Autumn Days Out

I thought I would list a few events and some ideas of my own of what to see and do over Autumn in the Brecon Beacons and surrounding country side of Mid Wales.
I was racking my brains of places to see really good Autumn tree colours and after pouring over maps and books Susie came along and said
"We have the best Autumn colours right here at Gliffaes and up and down the Usk Valley walk."
And she is right if you can get here for the last couple of weeks in October the leaf colours here are tremendous. The oaks, beeches and sycamores really via for attention but with some many specimen trees in the grounds there is something different around every corner.
So here we go with a few ideas:

1. The Brecon Beacons National Park has laid on several interesting days out over the coming weeks and here are three high lights.
   Saturday 9th October - Star Gazing
   Cardiff Astronomical Society will once again be hosting an evening of stargazing at the Visitor Centre. If skies are clear their telescopes will be focused on interesting phenomena in the night sky, or if cloudy there will be a range of talks and demonstrations indoors. Read more
   Saturday 9th October - Photo Friendly Waterfalls Walk
   Have you been on a walk with friends, family or in groups where you have carried your camera all day and not taken a single shot? Wish you had more time to take some photos along the way without holding up the group? Well this walk is for you. Read more
   Sunday 7th November - Remembrance Day Walk to a Wellington Bomber Crash Site
   A visit to the crash site of a Wellington Bomber R1465 for a Remembrance Day commemoration, followed by lunch at the Travellers’ Rest in Talybont-on-Usk. Please come suitably equipped for variable weather conditions. Read more
2. Foraging for Fungi in the Elan Valley
   This caught my eye as I have heard the leader of this fungi forage talk before, and he is very entertaining. He is running two one day beginners courses on Saturday 25th September and Saturday 9th October. Rhayder, where this takes place is about an hour from Gliffaes up the Wye Valley. Read more.
3. Take a drive through the Elan Valley

This sparsely populated and remote area of mid wales is home to many reservoirs built in Victorian times to supply water to the Midlands. The steep valleys are covered in Sessile Oaks and look stunning in Autumn. Head for Rhayder up the very picturesque Wye Valley and then on to the Elan Valley Visitor's Centre where you will find information on routes; walking or driving. While in Rhayder go and see the daily feeding of Red Kites at Gigrin Farm.

4. Come to the Brecon Baroque Festival- 22nd - 25th October

Inspired by the Georgian architectural heritage of Brecon, this four-day event features outstanding international performers, including violinist Rachel Podger, countertenor Stephen Wallace, flautist Katy Bircher, recorder player Pamela Thorby, and dancer Katy Sinnadurai, as well as guest vocal ensemble Trinity Baroque, director Julian Podger. The annual Baroque Ball, where the revelry is led by dance expert Peter Brock, takes place this year at Theatr Brycheiniog. The Festival opens with Monteverdi Vespers at Brecon Cathedral and concludes with a concert given by the Brecon Baroque Festival Orchestra, directed by Rachel Podger, which will include Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. More details.

5. Learn Grayling Fishing on the River Wye

The trout season finishes on the 30th September and salmon on the 17th October but you can still fish for Grayling, with a fly on the Wye right through the autumn.

For those wanting to gain more of an insight into autumn grayling fishing, the Wye and Usk Foundation, in partnership with Frank Williams Fly Fishing, will be running a series of tuition days on upper Wye beats close to Builth Wells later this year. Frank is a highly recommended, qualified instructor who will help improve success rates for those thinking of venturing onto the rivers during this spectacular time of year. The days will be held on the 24th October, and 7th and 28th of November. Places will be limited to 5 per day and will cost £65 per person, which will include fishing permits, tuition and a selection of flies appropriate to the techniques being taught. To book your place or for more information, please email Frank Williams at frank@frankwilliamsflyfishing.co.uk or call him on 07824363376.

6. Go for and Autumn Walk (or bike ride)  in Talybont Forest.

You can walk or ride from the hotel up and over Tor y Foel before heading through the forest down to Talybont on Usk for lunch in the pub and then back along the canal to Gliffaes. Alternatively, drive to the forest and do the waterfall walk. There will be plenty of Autumn colours in the woods and especially up the waterfall route.  We will help you with your route when you get to Gliffaes.

7. Gather sloes, chestnuts and rosehips.

The hedges around Gliffaes yield quite and abundance of sloes and rosehips and we have a lot of chestnuts from the trees in the gardens. Feel free to gather up some berries and nuts to make rosehip syrup, sloe gin or even take some chestnuts home to roast on the fire.

A Trip to Aberglasney Gardens

A trip to Aberglasney makes for a great day out from Gliffaes, the journey along the A40 westwards is very straight forward and takes an hour. We often call in here on the way back from Pembrokshire to have a look around and to have lunch in the very good cafe over looking the big pond, over which the swallows and house martens skim over through out the day.

