Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting There & Away
Bus routes include X75 to Welshpool (32 minutes) and Shrewsbury (1¼ hours); X85 to
Machynlleth (51 minutes) and T4 to Llandrindod Wells (47 minutes), Builth Wells (1¼
hours) and Brecon (two hours).
hours) to London (£32.30, 5½ hours), via Welshpool (£4.60, 25 minutes), Shrewsbury
(£8.10, 55 minutes) and Birmingham (£10.80, 2½ hours) stops here.
By train, Newtown is on the Cambrian Line, which crosses from Aberystwyth (£12, 1¼
hours) to Birmingham (£18.20, 1¾ hours) every two hours, via Machynlleth (£9.10, 42
minutes), Welshpool (£4.80, 15 minutes) and Shrewsbury (£6.90, 40 minutes).
TOP OF CHAPTER
Newtown to Welshpool
Gregynog Hall
Dating from the 19th-century in its current mock-Tudor incarnation,
Gregynog Hall
(
01686-650224;
www.gregynog.wales.ac.uk
; Tregynon; formal garden admission £3; dawn to dusk)
has been
here in some form for 800 years. From 1924 it was the home of the Davies sisters, Gwen-
doline and Margaret, who are known for the extraordinary collection of paintings they be-
queathed to the National Museum. Their grandfather was David Davies (a sawyer turned
miner) who, when prevented by the Bute family from exporting his coal from Cardiff,
built his own docks at Barry and made a fortune.
The sisters intended to make the house an arts centre, founding a fine-arts press in the
stables and holding an annual Festival of Music and Poetry. In the 1960s the estate was
given to the University of Wales, which uses it as a conference centre. Successor to the
ally in mid-June, with operatic, choral, orchestral and instrumental music performed in the
grounds of the house. The house, its interior largely unchanged since Margaret's death in
1963, opens for group tours by appointment and you'll find a cafe and shop (open 11am to
4pm from March to December).
However, the main drawcard is the 300 hectares of Grade 1-listed garden, which are es-
timated to date from at least the 16th century. There are avenues of sculpted yews, im-
