A glorious 10 mile walk on the Monmouthshire Way above the Vale of Ewyas with some fascinating history.

Date walked: 18th March 2022

Distance: about 10 miles

Map used: OS Explorer OL 13 – Brecon Beacons National Park – with the route downloaded onto my phone using the OS Maps app.

There isn’t a printed guide to the Monmouthshire Way  but their website has the route and a lot of useful information about accommodation and public transport.

*****

This walk completes stage 5 of the route and starts stage 6. 

Paul and I finished our last section immediately below The Vision Farm. According to Wikipedia, the vision in question was of the Virgin Mary, and was had in 1880 by an Anglican Benedictine monk called Joseph Lyne in fields nearby. The building was renamed subsequently so I presume that the vision took place hereabouts.

This is the farm viewed from the hill opposite a bit later in the day

For the last section of the Way we had wanted to finish at Capel-y-ffin but the road to it from Llanthony was closed, so we had to leave the car there and walk back. But I had established that the road was now open (for the lambing season). And, huzzah!, so it was.

It’s going to be closed again though to erect a proper barrier on the left and a permanent stabilisation for the bank on the right.

We parked on a wide verge in the middle of the hamlet and walked towards the farm.

There are no facilities of any kind in Capel (apart from pony trekking – they also do B&B), but spiritually this tiny place punches well above its weight (totally the wrong expression really). I found this article in the Guardian published 16 years ago that is still valid today.  Capel-y-ffin  means “chapel of the boundary” , and the eponymous chapel is that of St Mary, situated right by the road.

I think the chapel pre-dates the church

It’s a sweet, tiny, church with a wonky bell tower….

… its graveyard enclosed by 8 ancient yews hanging on for dear life.

I took so many pics of these wonderful trees!

To our delight the church was open.

Its difficult to describe the very special atmosphere of the place but I was reminded of  Quaker rooms that I had visited on The Dales Way.  But all the basics were present; a tiny altar,  pedal organ, pulpit and even a font.

The bench in the gallery would be painful for all but the shortest of sermons or the  tiniest of bums

I loved the cool blue of the walls; wasn’t sure about the teddy bears.

I would have happily spent a while exploring the cemetery but we needed to get on. Still heading back towards the Vision farm we crossed the little river Honddu…

…. and found another chapel, though this one was locked up.

The Duke of Hereford and Baptist chapel.

I didn’t find much about this place from Google but I did discover that Eric Ravilious, an artist I love, had been here in 1938. Here’s my pic:

And here’s Ravilious’s lovely painting – which you can buy as a greeting card.

He took liberties with Lord Herefords knob (the hill)

And even more special, here is Paul’s painting on plaster that he did after our visit.

Measuring 24cm x 24cm mounted in a glass fronted frame, it is available for sale for £150 from Pauls Instagram account 

Here is a link to his Instagram pages.

Again, I would have loved to have spent more time looking at the beautiful gravestones.

We did go a little bit further up the track towards the Vision but the map indicated that there would be little of interest on the half a mile of track so we re-traced our steps to Capel, the route taking us up to The Grange Trekking Centre.

Climbing the lane to The Grange and looking back we noticed this camping pod.

So this counts as another facility.

A little further long is a rather nice gateway which leads, I think, to the ruined monastery church……

…. which was revealed just around the next corner.

Wikipedia tells us that this church was built around 1870 by Joseph Lyne (he of the Vision), but was so badly built it mostly fell down. Lyne is buried there. But the monastery building he established next to it seems to have fared better and survives.

It’s huge

Lyne’s version of monastic life is described as “eccentric” which could cover a lot of sins though monastic life ceased around the time of Lyne’s death in 1908. Between 1924 and 1928 the artist Eric Gill and artist/poet David Jones (who was briefly engaged to Gill’s daughter) lived at the monastery. It now operates as self-catering holiday accommodation.

Just a little further up the lane is the Grange trekking centre where you can also stay.

The lane ends at The Grange and the path climbs steeply from here up the side of the hill. I was surprised to find on a gatepost that this is also the route of The Cambrian Way. I was certain that we had not walked down here when we did that section but checking the route on my Guide book in fact it drops down to Capel-y-ffin and then climbs back up again to Lord Herefords Knob. So we had cheated!

It was a very steep climb from here….

Paul striding out

….and our elevation gave us a better view of the ruined monastery church.

The path was good, though, with well maintained rocky steps and then a gravel path as it levelled off.

Our climb finished at around 2,000 feet – a climb of about 900 feet from the monastery and I was puffed. Panting like a dog actually. Paul was fine so while he enjoyed the fabulous view up the valley….

