Hay-on-Wye

Hay-on-Wye, Y Gelli Gandryll in Welsh, had a population of 1,675 at the 2021 census, according to Wikipedia, and lies on the south-east bank of the River Wye with the English border drawn along the Dulas Brook at the edge of town. The Bannau Brycheiniog National Park Authority describes it as a market town in the north-east of the park, so it is inside the national park boundary, in its north-eastern corner. Wikipedia counts over twenty bookshops and the Hay Tourist Information Bureau 28, and the park authority adds a Thursday market with over 700 years of history and Hay Castle, built in the late twelfth century by the de Braose family and open to the public again since 2022.

Why base here

Hay suits a week that is part hills and part something else, and the something else is what the town is known for. The hill case is narrower than at the other bases on this site: Hay Bluff and Twmpa is the one walk listed from Hay, a circuit that starts at a car park on the Gospel Pass road. That road is the other reason to stay, since the Gospel Pass is the highest road pass in Wales at 549m, according to Wikipedia, and it forms part of National Cycle Network route 42. For a week made mostly of hill days, Abergavenny at the other end of the same road has two National Trust hills of its own, and the X44 bus that serves Hay carries on to Brecon.

On foot versus by car

Nothing on the hill starts from the door. UK Southwest puts Gospel Pass five miles south of Hay-on-Wye, and the Hay Bluff car park sits on the road near the pass. The stops Sargeants Bros lists for the X44 in and around Hay are Hay Castle, Lower Sheephouse and Cusop, none of them on the pass road, so the sourced options for reaching the start without a car are a taxi from town or a road walk of about five miles that climbs to 549m.

The Offa’s Dyke Path crosses the Gospel Pass road near the more northerly car park and leads to Hay Bluff, Wikipedia says, so the same summit can be reached on a long-distance walk instead of a day circuit. Driving up is the other way in, on a road that is mostly single track. For a second summit on a different day, the Sugar Loaf is the nearest listed hill that has a National Trust car park.

Practicalities

Hereford is the nearest railway station, 21 miles away on the Hay Tourist Information Bureau’s reckoning. The X44 from Sargeants Bros runs between Hereford railway station, Hay Castle and Brecon, with separate weekday, Saturday and Sunday timetables on the operator’s site; the bureau puts the journey from Hereford at around an hour. Check Traveline Cymru before building a trip on it. The park authority lists Hay Festival each May and a winter weekend in November, which matters when choosing dates.