Introduction to Montomery by Greg Stevenson

Some towns are just lovely, and Trefaldwyn is one of them.

Trefaldwyn owes its existence to a ford across the nearby river Severn, which was one of the main invasion routes between England and Wales.

It was defended by people in the Iron Age, by the Romans and the Normans, but the last fortress was the castle which was built in 1223 by Henry III. It replaced the Norman castle of Roger de Montgomery who named the area after his native Normandy.

What is remarkable is that the street plan remains unchanged since the medieval period. But as anyone will know who has visited the town, it is the Georgian architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth century that is its greatest delight.

Though the town is less than a mile from the English border it feels like miles from anywhere – Trefaldwyn is such a sleepy little place. One of the reasons that the town didn’t grow is that it proved too difficult to connect it to the railway, and the nearest station is 1.5 miles downhill.