The Brigands POWYS

It was a raw November morning, the kind where almost everything in sight from heaven to hell was saturated by rays of acidic winter sunlight illuminating a blue ice sky. There were times when we were winding slowly along the lanes and B-roads of the Cambrian Mountains near Machynlleth that I felt ill at ease with my surroundings. Those plunging, rusty bracken-clad valleys at the foot of the Snowdonia National Park were as wild as they had been for millennia and even the laws of nature seemed fragile. This was a journey where each shadowy nook or sloping wooded gully held a secret and I often felt the need to look over my shoulder to reassure myself that we were safe.

The history of The Brigands, its 16,000 acres roughly 26 miles adrift of Bettws Hall headquarters in Bettws Cedewain, fuels this foreboding and feeling of adventure deep into a Wales that only now exists in ancient lore. You see, in the 16th century, these roads, the ones that countless shooting parties now navigate with ease, were soaking in blood spilt by the victims of a group of red-headed highwaymen known