Talgarth
For our visit to the Hay Festival and 'How the Light Get's In' festival, Hay-on-Wye, we stayed near Talgarth. The beautiful Pwll-y-Wrach Nature Reserve is nearby, set in a narrow and steep sided valley. The reserve is an oak-ash woodland. at the eastern end of the reserve the river Enig plunges to create a waterfall into a dark pool below known as the ‘Witches Pool’ from which the reserve gets its name.
The countryside around Talgarth is beautiful and there is also the very interesting, now derelict, psychiatric hospital. Initially known as the Brecon and Radnor Joint Counties Lunatic Asylum, it was designed to function independently featuring its own water supply, electricity and agricultural land. Over time, it was integrated into the NHS, providing treatments such as art therapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and psychiatric care. It is now in a dangerous and ruinous state but interesting to explore. Some photographers have ventured inside but we were not quite as daring as that.
We saw many Red Kites in the sky on this trip.
