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More About Camping and Caravan Parks in Mid Wales

Llyn Clywedog is a lake six miles long in the hills above Llanidloes, held back by a concrete dam 72 metres high. It was finished in 1967 to control the River Severn, and a lane with viewpoints along it circles the whole lake.

Lake Vyrnwy sits an hour north-west of Llanidloes. The RSPB, the bird charity, looks after the woodland round it, where pied flycatchers and dippers nest along the streams. South of the lake the Radnorshire hills roll down to Llandrindod Wells and Llangammarch Wells, and Rhayader is the market town in the middle of them.

Llanidloes grew rich on flannel. Wool came down off the hills, was spun and woven in the town, and went on to Welshpool for sale. The Old Market Hall at the top of Great Oak Street was put up between 1612 and 1622, and it is the only timber-framed market hall left standing in Wales.

The same street saw the Chartist riot of 1839. The Chartists wanted the vote for working men, and three of them were arrested and shut in the Trewythen Arms, the inn along the street. A crowd broke the door down and freed them, and from 30 April the town ran itself for five days, with its own watchmen keeping order.

Cavalry rode in on 4 May with sabres drawn and arrested more than thirty people, and Llanidloes still calls that week the Five Days of Freedom. Newtown, further down the River Severn, is a separate story. Robert Owen was born there in 1771, ran cotton mills, argued that decent housing and schooling made better workers, and is buried in the town.

Glyndŵr's Way is the walk most people come for. It is named after Owain Glyndŵr, the Welsh leader who rose against English rule six hundred years ago, and it runs 135 miles from Knighton to Welshpool. Most people walk it in sections rather than in one go, and Llanidloes and Abbeycwmhir both make good stops. Abbeycwmhir is a hamlet built round the ruins of a Cistercian abbey.

Llyn Clywedog has the Clywedog Sailing and Canoe Club, and the fishing is run by the Llanidloes Angling Society. Caffi Clywedog sits by the shore, and from a platform called The Look Out you can see straight down the dam wall. Hafren Forest starts seven miles west of Llanidloes, and its tracks run through the trees and out onto open moor.

The Old Market Hall is a free museum now, telling the story of Wales's timber-framed buildings, and the Trewythen still stands further along Great Oak Street.

Newtown keeps the Robert Owen Museum at The Cross on Broad Street, free to walk into, Monday to Friday from eleven until three. Llandrindod Wells has the National Cycle Museum on Temple Street, with more than 260 bicycles in it. Ring 01597 825531 first, because it opens only on certain days.