Churches of the Black Mountains Itinerary

Remote mountains and valleys, extraordinary medieval churches and outstanding hiking on the Offa’s Dyke Path. This churches of the Black Mountains itinerary has all of this and a trip to the second-hand bookshop capital of the world, Hay-on-Wye.

The Black Mountains (Mynyddoedd Duon) are the range of long, empty ridges and serene valleys on the eastern edge of the Bannau Brycheiniog. More commonly known as the Brecon Beacons National Park, it’s one of the most beautiful parts of Welsh Borders country.

In this guide I’ll show you – and describe – what to see, suggest places to stay and eat, and advise you how to get there and around. They are concentrated around the Llanthony Valley, which is also known as the Vale of Ewyas. My wife Faye and I went there on our first weekend away together, so this magical part of Wales has a very special place in our hearts. It’s a wonderful place to spend a weekend away – see it for yourself and you may well be as captivated as we are.

Churches of the Black Mountains Itinerary – Planning Tips

We advocate using public transport wherever possible, but in this instance the only way to get around is to drive.

There are train services to Abergavenny (on the south side of the Black Mountains) and Hereford (20 miles to the east of Hay-on-Wye). If you don’t have your own vehicle, you’ll have to rent your own vehicle from either of these.

There are plenty of places to stay in the towns (Abergavenny, Hay-on-Wye and Crickhowell around the Black Mountains, and in the countryside there are several cottages available for short term rentals.

The Llanthony Valley and Partrishow roads are narrow, minor surfaced roads, and there are high hedges either side in some places (especially around Partrishow). There are many passing places along the way, but you’re sure to have to reverse to let another vehicle past at some point!

This trip is ideal for a slow weekend, but you can easily extend it to include more exploration of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), Mid Wales or the Welsh Borders.

Day 1 – Partrishow and Cwmyoy

I suggest beginning your Black Mountains journey at either Crickhowell or the village of Llanfihangel Crucorney. Either makes a great stop for lunch, and is only a few miles by minor roads from Partrishow Church.

Crickhowell is one of the most beautiful towns in Wales, in a gorgeous setting on the River Usk beneath the distinctive Table Mountain hillfort. It has a medieval arched bridge, a castle nearby and makes a great base for exploring all the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park.

There are plenty of places to stay there, including my suggested lunch stop, The Bear Hotel. The food in this cosy 15^th-century coaching inn is always excellent, and some of the rooms retain some medieval elements, including wooden beamed ceilings.

Another of my regular lunch stops in the area is The Skirrid Inn, five miles north of Abergavenny off the A465 road to Hereford in the village of Llanfihangel Crucorney. It’s believed to be the oldest pub in Wales, at over 900 years old, and it is said to be haunted. They serve good traditional British pub food, and also have rooms upstairs and in a cottage close by. 

Partrishow Church of St Issui

The church at the top of the rise is dedicated to St Issui, an obscure Welsh saint said to have lived as a hermit at the site of the holy well just down the hill from the church. He is believed to have been murdered by a passing traveller who refused his entreaties to convert to Christianity. After his burial, miracles were reported there and attributed to him, and the site began to attract pilgrims. Eventually, around 1060, a small church was built just up the hill from the Holy Well.

Much of the present church was built later, most likely in the 14^th century, in the Gothic style. It’s a very simple building, made of sandstone and rubble, with a small bellcote. The congregation must have always been small, coming from scattered farmhouses around this remote countryside.

The first thing you’ll notice about the church is that there’s a chapel at the west end of the church. It’s an unusual feature for a church in Wales, and it’s believed that St Issui is buried there, probably beneath the altar.

However, it’s the main body of the church that is of most interest. As you enter the church, you’ll see several paintings on the walls. The most striking of these is the Doom painting, a skeleton holding a spade in one hand and a scythe and hourglass in the other. The not-so-subtle inference was that our time is limited and that one day we would all end up like this figure. There is also a painting of the Last Judgement, and murals of Biblical inscriptions including the Ten Commandments.

The outstanding feature of the church’s interior is the rare surviving late 15^th or early 16^th-century 16^th-century rood screen. Such screens were a common feature in medieval churches – until Henry VIII and his Church of England zealots went about wrecking countless priceless medieval works of art around the country, and destroying many saints’ shrines, destroying many Roman Catholic traditions in the process.

