3:19pm Monday 30th November 2009
By Elizabeth Pitman
H is for: Hay-on-Wye, Powys.
The main bus service is the 39 Brecon bus that runs every day although the Sunday and Bank Holiday service is more limited.
Most people know Hay-on-Wye for both its many bookshops and annual literary festival. I wanted to see what else Hay had to offer and so visited it on a cold but crisp day in February when the egg-shell blue sky was as blue as on a summer’s day.
The bus went through several small villages, all of which seemed to be tucked tidily into an idyllic landscape although at Kingstone, enormous radio satellite dishes have replaced what was once a wartime airfield, a reminder that even this pastoral scenery has had to cope with a rapidly changing world. At Vowchurch, a name that is said, in Old English, to mean ‘multi-coloured’, we joined the gently rolling countryside of the Golden Valley. Its name is said to have come from the time when the Norman French mis-translated the Welsh word ‘dwr’ (water) as the French word ‘d’or’ (gold). Both ‘gold’ and ‘multi-coloured’ seemed entirely appropriate words for this lush, rural landscape, where sheep in creamy white patterns were scattered against a background of frosty fields.
Peterchurch is a small village straggling along the main road, memorable mainly for its very tall church spire made from, of all things, fibre glass. Dorstone today is a quiet and pretty village but one that has known some turbulent and busier times, with its ancient castle once being attacked by Owain Glyndwr whilst, in more recent times, it was the terminus of the Golden Valley railway.
Near Hay-on-Wye, the landscape became hillier and the distinctive outline of Hay Bluff loomed hazily in the distance. Hay itself, which is just over the Welsh border, has hills for a background, as well as a river dividing it from England, for it is situated, as its name suggests, on the river Wye. At Hay the river is wide, meandering peacefully on its way to Chepstow. The aptly named Wye Valley Walk (136 miles/ 218 km) which goes from the mouth of the Wye in Chepstow to its source on Plynlimon goes through Hay, as does the longer (177 mile/285 km) Offa’s Dyke walk. This starts (or depending which way you walk it, ends) just outside Chepstow and runs to Prestatyn in north Wales. It follows, as closely as it can, the route of the great dyke built by the Mercian king Offa around 785, either as a defence against the Welsh or as a boundary to mark out his territory in a sort of ‘keep out, this is mine’ approach.
On such a cold day, the town was quiet but there were plenty of cafés for even the coldest traveller and steaming coffee and croissants in one of these made for a warm start to exploring the town.
For there was much in Hay to delight the eye, from solid stone architecture to the quirky delights that can be seen on many of the buildings and it was easy to spend a happy hour or so simply exploring this small but attractive town.
The parish church, a short walk from the town centre, is disappointingly over-restored. The church guide tries it best to be polite about this nineteenth century restoration, saying that ‘it was unfortunate that the rebuilding took place in a period when architectural taste was not at its best’. When I was there, I found myself in a world with a wonderfully medieval feel to it. A service was in progress. A priest in his vestments knelt at the altar, a handful of shadowy worshippers were in the side stalls and the heavy smell of incense filled the air. The oddest thing of all was when a large and rather shaggy poodle appeared out of the gloom and loped towards me, tail wagging and nose eager to sniff this interloper. Much later I discovered that a book had just been published about the life of the church and its charismatic sounding vicar, as well as Curate Jimmy, his four legged friend – a blue poodle, I discover, not just an ordinary poodle.
The castle motte of the original Hay castle, next to the church, is an evocative reminder of the period when the Normans, having invaded England in 1066, built their castles along this border as part of their campaign to keep the peace between the Welsh and the English.
The ‘modern’ Hay castle, home to Richard Booth, the self-styled King of Hay, is right in the centre of Hay. The earliest part is a square Norman keep built around 1200 by Matilda de Braos, the famed ‘Lady of Hay’ whose gruesome story is a mixture of legend, truth and murder. Legend has it that she built the castle single handed in a night, carrying the stones in her apron. When one fell out and lodged in her slipper she threw it out and it landed three miles away in St Meilig’s churchyard at Llowes. The only problem is that the standing stone there is a much earlier eleventh century one! So much for legend. The truth is much more gruesome.
Maud or Matilda de Braos (c.1153 – 1210) was married to William, the fourth Baron de Braos. She was ‘a prudent and chaste woman’ but he has become known as ‘the ogre of Abergavenny’ because of his dreadful revenge on the Welsh who had murdered his uncle. As lord of Abergavenny castle he invited the flower of the Welsh nobility to a feast there. However, he had murder not hospitality on his mind. The Welsh obeyed the convention of leaving their weapons outside the hall and then proceeded to eat heartily and drink deeply. When they were too drunk to defend themselves, William’s henchmen came in and murdered them all.
Despite (or maybe because of) his murderous propensities, William rose to dizzy heights during the reign of King John, being favoured in particular because he turned a blind eye to the mysterious death of John’s nephew Arthur, who also had a claim to the English throne. But the wheel of fortune turned and in 1207 William fell from grace. The king’s army occupied his castles whilst the king demanded one of William and Matilda’s sons as a hostage. It was at this point that the feisty Matilda openly accused John of the murder of his nephew and, although the family fled to Ireland to escape John’s wrath, Matilda and her son were arrested and imprisoned in an oubliette or ‘starvation hole’ in Windsor castle. When the dungeon was opened after their deaths, Matilda was found to have gnawed at her dead son’s cheeks in order to survive.
Another gruesome Hay story is that of Herbert Armstrong – the Hay murderer. Herbert Armstrong was a small, dapper, mild-mannered man, a well respected local solicitor and a fanatical gardener, with a large stock of arsenic as part of his armoury for eradicating the dreaded weeds in his garden. His wife was said to be something of a despot, ruling her husband with a rod of iron. In 1919 the local doctor was visited by Mrs Armstrong, who complained of acute pains in her shoulders and fingers. Despite regular medical attention she died two years later. Later that year Herbert Armstrong invited a business rival to afternoon tea, offering him delicious scones. When the rival became ill, the doctor became suspicious and sent a urine sample for analysis. It was found to contain arsenic and, as a result, Mrs Armstrong’s body was exhumed. It too contained arsenic and Armstrong was charged with her murder. The defence claimed that her death was due to suicide, but the prosecution argued that Mrs Armstrong was far too weak to administer any drug herself. Armstrong was found guilty and hanged in May 1922 – the only solicitor to have been hung for murder.
However, Hay is BOOKS, books, books and more books and it really would have been impossible to leave without going into some of these – and so I did!
Attractions and places to visit.
Other than exploring the town itself, the bookshops are the main attraction, together with walks in the wonderful surrounding area. Another place of interest (which means breaking your bus journey) is the Stone Age burial chamber at Dorstone which is also set in stunning scenery.
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