The house and gardens were abandoned for 50 years and the restoration over the last 15 years is one of Wales' most remarkable garden projects. There are formal gardens, parapets and cloisters to explore. I think the two walled gardens however are the most beautiful part of the garden. One full of herbs and vegetables as well as the most amazing espaliered fruit trees on the big south facing wall. The other walled garden is full of shrubs and flowers. It is not difficult to to spend a very pleasant couple of hours here and if you fancy something else to the National Trust property of Dinefwr Parc and Castle is very close by as are the National Botanic Gardens of Wales.


Opening times: 
April - September 10am - 6pm (last entry 5pm)
October - March 10.30am - 4pm (last entry 3pm)

Discover more of Wales.

We have been going to the north Pembrokshire coast for about ten years now. Every time I make our annual trip I am blown away by the rugged beauty and by how few tourists there are on this wonderful stretch of coast underneath the Presseli Hills. We base ourselves in the small town of Newport at the mouth of the Nevern estuary in the middle of the Pembrokshire Coast National Park.

The beach here is enormous and most people congregate in one area close to the car park, move away from there and you can have as much space as you need to fly kites, play games, surf and make sand castles. The estuary is rich in bird life and has an easily accessible path along side it for a a couple of miles.Newport, is on the Coastal Path and a very efficent bus service can run you up or down the coast so you can enjoy the walk back home. I particular enjoy cycling around here; head for the Gwan Valley and another good trip is out to Strumble Head. 

The pictures show us on a beach (my girls call it the 'secret beach', if you want to know where it is get in touch) that we had to ourselves for most of the day where we built a fire, cooked our lunch and spent most of the day surfing (well those with wet suits did!).

If you had a week's holiday spare then a couple of days in the Brecon Beacons National Park based here at Gliffaes followed by a couple of days in Newport staying at the very comfortable Llys Meddyg Hotel,would make for a really wonderful week in Wales. The drive from the Beacons to the Pembrokshire Coast takes a little over two hours with a stop at Aberglasney Gardens along the way highly recommended.

Seeing the Wood for the trees at Powis Castle

A guided walk around the gardens of Powis Castle (Welshpool) ,in the company of the Head Gardner, to see the spring flowers was the promise made in the advert of the local paper. Having not been to Powis Castle before I felt that this would be a good excuse to visit so we could recommend it to our guests. Was it worth the twisty two hour journey from Gliffaes? Very definitely, did we see any of the promised spring flowers? Well, we saw one daffodil, like the rest of the country the exceptionally cold winter has delayed the arrival of spring by about three weeks. However, the lack of spring foliage and flowers meant we could see the garden laid bare and appreciate how the gardens have developed over the centuries and we had the added bonus of the famous yew hedges and tumps looking their very best.

Powis Castle is a National Trust property on the outskirts of Welshpool right at the northern end of Powys and was once the seat of the Clive family (Clive of India). Both the castle and the gardens are open to visitors, with the castle being full of treasures brought back from India amongst other things. We did not venture into the castle but our hour and half tour around the gardens was excellent. The gardens reflect the changing fashions and grand visions of landscape gardeners over the last 300  years, all of which are visible in part  to the visitor today. The most dramatic part is the series of 300 year old terraces stepping upwards to the castle which is perched on the top of a rocky outcrop. Built into the terraces are an orangery, an aviary ( no birds in it now) and a balustrade complete with lead statues. The terraces trap the sun and protect from the prevailing winds resulting in micro climates in which the unusal plants and shrubs thrive. The newest part of the garden has been planted  on top of the old  vegetable garden at the turn of the 20th century. Lady Herbert  thought that vegetable gardens were vulgar and should not be visible from the castle and had it shifted and the unusually clipped ornamental apple trees that grow there now are something I have not seen before.

The real trump card Powis has is yew. Yew in all shapes and forms, from straight hedges to huge strange shaped 'tumps' formed over the centuries by the annual round of clipping and shaping. Keeping the yew in shape is a full time job and the annual clipping is a three month exercise for three gardeners.  Standing on the terrace looking across at a bank of yew trees left unclipped and growing naturaly we saw what appeared to be smoke blowing through the trees, this turned out to be thick clouds of pollen from the male yew trees blown free by the wind. The wilder part of the garden has some magnificently tall oak trees planted around 250 year ago and should not be missed. All in all a good day out and the drive across rural mid-wales is interesting, for those not keen on driving there is a train to Welshpool from Abergavenny which takes about and hour and fifty minutes with a change at Shrewsbury.

Useful links: Powis Castle

A Trip to Tanners of Shrewsbury

Keeping a wine list of over 80 wines fresh and interesting for guests means going to tastings. This is not a great hardship and its is about this time of year that most wine merchants hold their annual tastings. Yesterday was the turn of multi award winning merchants, Tanners of Shrewsbury to throw open the cellar doors to the trade for their annual tasting.  The tasting is arranged through out their rabbit warren of cellars, shop and offices at Wyle Kop in Shrewsbury. This is a great chance to meet and talk to several producers who come from all over the wine making world to show off their wines personally.

