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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Friday 4 May 2018

Friday Walk - [Brecon Trip] Brecon Circular via Y Gaer, Battle and Pen Y Crug (A Gentle Introduction To The Area) [New Walk]

Length: 18.1 km (11.3 mi) or 13.4 km/8.3 mi if walking the short walk
Ascent/Descent:  455m or 299m on the short walk
Net Walking Time: ca. 4 ½ hours or 3 ½ hours
Toughness:  6 out of 10 or 3 out of 10

Meet at 15.00 in the south east corner of the Morrison’s car park in Brecon’s town centre, next to the Markets Tavern and near the four-way road junction by the Bus Interchange. Meet an hour later  for the shorter walk, meet two hours later for the very short woodland gorge loop.

From the pdf: “This short excursion from the heart of the busy market town of Brecon leads out along the Promenade along the Usk River and then through fields and woods to the remains of Y Gaer (CICVCIVM Roman Fort), built around AD 75 and established as a Roman cavalry base for the conquest of Wales. Rebuilt in stone during the 2nd half of the 2nd century AD, it still features interesting remains of walls, gatehouses and turrets. Follow the Ysgir River north up the valley and onto Battle Hill, a modest grassy ridge from where you nevertheless have extensive views of all the spectacular mountain areas around Brecon. A descent through woods and across pastures leads to the remains of Pen-y-crug Iron Age hillfort, with its up to five surviving ramparts, located on The Crug (pronounced cree-g), a hill overlooking Brecon. Despite its modest height, it has extensive views of the central Brecon Beacons, and also views to a number of neighbouring hillforts. En route back down to Brecon and past the cathedral and Norman castle remains, you pass the covered well of Ffynnon Maen-du, one of several springs on the slopes of Pen-y-crug.

A shortcut cuts the long ascent to Battle Hill and the remaining short walk still provides an interesting introduction to the area with its rivers, woods and views from the Pen-y-crug hillfort site.
An extension through the Priory Groves Woodland Gorge, starting from the cathedral, and going up the Honddu valley, is a fascinating excursion up this lovely gorge, which – in parts – is almost alpine in character, despite being only a stone’s throw from the town centre. This can also be done as a (very short but rewarding) standalone walk.”

Tea: there will be a group dinner at 19.30 hours (i.e. right after the walk) at The Clarence pub, at 25 Watton, 3 minutes away from the start point of the walk.

For walk directions, map, photos, height profile, and gpx/kml files click here.
T=3.306

3 comments:

Stargazer said...

Hi,

Anyone interested in the evening meal on Friday at the Clarence who has not yet contacted me, please drop me an email at goepfertkarenATyahooDOTcom. See you there!

Thomas G said...

As far as could be ascertained at the group dinner, 8 started the walk at 3, 2 walking the 13km version, 6 the full 18km. 4 others started about an hour later and walked some version of the shorter walk, 3 + 1 walked the woodland gorge walk only, so n=16 in total in w=dry-and-pleasant weather. Whatever clouds were present earlier, had lifted by the time we got to the minor ridge in the middle of the walk, and we had splendid views out to all the tops being walked this weekend.

Sandy said...

As one of the late starters: we followed the main route to the Roman fort then walked to Cradoc and then back on the main road as we'd run out of time - not very edifying but the suburbs of Brecon were quite pleasant. I wonder what's the story behind the twin chapels at the cemetary?