Top of the Rock Glamping

Shepherds huts on a hillside at Trefeglwys

Top of the Rock Glamping is a few huts spread along a hedge at Trefeglwys, in the upper Severn valley between Llanidloes and Caersws. Each sleeps two, dogs are welcome, and the ground falls away in front so you look over hay meadows to the hills. Guests on Booking.com score it 9.2 out of 10 from 95 reviews and mark the location 9.9.

Inside the shepherds huts

Boarded walls under a curved ceiling carried on an oak beam, and a wide picture window at the end so the field is the first thing you see. One hut has a white metal bedstead made up in pink and blue flowered cotton with a thick oak shelf beside it; another has a black four-poster iron bedstead with a dark floral cover. There is a painting of a curled-up fox on the wall of one of them, a slatted pine corner shelf unit, and woollen blankets folded on the bed for the evenings.

The shower room and the stove

Each hut has its own shower room, panelled in grey-veined marble-effect board, with a shower behind two sliding glass doors on a chrome frame, a pedestal basin, a WC and a white-framed mirror. The door to it is new pine, braced and ledged, with a black latch. Heating is a black electric stove made to look like a wood burner, which gives you the look of a fire without anybody having to carry logs up the field. There is a microwave and a small black fridge in the hut.

Outside

The huts stand on cast iron wheels with wooden steps up to a stable door. Each has a round table with a grey parasol and four chairs beside it, two whisky barrels standing on end, and a fire pit. A mown field runs out in front with a bench, a picnic table and a hawthorn in it, and a five-bar gate opens onto long grass and buttercups. Foxgloves come up against the weathered grey boards of the end hut in June. An old pan and a wooden paddle hang on that end wall.

The Roman forts at Caersws

Five miles down the valley, Caersws sits on the Severn and has two Roman forts in it. The first was thrown up in a hurry around AD 78 as the legions pushed into Wales; the second was rebuilt twice, in 120 and 140, and was still in use into the late third century. A civilian town grew up south and east of it, and that is where the village stands today — the name means “the fort of Sws”. Caersws station was built in 1863 by the Newtown and Machynlleth Railway and trains still stop there, so the village has been a junction of one sort or another for the better part of two thousand years.

Getting here

Trefeglwys is on the B4569. Llanidloes is six miles south and Newtown twelve miles east, and both have supermarkets and a chemist. Caersws, five miles off, is the nearest station — the Cambrian Line calls there on its way from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth.

Good to know

How many does each hut sleep? Two.

Is the shower room private? Yes, each hut has its own.

Are dogs allowed? Yes.

Is there a fire outside? Yes, each hut has a fire pit.

Is there heating? Yes, an electric stove in each hut.

Is there a kitchen? A microwave and a fridge in the hut, and a fire pit outside.

What is the nearest station? Caersws, about five miles.

What does it cost? From around £100 a night for two.