Llanwrtyd Wells Accommodation

More About Llanwrtyd Wells

The daft events are only half of it, because the country round about is serious. The Abergwesyn Pass climbs west over empty moorland towards Tregaron, single track with hairpins and a long drop, no fuel and no phone signal for twenty miles, and shut by snow in a bad winter, and there is walking and mountain biking straight out of the town.

The town itself is a square, a bridge and a handful of streets, and that is much of the appeal. An event weekend fills Llanwrtyd and the whole valley completely, so check the calendar before you book.

The town owes its existence to a frog. In 1732 the vicar, Theophilus Evans, watched a healthy frog climb out of an evil-smelling spring.

He reasoned that anything keeping a frog that well could not be as bad as it smelled, drank some and pronounced it a cure. He named it Ffynnon Ddrewllyd, the Stinking Well, and it is reckoned to be the strongest sulphur spring in Wales.

A spa town grew up around it and the Victorians came by the trainload. Llanwrtyd was a droving town as well, one of the places where herds were gathered before the long walk east to the markets of England.

Man versus Horse began in the back bar of the Neuadd Arms in 1980. The landlord, Gordon Green, heard local huntsmen arguing over whether a man could beat a horse across rough ground. He put it to the test, and it has run every June since.

The town now sells its own oddness instead of spring cures, and Llanwrtyd invented the lot. Bog snorkelling and Man versus Horse are the famous two. The Real Ale Wobble is a mountain-bike ride with a pint at each checkpoint, and the World Alternative Games gathers a fortnight of unlikely sports.

The World Bog Snorkelling Championships still fill the Waen Rhydd peat bog every August bank holiday. Competitors swim two lengths of a trench cut through the peat in mask and flippers, and a normal swimming stroke is against the rules.

Man versus Horse still sends runners against riders over twenty-one miles of hill track each June. The horses nearly always win, and a runner has beaten them only a handful of times in more than forty years of trying.

The Irfon runs right through the middle of the town and quiet lanes lead into the hills in every direction. You can fill a week here without getting in the car, and the trains call at the station by the square.