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Erwood is at the far end of that six miles, where the valley opens out again for a moment. Llangammarch Wells and the Duhonw are the other side of the town, west and south-west, where the ground climbs on to open moor.

Builth itself is one street with the Groe alongside it, a flat green common between the houses and the Wye. You can cross the whole town on foot in ten minutes, and the hills show from everywhere in it. You can leave the car all day and still see the whole of the town.

The Welsh name for the town is Llanfair-ym-Muallt, the church of St Mary in Buallt. Buallt is the older half of the name. It comes from two old Welsh words: bu, an ox, and gwellt, pasture. The town's name means, more or less, ox pasture.

That is a fitting name for a place that has traded in stock for as long as anyone can trace. The English spelling came later and flattened it. Buallt turned into Builth, and it is still said as one syllable, Bilth, to rhyme with filth.

Almost nothing medieval survives here, and there is a reason for it. A fire went through Builth in 1691 and took forty-one houses, which was most of the town as it then stood. It was rebuilt straight away, probably using timber from the old castle, whose earthworks still stand above the town.

Six miles south at Erwood there was a station on the Mid-Wales Railway, opened in 1864. The line closed on the last day of 1962 and the buildings went quiet for twenty years. In 1984 a woodturner named Alan Cunningham took the place on and began showing his work in it.

Erwood Station is a gallery now, and one of the good ones. It shows work by more than a hundred Welsh artists, spread through the station rooms and a couple of old railway carriages standing at the platform. There is a coffee shop, and the whole place opens seven days a week from the middle of February until Christmas Eve.

Back in the town, the Groe is common ground, which means anybody may walk on it. It runs flat beside the Wye along the whole length of Builth, and the old boating pavilion still stands on the bank. It is where the town goes of an evening.

The A470 south to Erwood is the way to spend a morning. It is the main road down the middle of Wales, but along here it bends with the river the whole way, with the Wye beside you and the sides of the valley closing in above. Erwood is six miles, and they are worth taking slowly.

The town sits in the middle of all of it, which is the practical reason for staying here. Llandrindod Wells is seven miles north up the A483, Brecon about half an hour south, and open moorland starts within a few miles in three directions.

One of those directions is Mynydd Epynt, where the army trains. The B4519 across it is a public road and normally stays open when the red flags fly, though it closes occasionally while long-range firing is on. The ground on its south-east side is a live firing range and must not be entered. Keep to the road, or to the waymarked Epynt Way, which runs right round the outside of the range. If you come across any military debris, do not pick it up.