Four Journeys in the Black Mountains: Part 2

Winter by Tim Cooke

It’s a cold, bright morning at the foot of the Black Mountains. My girlfriend, her parents and I walk along a stony track beneath an arc of brown and purple larch. Our steps splash in the flow of a shallow stream, which for this stretch alone is at one with the trail. A slight man, grey and elegant in a wild sort of way, approaches from behind and initiates gentle conversation. He comments on the crisp weather and tells us about his roots in North Wales, before delving into the years he spent in East London; he talks about his family in Hackney and a clothes factory relocated to Abergavenny.

As we speak, shafts of golden light peter through the sparse foliage and catch on our precautionary waterproofs. The old man is wearing a black Leninist cap and he leans on a stick that he’s smoothed, dried, oiled and tipped with metal. I ask him the way to the slanted church in Cwmyoy; he beams and takes the lead.

We emerge from the cover of trees into a farmer’s field peppered with evil-eyed sheep. A murder of crows erupts from the crown of an ash in the distance, while our chatter rumbles on. The ground is sopping with last night’s deluge and we struggle, at times, to stay afoot. Across a road and river, we join a lane leading up to our destination: St Martin’s Church, a medieval structure that tilts askew due to debris caused by the glaciation of the Llanthony Valley. A bird with a crimson tale, perhaps a rogue black redstart, sweeps from one side of the pathway into thick hedgerow on the other, just metres ahead.

In full view, the church looks like an image from an illustrated work of gothic literature. Its fluid shape dips and shifts and sinks like a river current, its grounds crooked with ancient gravestones; buttresses built in the 1960s prop up the leaning tower. Looming behind is a mountain split in half by a landslide that was caused, rumour has it, by a violent earthquake that cracked through the valley during the crucifixion of Christ.

We remove our jackets and rest our poles against the porch wall. Our guide slips quietly through the church door before us. As we enter the main room, the owl-like song of an accomplished flautist rises from the pews and swallows us whole – the old man, like CS Lewis’s Tumnus, controls the mood, adding anaesthetic to an already-reverential atmosphere. Monuments carved by the famous Brute family adorn the walls. One reads: “Death, like an overflowing Stream/ Sweeps us away, our lifes a Dream/ An emty Tale; a morning Flow’r/ Cut down & wither’d in [an] hour.”

Part 1: Autumn
Part 2: Winter
Part 3: Spring
Part 4: Summer

Four Journeys in the Black Mountains: Part 1

Autumn by Tim Cooke

The farmhouse is long and yellow, perched near the brow of a steep hillside on the outer limits of the Vale of Ewyas, otherwise known as the Llanthony Valley. The stone structure is flanked by three large wooden barns with asbestos roofs; a runnel of grey smoke seeps from the chimney into a swirl of dense Welsh rain. We pop our heads round the door and wish the old couple inside a good day – they are leaving the area, after twenty-five happy years – before re-joining the tarmac lane to the summit of Twyn y Gaer.

Historically part of a border territory disputed by the Welsh and English, the slice of common land that stretches along the ridge is laden with spectres. Immediately to our left, as we splash through deep puddles and trade the veil of trees for open plateau, is an Iron Age hill-fort chosen, you’d imagine, for its elevated views over three valleys below. The bracken here is brown and shallow, the rowans flared and ready to thwart witchcraft. Gorse is aplenty.

We stride into a brisk wind, ascending a sharp incline to the crest of the fort, where a small cairn marks the spot to stop and take in the cinematic panorama. The rain has thinned to mist and casts a glassy sheen over the landscape, adding an ethereal aspect. Of his visit to the area, the poet Allen Ginsberg wrote: “valley upon valley under Heaven’s ocean/ tonned with cloud-hang –/ Heaven balanced on a grassblade.” The skeleton of a tree we can’t name protrudes into the westerly scene, jagged and dreadful, like a monument to violence.

Snaking sporadically around the peak is a series of entrenchments cut into the ground – bow-and-arrow pits, perhaps. It has been proposed that the name “Ewyas” derives from the large quantity of yew planted here to arm the bowmen of turbulent years past, when all able-bodies were expected to practise archery after church on Sundays. We descend a gentler slope on the far side and merge onto a wide track that runs directly above the Llanthony Valley.

The cloud cover suddenly breaks and light begins to leak from the ether. To our right, the cliffs of Darren are sun-dappled like leopard print; the perfect spot for peregrines, we say, before spying a possible hen harrier. We’ve also seen buzzards, a kite and ravens galore, tumbling and croaking like bronchitic toads. In all its lopsided glory, the crooked church of Cwmyoy rears its ancient head.

Without deviation, we soon arrive at the Stone of Revenge, a modest reminder of the story of a Norman Marcher lord, Richard de Clare, who in 1135 was ambushed and slaughtered by Morgan ap Owen, of Caerleon, and his men. The stone leans back at about twenty-five degrees, towards the fort, and is crawling with lichen and moss. A buzzard cries overhead.

By the time we’ve reached the final stretch up to the cairn of Garn Wen, the rain has completely subsided and there is sun on our backs. We’ve passed ruined plots and countless sheep; the ghosts are quiet. The terra firma at this end of the walk seems barren, the summer’s dazzling purple heather dormant for now. We sit amongst stacked rock crunching apples, juice dripping down our chins, and tear into silver wraps of expensive dark chocolate. A lifetime of connection awaits us.

Part 1: Autumn
Part 2: Winter
Part 3: Spring
Part 4: Summer