Crai

The valley and what has gone

A 28-metre embankment holds back Crai Reservoir at the head of the valley, built between 1898 and 1906 to supply the Tawe valley and north Swansea. The Afon Crai rises above it as Blaen-crai, west of Fan Gyhirych, and once past the dam it works down through Felin-crai and Cwm Crai to meet the Usk near Sennybridge. This is the shape of the place: a scatter of livestock farms along a high valley about twenty kilometres west of Brecon, some of them now taking in visitors, with the church standing apart from what counts as the centre.

Crai's former shop and post office have closed. The railway station served the Neath and Brecon line from 1870 until 1962; after its demolition, a single-storey house replaced the station building. In Sennybridge to the north, Londis sells everyday groceries beside a fuel forecourt. The Usk & Railway Inn has six letting rooms, a beer garden and a menu that has featured chargrilled steak, Gower Gold beer-battered cod, homemade curry and miso butterbean cassoulet. Brecon butcher Paddy Sweeney supplies the meat, and dogs are welcome.

Inns, water and higher ground

A little further west along the A40, the Castle Coaching Inn at Trecastle was named AA Inn of the Year for Wales in 2026. There is a log fire, ten bedrooms, and recent menus have included beef curry, bavette steak with chimichurri, slow-cooked pork ribs and a Welsh cheeseboard of Perl Las, Perl Wen and Hafod cheddar. Dogs sit in the bar rather than the restaurant.

What Crai has instead of shops is water and ground to walk on. The reservoir is a fly-only fishery for wild brown trout on the Cnewr Estate, with three kilometres of shoreline for anglers. Its 2026 fishing season ran from April to the end of September; permits come from Cnewr Farm, and boats are not allowed. From the A4067 side, a roughly two-kilometre out-and-back heads towards the dam through woodland and past waterfalls beside the Afon Crai. Henrhyd Falls near Coelbren drops ninety feet into a wooded gorge, reached by a roughly one-mile return walk with steep, often slippery steps; dogs are allowed on short leads. The Cribarth Geotrail starts at Craig-y-nos and crosses folded limestone and old quarry workings for three and a quarter miles; avoid it in low cloud.

The tower above the reservoir

Above the reservoir stands a solid stone tower about twelve feet high. Its purpose remains unresolved: it may have marked the aqueduct tunnel survey through the watershed or served as a vent.

St Ilid and Capel Bach

The church, St Ilid, went up quickly. The foundation stone was laid in April 1882 and the bishop consecrated the building the following March. Local subscriptions covered £600 of the thousand pounds it cost, and Mrs Williams of Maescarnog gave the land. It replaced Capel Bach, a plain chapel of ease that had stood by the Roman road on the ground now called Tircapel. Inside, a single stained-glass light of St Winefride was made by Powell and Sons around 1924.

The reservoir workers’ memorial

In the churchyard the men who built the reservoir raised a stone to those who did not survive the work, dating it 1898 to 1906. It is the plainest thing in the village and the one that stays with you.