Bed and breakfast availability
Glasbury b&b, guesthouse and hotel accommodation

Visit Glasbury and the surrounding villages and stay in bed & breakfast accommodation:

Glasbury, Powys, stands 4 miles South West of Hay-on-Wye in a curve of the Wye river. At Clyro is a Roman camp, recently confirmed as being large enough to accommodate an entire legion: a Roman military station that seems to stand like an isolated outpost thrusting westward into the Ellennith from Kenchester, which was Magnis, unconnected with anything between the station at Llandrindod and the Gobannium we now call Abergavenny. The camp at Clyro, which from its site must have been for settled use, has a definite connection with the one at Glasbury. This was found more recently. It appears as an enclosure with two straight sides and rounded ends, typical of its kind, and set close to Glasbury railway upon a spur of hill that runs out into the valley, and from which the site of the camp at Clyro can in fact be observed. The place is called Heol y Gaer (Fort upon the Roadway); it always has been. And there are still indications that the Roman troops laid down along the valley a highway that took in the camp as a matter of course. That signals could be passed in direct line of sight from one to the other is evidence of the care with which the whole alignment was planned; similar examples can be found along the old lines of communication about the Dovey valley and elsewhere. Heol y Gaer was as large a station as the one at Clyro; either the Clyro fort could send its men out on expedition as an entire body or, more probably, another legion could encamp further down the Wye, and the two together co-operate in whatever their task might be. Both sites are set on a projecting spur of hill above the stream, for the river was liable to flood, and no commander could accept such a risk in such a country.

The dates for the two stations have yet to be fully confirmed. But the important thing is the strategic movement they represented, and the shaping of the history of Wales, and of Britain as a whole, that they initiated. The Wye at this point gives the best opening for the way into the West from the English plains; the Llynfi valley takes the route from Herefordshire down to Talgarth and Llangorse under the Black Mountains, and so to Brecon and the Usk valley to march past the Beacons. Only from such a southward point could you strike effectively into the hills of Ellennith: for towards Builth the way was blocked under the Begwns by a narrow river gorge. Heol y Gaer apparently served its turn. The campaign was effective, and it was left without further development to stand in squared ridges of green to watch the valley unsentinelled. But the long Roman road that followed on the other side of the valley reached to the towns of Moridunum, Alabum, and Bremia (Carmarthen, Llandovery. and Pontllanio), and to the networked system called the Sam Helen that reached through the moorlands and the iron, copper, lead, and silver they concealed. This was the beginning of the settlement of Wales, and the birth of its valleyed communities in which its spirit was born.

Clyro and Glasbury are now pleasant places of woodland and water tamed to man's use. This angle of the border saw men-at-arms of many sorts succeed the Roman troops, but the work they did is as much monumented by the farm and the quarry at Heol y Gaer as by the grassy ridges that once bore their palisades.

Nearby towns: Brecon, Builth Wells, Hay-on-Wye, Talgarth

Nearby villages: Aberedw, Alltmawr, Boughrood, Bronllys, Capel-y-ffin, Clifford, Clyro, Crickadarn, Erwood, Felin Fach, Gwenddwr, Llandefalle, Llanfaredd, Llangorse, Llanigon, Llanstephan, Llanthony, Llowes, Llyswen, Newchurch, Painscastle, Rhosgoch, Velindre, Winforton

Have you decided to visit Glasbury or the surrounding villages? Please look above for somewhere to stay in:

• a Glasbury bed and breakfast (a Glasbury B&B or Glasbury b and b)
• a Glasbury guesthouse
• a Glasbury hotel (or motel)
• a Glasbury self-catering establishment, or
• other Glasbury accommodation