Walk to Penywrlod

It's been a long time since I walked up in the Llanigon area, so last week I took my map and headed off in that direction. I started off on the path by the Cemetery, going up the little dingle over the bridges to Hay Common. There are wonderful views along the Wye Valley from up there.
At the top of Hay Common is a house called Pen-y-Common, and the path runs round the edge of their garden. Carrying on up the hill (which is really quite steep) there's a stile from the field to a track, which leads over the brow of the hill and down to Penywyrlod farmhouse, with a path leading off it up to the long cairn. By this time the scenery had changed - Long Wood was to one side of me, and Hay Bluff seemed quite close above me - though I wasn't going to walk that far. It felt a lot further from Hay than it actually is.
I didn't see a soul the whole way, apart from a car coming down the track towards Hay.

The day was quite overcast, so my photo is quite dark. There was a late medieval hall there, followed by the farmhouse which was built between the 15th and 17th centuries, with additions built in the 18th and 19th centuries. The most famous resident was William Watkins, a Parliamentary officer in the Civil War, who probably built the original farmhouse that replaced the hall. He held Puritan meetings in the farmhouse, and later local Non-conformists worshipped at a specially built Meeting House (now part of the holiday cottages). The "Llanigon church" was even mentioned in the House of Commons in 1646, in a sermon by Walter Cradoc, who said that "the Gospel has run over the mountains between Breconshire and Monmouthshire as the fire in the thatch."
The main focus of Non-conformist worship in the area was the even more remote Olchon Valley, and the oldest Non-conformist chapel in Wales was nearby at Maesyronen near Glasbury. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, though, these meetings became illegal, and people could be fined for not attending the Church of England services. The local congregations met in secret until the Act of Toleration in 1688, which allowed them freedom of worship.
In 2002 there was a fire which pretty much destroyed the house. It has now been rebuilt, with a plaque dated 2005, and it was done with a lot of the original stone. It was a Grade II* listed building before the fire.
Across the lane from the house is a row of cottages which can be rented for holidays by groups of between eight and seventeen people, though of course it's closed at the moment. These were originally the stables and the meeting house.

I came back to Hay by the lanes to Llanigon and then into Hay on the Brecon Road.
I have plans to go back to visit the Long Cairn, and I think I'll head out on the lanes and come back over the hills for that one.