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Historic Landscape Characterisation

The Middle Wye Valley

The following description, taken from the Historic Landscapes Register, identifies the essential historic landscape themes in the historic character area.

Character areas defined in the Middle Wye Valley Historic Landscape

This distinctive Powys landscape lies to the south west of Hay-on-Wye in the shadow of the Black Mountains, and runs from Hay Bluff at its north end to Mynydd Troed in the south. The landscape identified includes the floodplain and steeply sloped northern edge of the Wye valley, and the deeply incised plateau beneath the northern scarp of the Black Mountains.

This particular region of the Wye valley is in many ways similar to the Usk valley further to the south west, around Brecon, typified by small hedged fields enclosing the rich agricultural land on the valley floor between about 80 to 100m above OD. To the south east the land rises steeply onto the Black Mountains, which reach up to 700m above OD, with evidence of agrarian encroachment along the lower slopes, rising onto the open moorland beyond. The area has a rich and varied history with important cultural associations.

Along the southern side of the valley, on the edges of the upland, lie a series of important Neolithic funerary monuments of a type known, because of their distinctive form and plan, as Severn-Cotswold tombs. These tombs were in recurrent use as communal repositories for the remains of the dead during the later half of the fourth millennium BC. There are impressive tombs surviving at Penywrlodd (Llanigon), Little Lodge, Pipton, Fostyll and Penywrlodd (Talgarth). Among the other impressive prehistoric monuments in the area of the is the Pen-y-Beacon Bronze Age stone circle on the edge of the Black Mountains.

Although much of the area owes its appearance to Anglo-Norman influences, there is significant evidence for native Welsh settlement. Glasbury is thought to have originally been a clas foundation (the administrative centre of a monastic unit of settlement in medieval times), and it is also recorded as being the site of the Battle of Clasbirig in 1056 between the Saxons and the Welsh. Llyswen is reputedly focused on another clas church, founded during the 6th century, and there is documentary evidence for a religious site being given to the See of Llandaff in about AD 650.

The Anglo-Norman settlement is most clearly seen at Hay-on-Wye, which still retains its medieval street plan, with remnants of the castle and town defences. Today, the town is best known for its book shops and the annual festival of literature. Across the Wye from Hay lies the site of the Roman fort alongside the river, and beyond it, Clyro, made famous by the diary of the Reverend Francis Kilvert, who lived in the village in the 1870s. Although many of the places described by Kilvert are currently outside the area described here, the lifelike account he has left of the places and people he knew, has caused the region centred upon Clyro to become known as Kilvert Country, and to become a place of literary pilgrimage. Other important medieval settlements include Talgarth and Bronllys, both of which had extensive open arable field systems surviving up to the middle of the 19th century; that of Bronllys having been only enclosed in 1863. Many of the small villages are thought to have had early medieval origins and some, such as Llanfilo, display important earthwork remains relating to their former medieval extents.

Trefecca is famous for Trevecca College founded in the mid-18th century by Howell Harris, who was well-known for founding early Welsh Methodist societies, assembling a community of about 100 followers at his home, Trevecka Fach, in 1752. The community was influential in printing religious books and also for agricultural improvements.

Along the northern slopes of the Black Mountains lie several commons, such as Tregoyd Common and Common Bychan, which preserve their post-medieval field systems. The landscape here contrasts strongly with the moors to the south-east and the hedged landscape of the valley floor.

Historic landscape themes in the Middle Wye Valley

The Natural Landscape

The Administrative Landscape

Settlement Landscapes

Agricultural Landscapes

Architectural Landscapes

Transport and Communications

Industrial Landscapes

Defended Landscapes

Religious Landscapes

Ornamental and Picturesque Landscapes

Character areas

CPAT PHOTO 00c0079

1082 Bryn-yr-hydd character area. Small medieval nucleated church and castle settlements on valley edge, and medieval and later scattered farmsteads on lower-lying hill land in landscape of small irregular fields, representing gradual encroachment on upland commons. Photo: CPAT 00c0079. (back to map)

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