a foundation which became one of the most famous and wealthy in Wales. The building of the church was begun just before the close of the eleventh century, but extension and alteration have left us with a structure which shows beautiful and characteristic work of the Norman, and early-English, and Decorated styles.
A halo of glory of another kind rests on the place known as the “Siddon Vaults,” and formerly the “Shoulder of Mutton.” Here one of the greatest, if not the greatest, of English tragic actresses (or actors, for that matter) was born in 1755. Her name was Sarah Kemble, and as Mrs Siddons she was destined to make both herself and Sir Joshua Reynolds immortal.
Everywhere in the Usk valley can be seen traces of the activities of Bernard de Newmarch and his Norman followers. If we push upstream towards the Carmarthenshire border, there is the great mound of Trecastle to recall how firmly the conquerors planted their feet on the necks of the Welsh. Indeed one view of the functions of Breconshire in British history for more than four hundred years after the Norman Conquest is that it was a great place d’armes from which the Welsh could be kept in subjection.
On the other side of Brecon, the remains of the castle of Tretower afford an extremely uncommon example of a Norman keep being replaced by an early English round tower. A Welshman must gaze upon Tretower with a certain feeling of quiet satisfaction, as its virtual destruction was one of the feats of a national hero, Owen Glandower, who struggled so long and courageously in that revival of Welsh national spirit which kept Henry IV’s hands full for several years.
Close to Tretower is another ancient little town, Crickhowell, with a castle which is one more relic of Norman military thoroughness, though the existing remains are two towers of Edward I’s time.
Between the Usk valley and that of the Wye, farther north, the mass of high land which culminates in the Black Forest on the east is intersected by the valley of the Llyfni, which rises in Llyn Safaddan, better known as Llangorse Lake, and flows slightly north-east to join the Wye close to Glasbury.
This beautiful and highly fertile valley, with the Black Forest ridge rising straight from the river bank, is deservedly famous and rich in historical memories. The old market town of Talgarth has a tower of the fourteenth century which is a rarity in Wales, being an isolated structure and not merely a portion of a castle. At Bronllys, farther north, are the remains of another castle, the ruin comprising the ancient keep only.
At the other end of the valley, the ruin of Blaenllyfni Castle, shows what a fine strategic eye the Normans possessed; the structure commanded the valley of the Usk and the road following the line of that river up to Brecon.
The old town of Hay, situated at the point where the Wye leaved the county to form the boundary between Radnor and Hereford, is a place of much antiquity. Its important position on one of the two avenues of communication between Brecon and the country to the east was always likely to give it a history, and if the story of its castle is any test a history it certainly has had. The castle was originally one of Bernard de Newmarch’s fortresses, but between the date of its erection and that of its destruction by Owen Glendower it passed through extraordinary vicissitudes, being repeatedly taken and retaken in various wars and more than once reduced to ruin.
The portion of Breconshire south of the deep trench of the Usk is not so renowned historically as the northern half, but few parts of the British Isles deserve so honoured a place in Britain. The scenic attractions are of the finest and most varied description. In the very centre, the Brecknock Beacons, the county’s pride and joy, rear their noble heads. On their flanks a whole series of beautiful mountain rivers start life and gather force and volume as they make for Glamorganshire and the sea beyond.
Perhaps the most delightful region of all is that intersected by the Pyrddin, Fechan, Hepste, Melte, and Sychnant, which ultimately combine forces on the very boundary of the county to form the River Neath. The wooded gorges and sparkling waterfalls which Nature has distributed with lavish hand in this part of Breconshire have a quiet beauty which is unrivalled of its kind and , with a lofty ridge for their background, present a picture which is not so well known as it should be, the district being somewhat inaccessible.
Quite a feature of this county (as of South Wales generally) is its monuments of the remote and remotest past. Perhaps the earliest remains still met with are stone circles, presumably memorials of religious rites. There is an excellent example close to Trecastle. There are also numerous relics of ancient British encampments, and it would appear that the Romans frequently converted these camps into military stations, a conscious or unconscious compliment to the “strategic eye” of the conquered.
Brecon is particularly rich in a very interesting relic of the Roman occupation, i.e. large inscribed stones, the very presence of which throws a good deal of light on the nature and permanence of the Roman settlement. A peculiarly significant example is the great megaligh known as the Maen-y-morwynion, or “Maiden Stone,” near Brecon. This stone is sculpted with the figures of a Roman legionary and his wife, and bears an inscription which is all but obliterated.
Nor must the interesting and instructive remains of Roman roads through this county be forgotten, if only because Brecon lies on the confines of the regions effectively occupied by the Romans, and these great engineering works are a living testimony to the wonderful thoroughness of that great people.
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