Llandrindod & Radnorshire

Glascwm and the Radnorshire Commons

Big, empty, rolling common land above a hamlet with a church and not much else. This is the Radnorshire that people who live here mean when they talk about the hills.

Distance: 5.0 mi / 8 km
Time: 2 hr 45
Ascent: 300 m
Difficulty: Demanding
Shape: Circular

Where it is

The circle shows the general area, not the exact start. Use the directions link below to get to the car park itself. Contours and paths shown are OpenTopoMap, drawn from OpenStreetMap data.

The route

Take Glyndŵr’s Way out of the village onto the common and follow the waymarked route over the open ground, returning by a lower track or the lane. Navigation is easy in clear weather and considerably less so in cloud.

Worth knowing

There is no shop, no pub and no phone signal. Bring everything you need.
Ponies graze the common and are entirely used to people. Do not feed them.
In cloud the commons all look identical. Carry a compass and know how to use it, or pick a different day.

What you’ll see

Miles of open grass and heather, buzzards and red kites, and skylarks in numbers from April.

Background

These commons have been grazed in common by the surrounding farms for many centuries and remain some of the largest tracts of unenclosed land in the Welsh borders.