Cwmyoy's wonky church and the lovely Vale of Ewyas

Cwmyoy Church is plain, simple and pleasantly irregular, the latter the result of slight subsidence in the underlying rock. (Ordinance Survey Pathfinder Guide)

What a masterful piece of understatement that is! Cwmyoy Church might not rank beside the Leaning Tower of Caerphilly (or even that other one in Italy) but it is fabulously wonky, with scarcely a vertical wall or horizontal floor in the whole building.

"A wise man built his house upon a rock." So states the Good Book (Matthew 7.24) but the folk of Cwmyoy unwittingly built theirs on debris left behind after glaciation in the last Ice Age. Before long the tower and chancel began to subside in opposite directions, and attempts to arrest the shift with beams and buttresses only added to the building's charm.

Inside, the effect of the subsidence can be quite disorientating.

From the opposite side of the Vale of Ewyas, the source of the shifting shale is easy to see. The ancient landslip above Cwmyoy has left a little hillock, not unlike the split rock of Skirrid, with which it shares a similar legend about its formation – a consequence of the earthquake when Jesus was crucified. Must have been quite an earthquake to be felt here.

But what, I hear you ask, is Angie doing on the opposite side of the valley from the church she came to see? On a walk, of course! Back in the 1990s, whilst on holiday in the Wye Valley, I bought this book of 'local' walks. Surprisingly, it describes three in the Black Mountains, including this one around Cwmyoy, some 18 miles from the Wye Valley.  Perhaps those folk at OS aren't as hot on geography as they pretend. The book is still in print, by the way, and with a few new walks, though the price has risen from £6.95 to £9.52.

For the sake of continuity I'll begin describing the walk from Cwmyoy. Leaving the church, we skirted around the hillock and past the houses of Ty-hwnt-y-bwlch, which I think means 'house beyond the gap'. A strange sound filled the air. "That's a peacock," declared S-, who knows a lot more about our feathered friends than I do.

And there it was!  I'm sorry about the crummy photo, but it was the best I could do with my smartphone camera. Nearby, a guy was building an extension to his house and I asked him whether peacocks were a common sight in these Welsh valleys. "They are here," he replied with a grin."The folk in the next house have several."

Here is the 'next house', and what a splendid place to live: a beautiful valley, a lovely, rambling house (with faded cream walls that look so 'right') and peacocks at the back door.

It was good to linger a while, for the next part of the walk included quite a steep climb up Hatterall Hill and onto the Offa's Dyke footpath. The first time I came this way it was a boiling hot summer's day and Hatterall Hill felt very steep. On this day it wasn't too bad.

The top... and time for a rest.

The author of our OS walk book waxes lyrical about the views from the Offa's Dyke path.  To the right, the English landscape at its finest;...to the left the bare slopes of the Black Mountains. However, as S-'s photo shows, photographing the scene isn't easy as the hill has a broad, flat top. Believe me, the best way to appreciate the scene is to go there; I promise that you won't be disappointed.

About ¾ mile after joining the Offa's Dyke path, we branched to the left on Beacons Way and were soon rewarded with views of Llanthony Priory in the valley below. You may have to click on the photo to pick out the priory ruins among the other buildings.

Getting closer now...

I've visited Llanthony several times over the past few years.  Here are some photos from 2015, when the sun was shining..

From Llanthony there's a lovely footpath along the west side of the Vale of Ewyas. For a long time the ruined priory was still visible...

... then the distinctive hillock of Cwmyoy came into view above farm buildings.  After 8 miles we had come full-circle.