St Martin’s Church, Cwmyoy

St Martin’s Church in Cwmyoy, a hamlet on the east side of the Llanthony Valley, is the most disconcerting church you are ever likely to visit.

The 12^th and 13^th-century church was built on land that is prone to subsidence. The small tower points in one direction, the nave in another, and the chancel in another direction again. And that’s just the view of the exterior.

Step inside and you’ll find one of the most astonishing buildings in Britain. It reminds me of my days directing photographic shoots from the front passenger seat of a helicopter while being buffeted around in 50 miles per hour winds. The pilot would tell me, ’Keep the horizon straight,’ not easy when you’re wobbling sideways every few seconds.

Standing in the nave, a wonky beam holds the south and north walls up, while the chancel arch frames the floor and altar rail sloping a few degrees from right to left, while the east window and murals either side slope from left to right, again by several degrees. The effect reminds me of the first time I drank too much cider as a teenager, a night that did not end well!

Some churches in Europe were deliberately built out of alignment, to represent the head of the crucified Christ leaning to one side. The stunning church of St Cyriakus of Gernrode, near Quedlinburg in eastern Germany, is one such example. But I don’t think that Cwmyoy was built to such a design. Nobody would have knowingly built on land as unstable as this.

The church also has several fine 16^th-century stained-glass windows, and there are also several funeral monuments in the church by the renowned Brute family of masons from nearby Llanbedr.

Day 2 – Llanthony Priory

If you think Tintern Abbey is the ultimate romantic ruin, then perhaps you should visit Llanthony Priory. Tintern is one of the most picturesque sites in Britain and Europe, and Llanthony Priory is just as breathtaking.

The mainly Gothic ruins of the Augustinian Abbey church have been open to the elements for almost 500 years, the church dismantled and used as a quarry in the wake of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. The row of Gothic nave arches open to the sky, with farm fields and the bracken-covered Hatterall Ridge behind, has long been on my personal Wales Bucket List. And it’s worth coming all the way to Wales to see it.

Llanthony is a shortening of Llanddewi Nant Honddu, the church of St David near the Honddu stream. Monasteries were often founded in remote locations, so that monks and nuns would be as far away as possible from society (and temptation) and, so the theory goes, closer to God. Llanthony is as remote as it gets, and this is one of the reasons it’s such a special place.

It helps that the rest of the Valley barely seems to have caught up with the 20^th century, never mind the 21^st. The narrow minor road – and the Valley’s distance from anywhere – have meant that it has always remained way off the beaten track. Even with book mecca Hay-on-Wye only half an hour’s drive away.

Substantial parts of the church remain – as well as the nave arches, part of the central tower crossing and the west front have also survived. The church was begun in the 12^th century, and the Gothic arches are from a 14^th-century rebuild.

 A house was built into a corner of the ruins of the church – this is now the Llanthony Priory Hotel, which also has a bar next door. During the summer months, they serve meals from Tuesday to Sundays.

 The Church of St David on the approach to the car park was formerly the infirmary building when the Priory was in operation.

Capel-y-Ffin

Four miles up the valley from Llanthony, tiny Capel-y-Ffin takes just five seconds (I’ve timed it!) to drive through, but it’s also the site of the last of the four churches in this itinerary, one which is well worth the stop. The name is Welsh for ‘capel on the border’.

There are a few parking spaces next to St Mary’s Chapel, just to the right of the road. At first sight it looks like a whitewashed cottage with a very wonky bellcote, but it’s a tiny church, just 8 metres long and 4 metres wide. It’s so simple inside, with little in the way of decoration – just a clear east window framing a view of the Hatterall Ridge, and an etched inscription, “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Last time we visited, a hug of teddy bears had taken over the front pew to admire the view.

I’ve adored this tiny church for over thirty years, and rate it one of the most beautiful churches in Europe.

It might only take five seconds to drive through, but there’s more to see besides the church. Follow the narrow lane down the hill past St Mary’s and you’ll reach the Baptist Chapel built in 1737, which isn’t always open.

And just across the road from St Mary’s you’ll see a sign directing you up a lane to Llanthony Abbey. Also called Capel-y-Ffin Monastery, the Anglican establishment was founded in 1869 by Joseph Lancaster Lyne. Some visions of the Virgin Mary were reported in the area, and one of the farms was renamed The Vision Farm.  Bruce Chatwin used the name for the farm in his 1982 novel On The Black Hill.