There were around 75 wines on show so I had to have a careful look at the tasting list and not just diving in at number one and working my way to the end - I just can't taste that many wines. One of the high spots for me were to meet Bruno Fina from Scilia and taste his lovely Grillio, a grape grown only in the west of the island. It has a very distinctive orange peel nose and will be great summer aperitif. He also gave me a taste of his unusual desert wine (El Aziz, Vendemmia Tardiva, Vino da Tavola) using late harvested Chardonnay, it is superb and he has kept the balance between sweetness and acidity perfectly.

I always try to find wines for the list that are not run of the mill and certainly never found on the shelves of the supermarkets. One such producer is Sami Ghosn of Massaya in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. A partnership with the brothers Brunier of Chateauneuf has produced a number of powerful Rhone style reds, real meaty, spicy wines that need to be drunk with red meat and rich sauces. Look out for the Massaya Selection Silver on the wine list when you are next at Gliffaes.

By the way, an interesting day out from Gliffaes can be to take the train to Shrewsbury (about 1 hour 25 minutes from Abergavenny) all the way up the Welsh Marches, a pretty journey in it's own right. Shrewsbury has plenty of interesting things to see and do and you would be most welcome to call in at the Tanners shop.

Useful Links : Tanners Wines

A Day Out with The Lords' of The Marches

A visit to three Castles; Grosmont, Skenfrith and White Castle.

Almost a thousand years ago the border between England and Wales was definitely view by the English as the ‘Wild West’. The Celts were unruly and dangerous and the border lands, known as the Marches, had to be defended against the Welsh.  Around 1100 the Normans built a series of small castles to defend the lands that they had won control of in what is now Monmouthshire. 

With snow on the ground but a weak winter sun I decided to visit all three castles by bike but this trip can be more easily made by car. There is a 19 mile cross country footpath which connects all three but that was more than I had time for.  You can see all three thousand year old castles in a morning, travel on some very pretty rural lanes and enjoy coffee or lunch in a couple of fantastic local restaurants.

I started in Abergavenny, which is about 10 miles east of Gliffaes. I headed north to Grosmont Castle first, about 15 miles from Abergavenny.  Grosmont is a small place but amazingly still boasts a Tea Room, a pub and village shop come Post Office in the pretty centre of the village. Opposite the shop you will find the footpath to Grosmont Castle.

Having just read the 14th Centaury tale of chivalry and courtly love, ‘Sir Garwain & The Green Knight’, I could very much picture the feasting and revelry that took place in the Great Hall, the walls of which are still up to roof height.  I could also feel for the poor fellows on guard and how downright cold and miserable it would have been standing on the battlements in the middle of winter as I contemplated the snowy countryside. There is a good deal of the castle intact and the information boards dotted around give you enough of a feel to know how the castle expanded over the centuries before falling into disuse. The castle is maintained by CADW, the Welsh heritage body.

The 5 miles from Grosmont to Skenfrith along the B4347 make for perfect cycling. A mile or so steady climbing, pass the Pant-y-Seal Tea Room and Gardens before a sweeping descent down towards Skenfrith. Here you are welcomed by the happy sight of, ‘The Bell at Skenfrith’ right next to the bridge over the river Monow. I had a truly excellent coffee here but I also know from past experience that you can have a delicious lunch. The wine list is masterpiece, William Hutchings, who helps his wife in the running of The Bell, is passionate about wine and this come through in his award winning wine list.

Skenfrith Castle was clearly sited to overlook the ford on the River Monnow and is in much the same state as Grosmont Castle but larger. Opposite the castle and built at around the same time by the same man; Hubert du Burgh, is St Bridget’s Church.  This is an unusual church in that it has a small wooden bell tower, I didn’t go in but the Church’s website makes it clear that there are interesting things to see inside.

Fortified by my coffee and a banana I set off on the road back to Abergavenny. It was here that my resolve to visit all three castles failed me. Having cycled nearly 30 miles by the time I got to the turning to White Castle I bottled out as I was now keen to get home.  All I can tell you is that it is about 1 mile off the main road!

With the Skirrid Mountain in my sights, the final climb took me past the famous, ‘Walnut Tree’ restaurant. Run by chef and owner, Shaun Hill. Mr Hill has just earned a Michelin Star at the Walnut Tree and having had a wonderful birthday dinner there a couple of weeks ago this would be my lunch stop of choice after visiting all three castles.

35 miles later I was back in Abergavenny, not too much of a strain by bike and if you had driven my route from Gliffaes it would be around 55 miles. This could work out as a very pleasant morning’s drive followed by an excellent lunch before heading back to the hotel.