… I checked my pulse on my Fitbit. 120 beats per minute – too fast. The trouble was it stayed high and I assumed that I was having an incident of SVT – a condition I have had for around 10 years and take medication for. Getting myself back to a normal heart rhythm involves a simple procedure of holding my nose for as long as possible while “blowing” into my chest for as long as I can. It’s called the Valsalva Maneuver.

Demonstrated here in Paul’s pic

It usually works after one or two gos. But not today. But usually my heart gets to 150 bpm with SVT and it didn’t feet the same. Anyway after 10 minutes rest whilst Paul did a quick sketch with his paintbox we carried on. I was still beating at around 90bpm when my normal resting heart rate on a walk might be in the mid 70’s but I felt OK. And a bit perplexed.

From this point our path climbed very gently towards the highest part of todays walk at Chwarel-y-Fan (2,228 feet), our conversation and the song of sylarks being our only soundscape.

After a final short steep section…

…..the summit of the walk is just marked by a cairn.

For the next mile and a half the path was on a firm rocky ridge with super views on either side of us and not a soul in sight.

It’s times like these that I reflect on what a tremendous privilege it is to live within striking distance of such beautiful landscape and how lucky I am to be fit enough to get myself to such remote and wonderful places. Apart from the skylarks the only other animals we saw were a few newly-laundered sheep…

… and a few wild horses….

… both looking in prime condition and I was struck particularly at just how long and lovely the horses tails were.

The trig point at Bal Mawr stands at 1,9991 feet and as per usual we paused for a pic.

God I look rough – a shave might help

The still good path gently dropped for the next half mile….

..

….our route then took a sharp left turn off the ridge to head into Cwm Bwchei. We had been following the Cambrian Way from Capel-y-ffin and their path offers this little valley as a poor weather escape route to the village taking the valley path instead.

We had the best of weather today, and although the path was steep it was dry and firm underfoot. None of the trees had broken into leaf; the young branches of the birches showing as a red haze.

The other main tree here was Hawthorns and we passed several groups of them that were clothed in moss, their twisted branches catching the low sun.

The scudding clouds were racing over the the valley sides casting it into shadow and then occasionally parted,  lighting up Llanthony Priory below us.

In our little valley a stream had emerged, its rushing waters quite loud.

Lower down a single Yew had established itself….

…. and in the centre of a very old pollarded ash tree a holly had found enough food to have established itself.

I’ve never seen this before

After passing through a small planted wood our path crossed an open field….

… the reach a footbridge over the stream that had now become a  quite respectable but un-named river.

At which point Paul took a snap of me as I was making a video clip on my phone.

Crossing the river again on a very substantial metal bridge we took advantage of a table and bench to stop for a little break.

In the right season we would have had a short walk from here to have a drink or tea in the cellar bar of the Priory but today it was closed and we still had three miles to go to get to reach Pauls car at Cwmyoy, so Llanthony did not detain us.

Our path followed the road briefly and then left it to cross the fields above the River Honddu.

This was easy walking, though we both felt a little tired by now. And in places it was pretty soft and a bit squelchy underfoot. Several bilingual stiles were crossed.

Presumably whoever commissioned these stiles was a Welsh speaker.

Several little streams come off the hillside, one of which Paul slipped into and got a wet bum.

Apologies for not having a pic of his mishap

Somehow we missed the path through Maes-y-Beran farm, climbing a little above it. A stream needed to be forded just before the ruined settlement of Weild.

Weild is a complex of several buildings and highlights that this isolated valley was certainly much more populated once.

My brief googling didn’t tell me anything about the place though

Another steam and stile after the Weild…..

…. brought us to one of the most mole-hilled fields that I can remember.

Obviously containing an abundance of tasty worms

We’d lost the sun behind the hill at this point.

As we got closer to the road again one rock in the field caught our attention. Obviously it was a glacially scraped piece of sandstone.

Though Paul thought it may be a Neolithic gravestone with man-made runes

At this point my battery in the camera became exhausted so these last few pics are from my phone. Crossing the river Honddu….

…..the path joined the road for a few hundred yards before re-crossing again …..

…..to  head across some more fields for Cwmyoy. On a stile someone had placed a dropped object which was a mystery at the time.

I have since discovered that this is the sensor for a wearable ECG device – an expensive piece of kit to have lost so I hope its owner managed to retrieve it. Our path merged onto a track and off it someone has built themselves a very fancy house.

The track led to the road just below Cwmyoy. Paul’s car was parked up the hill by the church and feeling pretty wiped out by then I waited by the roadside while he retrieved it and enjoyed the last of the sun on the hills.

I checked my heart rate. Still around 90 bpm, which was too fast. So something ain’t quite right.

Most of these images, and many more that I didn’t include, are available to licence for use by Getty images. Here’s the link if you want to see even more pics from the day.