Lyne’s church has deteriorated into ruin, but the other buildings of the Monastery survive. The disgraced artist Eric Gill later lived there for many years.

Hiking The Black Mountains

The steep-sided Llanthony Valley has a wealth of hikes, many of which take you onto the top of the ridges that run either side of the Valley. I’ve tended to follow the paths up to the Hatterall Ridge, along which runs a fantastic section of the Offa’s Dyke Path.

The one thing to bear in mind walking in this part of the world is that there are no buses to take you back to where you started. So you can either do relatively short circular walks, returning by road, or double back along your original route.

The walk from Llanthony Priory to the Hatterall Ridge is spectacular, and both occasions I’ve done this, I’ve walked for a mile or two along the Offa’s Dyke Path at the top before heading back the way I came.

I have also done a circular hike from Capel-y-Ffin to the top of the ridge, continuing around three miles to the summit of Hay Bluff before walking downhill to the Gospel Pass and then the four miles along the road to Capel-y-Ffin.

You also have the option of driving up to the Gospel Pass car park and doing the short, sharp Hay Bluff summit hike from there. The Gospel Pass is one of the best scenic drives in Wales, taking you through the narrow pass and below the summit ridge of Hay Bluff towards Hay-on-Wye. The views of the countryside below are astonishing.

Day 3 – Hay-on-Wye

If you’re a bookworm like my wife and I, you could spend a very long time on Hay-on-Wye.  From the 1960s onwards, local entrepreneur Richard Booth began turning it into the second-hand bookshop capital of the world. With that came growing status as a centre of literature, so much so that it hosts the Hay Festival of Literature, one of the main events in the calendar of booklovers worldwide.

I’ve been visiting Hay for well over thirty years, and probably brought back enough books to fill up a very large car boot in that time. But Hay has changed over the years, and it’s not just about the books. There are less bookshops now – there are around 15, down from a peak of around 50 – but there are more, and better places to eat and stay. The biggest and best bookshops – including Booth’s Books, the original shop of the once-‘King of Hay’ – remain.

It’s an absolute treasure-trove of a town.  It’s also one of the best places to visit in the Welsh Borders, with the Bannau Brycheiniog, Herefordshire black and white villages and the cathedral city of Hereford all within a 20-mile drive (or in Hereford’s case, a bus ride).

Of the places to eat in Hay, I recommend the Three Tuns on Broad Street, close to the bridge over the Wye, and Tomatitos Tapas Bar on Lion Street.

See Also:  8 Best Things To Do In Hay-on-Wye

Llanelieu Church

There is one more church in the Black Mountains worth going a long distance out of your way to see. It’s St Ellyw’s Church in Llanelieu, a remote hamlet at the foot of the Black Mountains escarpment, a few miles from the much-underrated town of Talgarth.

One of the joys of this trip, and the reason Faye and I fell in love with the place (as have several other friends I’ve taken there) is that it’s like the modern era hasn’t happened here. It’s so far removed from the modern world, and you feel like you’re stepping back centuries in time.

The church of St Ellyw in Llanelieu is the hardest place of all five churches to track down. Partrishow has had a steady stream of visitors going back decades, mainly through word of mouth, but also because it has been mentioned in guidebooks to Wales since the 1980s. This is not so with Llanelieu. It’s a redundant church no longer used for services. Thankfully it has been preserved due to the sterling work of the Friends of Friendless Churches, who also look after many churches around England and Wales.

The churchyard is unusually large, and oval-shaped – again not a regular feature of churches in the area. The exterior is simple, constructed from rubble and sandstone. Arriving here is like stepping back to the 18^th century. Then you walk inside, and it’s like you’re in the 15^th century.

Like Partrishow, St Ellyw’s has a remarkable and very rare rood screen separating the nave from the chancel of the church. This screen is considerably older, believed to date from the 15^th century but it’s possible it’s from the 14^th century.  It’s much less ornate than the one at Partrishow, painted blood red with some stencilled quatrefoils and the outline of the original cross which was removed after the Reformation.

There are also several beautiful wall paintings, including one of Adam and Eve and another of a coat of arms.