Location : Foel, near Llangadfan, Powys.
Distance : About 7 km (about 4 miles)
Notes : Steep in places. Can be muddy after rain.
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This walk has been written up by Rachael Jones from Aberhafesp.
Start at the layby on the A458 at the western end of the village of Foel (Grid Reference SH987118). From the layby walk about 100 metres away from the village to a gate on your right hand side, just after a sheep pen.
Climb over the gate and bear right up the slope towards trees and follow the line of an old wall to the church of St Tydecho. Go through the wooden gate into the churchyard. Walk around to the far side of the churchyard and leave through the main gate.
Turn right and follow the tarmac road for 10 metres, then turn left and follow the uphill track keeping the green garage to your left. Go through the wooden gate and follow the track as it curves around the hillside. The hill is called Y Fron.
About 50 metres after a sharp right turn in the track, take another track that goes off to the left. Stay on this track and a stone wall will soon appear on your right. Ignoring any other tracks that appear going off to the left, follow the track for about 1.5 km (about 1 mile) passing through a series of metal gates. Join a tarmac road and continue ahead for about another kilometre (about mile).
Immediately after crossing a babbling stream and with a ruined building to your left, turn right along a tarmac track passing through a metal gate.
Follow the track and cross the footbridge over the river Twrch that you can see ahead after about 100 metres.
The right of way is now straight across the field ahead, up the steep slope, with the clump of trees to your left. At the top of the slope join a road and turn right. Stay on the road now, past a number of farms from which mad sheepdogs might run out at you, barking!
When you reach the telephone box, you can either turn left, follow the track and explore the Dyfnant Forest or continue along the road back to the village of Foel.
Some Interesting Notes...
There is a holy well in the grounds of St Tydecho's church but its whereabouts are lost. The house just outside the main gates of the church is called Ty'n-y-llan and was originally a public house. The original main road from Dinas Mawddwy to Welshpool passed close by Ty'n-y-llan and you can see the line of this old road on your right and left just after going through the wooden gate after the green garage. About 500 metres upstream from the point where the modern main road crosses the Twrch, there's a pretty stone bridge which is the original crossing - constructed in the days when the modern crossing point was too marshy to build on.
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Diana Longwith from Foel contacted us in August 2007 about the 'lost well'.
Diana:"The 'lost' well mentioned in the walk around Foel,Montgomeryshire,is is the field next to our cottage. Leave the churchyard by the main gate,turn left,continue thtough 2 fields. The well, now dry, is beneath the huge sycamore tree."
