Scenic Point in Powys

Few places in Wales combine dramatic scenery, history, and folklore quite like Devil’s Bridge. Nestled within the Cambrian Mountains near Aberystwyth, this striking landmark is famous for its unusual crossing of the River Mynach — where not one, but three bridges rise directly above one another. Below the bridges, the River Mynach plunges nearly 300 feet into a steep, wooded gorge, creating the powerful Mynach Falls. The sound of rushing water and the sheer depth of the ravine make this a memorable place to visit, especially when viewed from the winding paths that lead down into the gorge. The Devil’s Bridge Falls Nature Trail offers a well-marked circular walk, complete with stone steps, viewing platforms, and changing perspectives of the waterfalls throughout the seasons. The bridges themselves tell a story stretching back hundreds of years. The lowest structure is believed to have been built in the 12th century, most likely by monks from nearby Strata Florida Abbey. As travel increased, a second bridge was added in 1753, followed by the top bridge in 1901 — the one still used by vehicles today. Together, they form one of the most unusual bridge arrangements in the UK. Of course, no visit would be complete without hearing the legend that gave the site its name. According to local folklore, the first bridge was built by the devil after an old woman struggled to retrieve her cow from the far side of the gorge. In exchange for his help, he demanded the soul of whoever crossed the bridge first. The woman, however, cleverly sent her dog across ahead of her, leaving the devil cheated of his prize. Today, Devil’s Bridge is a popular stop for walkers, photographers, and anyone exploring mid-Wales. With its mix of natural beauty, clever engineering, and centuries-old storytelling, it remains one of the region’s most distinctive and atmospheric places to explore.

The Elan Valley in mid-Wales is a dramatic series of Victorian reservoirs and dams constructed in the Cambrian Mountains of Powys between 1893 and 1952 to supply drinking water to Birmingham, a landscape of considerable visual power whose combination of the great stone dams, the reservoir lakes stretching into the upland valleys and the surrounding moorland and woodland creates one of the most distinctive and most atmospheric reservoir landscapes in Britain. The Elan Valley Visitor Centre provides the interpretation of the engineering heritage and the natural history of the surrounding protected landscape. The six dams of the Elan and Claerwen valleys represent a major feat of Victorian civil engineering, the Craig Goch, Pen y Garreg, Garreg Ddu and Caban Coch dams of the original scheme and the later Claerwen dam being all built from dressed local stone in a design that sought to integrate the massive engineering structures into the landscape rather than simply imposing them upon it. The architecture of the dam faces, with their Gothic and Romanesque details, reflects the Victorian belief that engineering could and should aspire to aesthetic quality. The Elan Valley is one of the finest habitats for red kites in Wales, the upland estate providing the combination of open moorland, improved pasture and woodland that supports a substantial kite population. The walking and cycling on the estate roads and the dramatic scenery of the reservoir landscape make the Elan Valley one of the most rewarding destinations in mid-Wales.

Lake Vyrnwy in Montgomeryshire in Powys is the most architecturally impressive of the Victorian water supply reservoirs of Wales, a reservoir of considerable scale created between 1880 and 1888 to supply water to Liverpool whose Gothic dam tower, the Victorian service buildings and the surrounding landscape of conifer forest and Welsh upland create one of the most atmospheric and most completely designed reservoir landscapes in Britain. The reservoir drowned the village of Llanwddyn and its community, one of the most completely documented cases of reservoir-related Welsh village clearance. The straining tower in the middle of the dam, a Gothic structure of considerable architectural ambition, provides the visual centrepiece of the reservoir landscape and one of the most distinctive examples of Victorian architectural confidence applied to industrial infrastructure. The tower, with its pointed windows and castellated top, reflects the Victorian belief that engineering works of all kinds should aspire to architectural quality, and the result is one of the most photographed pieces of Victorian water engineering in Wales. The RSPB reserve around the reservoir provides excellent birdwatching including breeding red kites, peregrines and the upland bird community characteristic of the surrounding moorland. The cycle trail around the reservoir circumference of approximately 16 kilometres provides an excellent outdoor activity in the beautiful lake and forest setting.

The Long Mynd is the finest upland walking destination in Shropshire, a broad plateau of Precambrian moorland rising to over 500 metres above the Church Stretton Valley in the southern Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty whose combination of the open heather moorland, the deep glacial valleys cutting into the plateau from the east and the extensive views from the summit ridge across the Welsh borders creates one of the finest accessible upland landscapes in the English Midlands. The name means the Long Mountain in Welsh. The Church Stretton Valley below the eastern escarpment provides the most dramatic approach to the plateau, the small Victorian spa town surrounded by the high ground of the Long Mynd to the west, Caer Caradoc and the Stretton Hills to the east in one of the most completely enclosed valley settings available in the English hill country. The combination of the Victorian architecture of Church Stretton and the wild moorland immediately above creates an unusual juxtaposition of settled English culture and open upland that has been attracting visitors since the Victorian era, when the town was marketed as Little Switzerland. The Portway, an ancient ridgeway track crossing the Long Mynd plateau from north to south, is one of the oldest roads in Shropshire, and the walking along the ridge between the deep valleys of Ashes Hollow and Carding Mill Valley provides some of the finest ridge walking available in the south Shropshire hills.

Ludlow in Shropshire is one of the finest medieval planned towns in England and one of the most food-celebrated market towns in Britain, a settlement of exceptional architectural quality whose combination of the great ruined castle, the medieval grid street plan, the magnificent church of St Laurence and the reputation for outstanding local food creates one of the most rewarding small town visits in the Welsh Marches. The Ludlow Food Festival, held annually since 1995, has established the town as the culinary capital of the Marches. The castle at Ludlow, built in the late eleventh century as the principal Norman stronghold of the Welsh Marches, has one of the most complex and most historically rich castle histories in England, its buildings spanning six centuries. The round Norman chapel within the castle, one of only a few surviving round-nave Norman churches in England, is the most architecturally unusual feature. The Church of St Laurence, one of the largest and most impressive Perpendicular Gothic churches in the Marches, provides the ecclesiastical centrepiece of a town whose medieval prosperity left an architectural legacy of considerable quality in every main street and alleyway.

The Stiperstones in south Shropshire is one of the most distinctive and most atmospheric ridge walks in England, a line of quartzite tors rising along a moorland ridge whose combination of dramatic rock formations, dark heather moorland and rich seam of legend creates an experience quite different from the pastoral gentleness of most Shropshire walking. The dramatic profiles of the Devil's Chair and other tors are visible for miles across the surrounding hills. The Devil's Chair, the largest tor, is the focus of the principal legend attached to the hill, in which the devil rests here when flying between meetings with his followers. The quartzite tors are remnants of a Cambrian-age formation hardened into a much more resistant rock, the quartzite resisting erosion while surrounding material was worn away to leave the distinctive jagged profiles that give the Stiperstones their visual character. The Nature Reserve above the Stiperstones provides excellent heathland walking and the views from the ridge over the Welsh border country are extensive. The combination of the geology, the folklore, the wildlife and the remote Shropshire border landscape makes the Stiperstones one of the most characterful hill walks available in the English Midlands.