Aberyscir

A small church with a long memory

The Church of Saint Mary and Saint Cynidr stands on a flat-topped spur where the Ysgir comes down off Mynydd Epynt to meet the Usk. It is a small building, simple almost to the point of being chapel-like, with a tall bellcote at the west end and a medieval stoup by the door. Charles Buckeridge rebuilt most of it in 1860, keeping the fifteenth-century north doorway and adding a vestry on the north side twenty-four years later. Inside there is a large fifteenth-century floor slab said to commemorate Richard ap Jenkyn and Cecilia, and a worn seventeenth-century slab by the pulpit. The congregation is small and meets one Sunday a month.

The building was not always admired. Around 1800 the historian Theophilus Jones described its predecessor as "a miserable little building with a shed at one end."

A hamlet at two rivers

Aberyscir is a hamlet rather than a village. Don't expect a shop, a pub or a bus through the old core; the name means "mouth of the Yscir," and the place is essentially the point where the two rivers meet. What it has instead of amenities is position. Church, castle mound and Roman fort sit within sight of one another across the tributary.

Motte and Roman fort

The castle mound is a scheduled medieval motte a little way from the church, its teardrop summit roughly twenty metres by thirty, ringed on two sides by a broad ditch. Across the Ysgir is Y Gaer, an auxiliary Roman fort founded around AD 75 and once garrisoned by some five hundred cavalry, the Vettonian Spanish Cavalry Regiment. It began in turf and timber and was later rebuilt in stone; three consolidated gateways survive, with some walls still reaching well over two metres. You can walk to it, though it lies on a working farm with no vehicle access or parking, and the ground turns muddy after rain. A tombstone belonging to a young cavalryman named Candidus was found about a mile north and now sits in Brecon's museum, along with a sandstone "Maiden Stone" dug up near the fort in the sixteenth century.

Food beyond the old core

For food you go out. The Three Horseshoes at Groesffordd, run by Ashley Haworth for more than twenty years, puts out seasonal plates from chef Alex Parret: Cornish hake with leeks, celeriac and mussels; confit duck leg with dauphinoise; gnocchi with celeriac, spinach and Perl Wen. Dogs are welcome, and the garden has heated beach huts that seat eight. A few miles the other way, the Felin Fach Griffin cooks cod with cavolo nero and brown shrimp, or a mushroom, spinach and celeriac pithivier, with fresh produce sourced from a kitchen garden about fifty steps away. Brecon, four kilometres east, fills in the rest: Paddy Sweeney's butcher in the Market Arcade, an indoor market hall, and a farmers' market on the second Saturday of each month.

Common, hillfort and open sky

The walking starts at the door. A path climbs Aberyscir Common for broad views, and a longer circuit runs out from Brecon past Y Gaer and the Pen-y-crug hillfort. From the higher ground you can see Pen y Fan, the skies are dark enough for stars, and red kites are regularly seen overhead.