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Kate Humble walks Glyndŵr’s Way

Owain Glyndŵr was a Welsh nationalist and military commander who, in 1400, organised a rebellion against the rule of the English King Henry IV, and just a year later controlled the whole of Northern and Central Wales. He became celebrated as a national hero, but his campaign for an independent Wales ultimately failed and in 1410 he went into hiding. He was never found, and where and when he died remains a mystery. But his audacious ambition and bravery have never been forgotten. 

600 years after the first Glyndŵr uprising, a National Trail was founded in his honour. It starts in Knighton, a pretty town with hilly streets and a handsome clock tower that sits right on the border of the Welsh county of Powys and the English county of Shropshire. It is from here that I set off, climbing the steep main street, past the stone marker that indicates the start of the trail and following the waymarks through a tangle of small lanes and hidden pathways to the woodland on the edge of town. I pass beneath the shaded canopy of oaks and emerge into the bright green expanse of the rolling Radnorshire hills. The route heads almost due West, striking out across the middle of Wales. I am dwarfed by the space around me – the horizon, hazy and distant, the sky a huge, uninterrupted arc above. I walk over slopes golden with gorse, then purple with heather.  There are red kites and acrobatic ravens. Sheep and cattle and ponies. A ruined abbey, picturesque villages. There’s even a ‘help yourself café’ en route, where, for a donation, you can boil the kettle left in the porch of the village hall and make use of the supply of tea and coffee left for passing walkers. But what strikes me, as I reach the town of Llanidloes, just short of fifty miles from my starting point, is that I have had this beautiful trail all to myself.

Glyndŵr’s Way is one of three National Trails in Wales, but unlike the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and Offa’s Dyke Path, is not widely known about. The pressures of what is being described as ‘over-tourism’ and how to mitigate for them is much in discussion these days. The benefits of high visitor numbers in places like the Isle of Skye, the Lakes, Snowdonia and the Dales are outweighed, in many residents’ eyes, by the negatives. But as this walk is proving, there are any number of ways to avoid the crowds, get off the beaten track, and still be surrounded by spectacular scenery.

I reach Llanidloes in time for a celebratory cake from the Little Welsh Bakery and a mooch in the town’s beautiful bookshop, before continuing west, over the River Severn and past the mighty dam wall of the Clywedog Reservoir. The rising sun turns the early morning rain into mist that curls up from the valleys like wisps of smoke from hidden chimneys. There’s birdsong and dragon flies buzzing over the water, a lone boat ploughs a glassy furrow across the lake’s mirror-like surface. As I leave it behind, I notice a change in the landscape.  The hills are sharper in profile now, more rugged, the climbs steeper and there is shale beneath my feet. Ahead is the Hafren forest and a glorious sighting of two adult ospreys at their nest, high up in the top of a conifer. The landscape becomes ever-more dramatic and I descend into Machynlleth breathless with the beauty I have encountered. This is the most westerly point of the route and the site of Glyndŵr’s parliament. From here I turn north-east towards Lake Vyrnwy.  I follow ridges and valleys to the villages of Llanbrynmair, Llanwyddyn and Meifod. My nights are spent in the homely comfort of B&Bs, my tired limbs restored by warm welcomes, good food, hot showers and blissfully comfortable beds. The route ends after 135 miles at Welshpool, but the Offa’s Dyke path connects Welshpool with my starting point at Knighton just 25 miles away. And I’m enjoying this walk too much to want to stop now. So I press on, and up and up, high onto the ridge of the dyke. And here I stop, breathless and triumphant, and look back out, across the green rolling sea of hills, the distant forests, the purple moors, the lakes and streams, villages and valleys, towards the sun and the distant shimmering horizon. And I say to myself, with a smile as wide as the sky, ‘I’ve been there.’

Kate Humble

7/10/24