\n\tParking at the lake, we set off to circumnavigate it. We headed across fields to a solid bridge allowing us to cross a feeder stream. We spotted well constructed bird hides at the edge of a group of trees; three of the oaks here were probably planted when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne. In the distance at least 2 dozen swans swam on the lake.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\tLlangorse is the largest natural lake in South Wales. It has been a feature of the landscape since the ice retreated 11,000 years ago. At that time the outflow to the Wye valley may have been blocked by ice. The lake would have been much larger causing it to spill over into the Usk valley. By the Iron Age it was only slightly larger than the lake we see today and it was important to local people for both food and ritual purposes. It is an important stopover for migrating birds.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tWe joined the road by the church at Llangasty with Celtic knot work on its notice board and a lovely rectory next door. The church is mostly Victorian but is built on an ancient ‘Llan’, or settlement, that was created by St Gastyn in 420AD. St Gastyn was a holy man and tutor to the Brychan family, who helped extend Christianity in southeast Wales.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tPassing Newydd farm we took a road towards Cathedine. At this point we started to notice dark skies all around the surrounding hills, threatening rain. Silhouetted against the sky stood the beautiful skeleton of a tree, still standing though stripped of all foliage and signs of life.<\/span> \n\tThen we faced a steep climb. Passing Treholford light rain started to fall. As we stopped for lunch at the edge of some trees on a comfortable bank we had misty views of the lake below. Getting closer to Llangorse, we could see the lake clearly but the clouds gathering on the hilltops were getting darker by the minute. We donned waterproofs in preparation for the inevitable downpour. We walked through a field full of a white daisy type flower (oxeyes or feverfew?), the expanse of them was beautiful to behold.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tTo our right the bluff of a hill appeared – ‘we’ll be going up there in a couple of weeks’!<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\tAcross a couple more fields and we were passing a farm where a sheepdog was keen to let us know he was looking after them. Only one big field to cross and the sky was looking ominous ‘do you think we’ll make it back to the cars?’ Someone said ‘yes but we’ll have to get a shift on.’ So we did and the big drops started to fall as we reached the cars.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t \n<\/p>\n \n\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Llangorse Lake – Parking at the lake, we set off to circumnavigate it. We headed across fields to a solid bridge allowing us to cross a feeder stream. We spotted well constructed bird hides at the edge of a group of trees; three of the oaks here were probably planted when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[38],"tags":[331],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6cWjO-1ii","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13798,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13798","url_meta":{"origin":4978,"position":0},"title":"\u00a0Llangorse Mynydd","author":"Alan Williams","date":"4th November 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Llangorse Mynydd Llangorse Mynydd It was 13 weeks since I had been out with the Wenvoe walkers, so it was with some trepidation that I joined them on a trip to Mynnydd Llangorse. As we set off at a cracking pace, I thought I will never keep this up but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Picture3.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6106,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=6106","url_meta":{"origin":4978,"position":1},"title":"Historic Llangorse Ridge","author":"Alan Williams","date":"30th June 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Llangorse Ridge The village hall in Cwmdu has an excellent car park (\u00a31 fee). It was a cool morning for June and we wore layers as we set off along a small lane up the valley, following the Rhiangoll River. We passed a cottage with a lovely garden containing a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0279-1906-llangorse-ridge.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4980,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=4980","url_meta":{"origin":4978,"position":2},"title":"Mynydd Troed","author":"Alan Williams","date":"18th September 2018","format":false,"excerpt":". Mynydd Troed - Parking at the Dragon\u2019s Back Inn, we were about to tackle the hill we had seen when circumnavigating Llangorse Lake. We headed north around the bottom of the mountain skirting Pengenffordd. Grassed paths all the way made the going easy and coming around to the western\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17029,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=17029","url_meta":{"origin":4978,"position":3},"title":"St Briavels & Allt Yr Esgair","author":"Alan Williams","date":"31st May 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"St Briavels & Allt Yr Esgair St Briavels St Briavels is in the Forest of Dean and on the Agincourt Wales trail which tells the story of the people in the river Wye \/Forest of Dean area that played a role in Henry V\u2019s victory at Agincourt. Early in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Footsteps-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":16001,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=16001","url_meta":{"origin":4978,"position":4},"title":"Walking In Kyrgyzstan (Part 2 Of 2)","author":"Alan Williams","date":"29th August 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"WALKING IN KYRGYZSTAN (Part 2 of 2) In last month\u2019s edition of What\u2019s On, Nicola introduced us to an amazing walking adventure in this mysterious and far away country. It is now Day 3 and Nicola, who was feeling the effects of lack of oxygen, had been offered one of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Items for September 2025"","block_context":{"text":"New Items for September 2025","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=425"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/issKulLake.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13214,"url":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?p=13214","url_meta":{"origin":4978,"position":5},"title":"FOOTSTEPS","author":"Alan Williams","date":"3rd July 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 FOOTSTEPS Clydach Vale Clydach Vale is a village adjoining Tonypandy in the Rhondda valley. It is named after Nant Clydach, a tributary of the river Rhondda. It was a warm day and we were planning to walk in the woodland surrounding the Clydach Vale Country Park, which has been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Footsteps"","block_context":{"text":"Footsteps","link":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/?cat=38"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Picture13x.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Picture13x.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Picture13x.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4978"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4994,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978\/revisions\/4994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wenvoe.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Picture1-1.jpg?resize=860%2C565\")
<\/span>\n<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wenvoe.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/tree.jpg?resize=300%2C273\")
\n<\/p>\n
\n\tIt had been the first damp walking day of the summer, a bit of a relief after the heat. 7 miles walked and 600ft climbed.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n