Garth's Walk: New Radnor Harley Street for sheep

The area around New Radnor, boasting splendid names like The Smatcher, Whimble and Mutton Dingle, is no exception.

The landscape is stunning, and every bit as rugged as 150 years ago when a local man was plying the trade of bonesetter.

John Lloyd was born in the late 18th Century and lived on a little sheep farm up the Harley Valley in the spectacular gorge below Great Greigiau.

In the course of his work on steep and rocky hillsides, he would often come across a sheep with a broken leg.

He boiled herbs to make rudimentary antiseptics, performed simple surgery and, as his reputation grew, found himself being summoned to heal the sheep of lots of his neighbours. He was usually paid in buttons and it was the same when the miller’s son broke his leg in the gorge; for the first time, Lloyd was asked to mend some human bones.

With the utmost care he set the boy’s leg, applied a plinth, bandaged it and helped the father carry his lad back down the valley to Haines’s Mill. The grateful miller offered him money, but Lloyd asked for “a little thanks offering” instead, and was given two silver buttons.

Soon the shepherd had enough buttons for his waistcoat and then enough for his coat. Not all his silver gifts were buttons, because Sir William de Broase of Tomen Castle gave him a pair of silver shoe buckles for treating his broken ankle; the parson gave him a silver snuff box for curing his horse; and someone else gave him a heavy silver knobbed stick.

As Lloyd’s coat grew heavier with silver buttons, so it began to take on the appearance of shining armour. His lad John Lloyd junior had the proud task of polishing his buttons, and the coat was worn on high days, holidays, when he went to Builth Market to buy or sell sheep, or when he was caring for human patients with broken bones. All along the border between Hereford and Radnor, Lloyd became affectionately known as “Silver John the Bonesetter”.

Unfortunately, when he was returning from a Michaelmas fair in Builth market, these adornments attracted the interest of a gang from New Radnor. We know John reached the crest of the road at the Fforest Inn, but when his faithful horse got the two-wheeled cart back to the farm gate in the Harley Valley well after dark, old “Silver John” was nowhere to be seen.

During the following Candlemas Fair, a startled skater saw a face staring up at her from under the ice at Lyn Hilyn. Worried that removing a body in its frozen state could lead to broken limbs - and unquiet slumbers for an old bonesetter’s spirit - revellers left the scene well alone until a warm spring day several weeks later. When the corpse was painstakingly lifted from the shallow waters it was obviously Silver John - murdered and thrown into the lake for the sake of his silver buttons. The great coat was gone, the silver buckles had been torn from his shoes and the snuff box and stick were missing. A long procession followed the dead man as he was borne down the road and up the Harley Valley on his old cart. Silver John was laid to rest in the land where he had tended his beloved sheep and healed the limbs of his kinsfolk.

The grass is said to be always green on the slopes of Harley Valley at the burial spot under an oak tree. Our scintillating ramble takes a ghostly shape around the green, green grass of his home.

Harley Valley and Whimble.

Radnor Forest moorland with far-reaching views.

5 mile energetic ramble. Wide bridle tracks on good terrain, narrower paths through woodland.

Map: Explorer 201, Knighton and Presteigne.

The Route Park on roadside in New Radnor, walk up to T-junction and TR as if for Kinnerton and Presteigne. After a few paces , TL up Mutton Dingle to: 1. Opposite Quarry Cottage, Bear R off road through gate up bridle path between hedges. Climb quite stiffly up before levelling off, go through a gate and sweep a little further R, along Radnor Forest Ride. At a brow, with views opening out ahead and R, go forward a few paces to marker post. TL along grassy footpath and climb up through conifers, ever more steeply to marker post and a vantage point 20m above.

2. Forest track junction. TR along wide aggregate track for 40m. At marker post, TL along narrow footpath, finding Xmas trees on R. Go gently up to emerge at wide aggregate crossing track. TL for 15m, then TR at marker post up 10 feet wide, stony bridle path. Head to R of distinctly-shaped Whimble to reach third, wide aggregate cross-track.

3. Viewpoint. TR along forest track, soon passing marker post, with large modern barn up to L. Go through lowest, bridle gate ahead and follow top L edge of field through next gate. Cross farm track and head up, L, through modern bridle gate. Follow, now grassy, track, sweeping up to L, with fence immediately R. Climb over brow, as if for Black Mixen Tower, and drop down through gorse aiming for bottom L corner of trees on Ednol Hill as far as path junction just L of small pond.

4. Gate/stile. Cross and go through marshy area heading for telegraph pole and a rutted farm track, but only as far as a point below some old quarry workings. Now kink back down to L again and go through metal gate to put fence above you on R. Descend grassy path to warning sign.

5. “Ammunition Testing Area”. Now you can see the grassy bridle path which will take you along the left edge of the gorge as it sweeps to R around Whimble. Follow it through a gate below a telegraph pole, for 1½ miles. (Silver John’s workplace!) When you reach Broadwell Wood, skirt R of it down and around to L below it, following telegraph line.

6. Go through gate down farm track to join lane below Cwm Broadwell. Follow quite steeply down to start-point.