The sitting room at Top of Lane Cottage invites lazy days spent playing games by the fre
free
basket of baked goodies on arrival
The village of Painscastle was traditionally a place where English and Welsh gathered to slaughter each other while contesting one of the most beautiful corners of the UK: the windswept moors, craggy escarpments and verdant valleys around the Black Mountains. With hostilities now ceased, the village is today most defnitely in Wales, though citizens from both sides of Offa’s Dyke are welcome to lodge at Top of Lane Cottage: a 16thcentury house almost (but not quite) old enough to remember the clink of Celtic sword against Anglo-Saxon armour. Siege warfare is far from anyone’s mind staying here: piling logs on the woodburning stove to banish the winter draft and sleeping in cast-iron beds beneath thick Welsh woollen blankets. Should you require a good book it’s only a 10-minute drive to the creaking shelves at the literary capital of Hay-on-Wye, and should you be in need of a bracing hike, head for the footpaths up the neighbouring mountain known in Welsh as ‘Twmpa’. It’s a summit dearly beloved of hikers – partly for its sweeping views westward over the Brecon Beacons, but mostly for the endless hilarity offered by its English name: Lord Hereford’s Knob.
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