Distance: 9.1 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: hard
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Walk from the Herefordshire village of Peterchurch in the Golden Valley, over uplands adjacent to the Black Mountains, and down to Hay-on-Wye in Powys, famed as the original “book town” and home of the annual Hay Festival.
The Original “Book Town”
On paper Hay-on-Wye which sits just inside the mid-Wales county of Powys is a sleepy little Welsh Marches market town. Its smaller eastern twin settlement, Cusop on the far side of the Dulas Brook, is in the English Midlands county of Herefordshire. As a settlement with just under 1,700 inhabitants, Hay is small enough to be a village rather than a town in most parts of the country.
In contrast to its peers dotted along the Anglo-Welsh border like Montgomery, Bishop’s Castle and the rather larger Monmouth, Hay-on-Wye has a truly international profile. This is due to Hay being the first self-proclaimed book town in the world. A designation which it now shares with at least a score of other towns right across the world.
For a town with fewer than 2,000 permanent inhabitants Hay-on-Wye possesses a remarkable two dozen or so bookshops. Long a quiet market town, established like many of its peers around the mound Hay Castle sits on, in the High Middle Ages, whether it lay in England or in Wales was long ambiguous, until England and Wales were decisively united as one polity by Henry VIII in 1536.
It is the bookshops which placed Hay-on-Wye on the map. It was the so-called “King of Hay”, Richard Booth, who opened the first one “The Old Fire Station” in 1962. By the mid-1970s “The Old Fire Station” had been joined by numerous other booksellers, meaning that Hay was already informally referred to as a “Book Town”. In 1977 Richard Booth declared a “Kingdom of Hay” tapping into the residue of the counterculture and further putting the town and its distinctive identity on the map.
These efforts were undoubtedly aided by the opening of the Offa’s Dyke Path, which runs through the town, and has a stage which ends there, as a National Trail at around the same time. The most dramatic section of this long distance walk up, and along the eastern most ridge of the Black Mountains, where the Brecon Beacons National Park juts against England, lies just south of Hay.
Hay-on-Wye’s status as a place of pilgrimage for bibliophiles, and inarguably its gentrification, was sealed in 1988 when the first Hay Literary Festival took place. Nearly 40 years later and it is still going strong. A major fixture in the UK, and arguably the English spelling world’s annual literary calendar, drawing major authors, including those famous outside the world of letters, and ensuring that for the final weel or so of May each year, crowds descend upon the town.
The combination of bookish, and general outdoors tourism throughout the year, and the crowds drawn by the festival, mean that Hay-on-Wye is unusually well provisioned with shops, cafes, pubs and to a less extent, public transport, for a tiny Welsh Marches town. Its castle, which is still fortress like, but was converted into a manor house during the Jacobean period, remains at the heart of the town, and was extensively refurbished in 2022 by the Hay Castle Trust who own it, allowing people to visit, walk around, and climb it for views across the Wye valley to the west, east into England, and south towards the eastern fringe of the Brecon Beacons.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk to Hay-on-Wye, the original “Book Town”, which lies just outside the English Midlands in the mid-Welsh country of Powys, begins from Peterchurch which lies in the heart of western Herefordshire’s Golden Valley.
Alight the bus in the centre of Peterchurch and head towards the village’s tall and distinctive church spire.
Soon you head left, up a snicket through a gate, and pass some modern bungalows to reach the churchyard.
Cross the churchyard and head left up a lane across the River Dore. On the far side of the Dore turn right and follow a paved path towards the smaller village of Hinton.
Upon reaching Hinton, turn right and walk straight along the main road to Hinton Cross. On the far side of Hinton Cross you pick up a footpath running straight ahead along the bottom of the valley. This section of the route is along the Herefordshire Trail which is waymarked with an apple sign.
Walk straight ahead following the path between fields until you reach a lane beside a cottage.
On the far side of the lane the path runs steeply uphill towards a copse.
At the top of the steep bank continue heading more steadily uphill across a series of meadows.
Soon you enter woodland, where you descend to the right downhill, back towards the valley floor and the road through the little village of Snodhill site of Snodhill Castle.
On the northern edge of Snodhill you reach the large old stone barn of Snodhill Hall. Here to the left there is a lane running uphill towards woodland. Walk past a series of old farmworkers cottages approaching the tree line.
Past a short terrace of houses you come to a lane running uphill through the trees on the right.
Continue uphill along this road. Presently you turn right and walk along an unmade track through a nascent pine tree plantation.
Soon you reach open common land called West Lawn, where you turn left, and pick up a bridleway path, waymarked with the blue bridleway colour running to the right.
On the far side of West Lawn common you enter woodland and soon cross a stream, walking uphill towards an unpaved lane.
Upon reaching the lane turn right. Soon the lane becomes paved, turning into a proper road which runs high up in the hills.
You walk straight along this road between a series of scattered farms for quite some distance. There are impressive views north towards the Welsh hills and into the heart of Herefordshire as you walk. The road is quite quiet but a few cars used the road when I walked it in the early part of a Saturday afternoon, so take care.
Presently you reach a junction where you turn left and walk steeply uphill, towards another junction where you turn right.
Continue straight along the lane for some distance. Presently you emerge from the trees amidst open pasture. To the left the eastern end of the Black Mountains, the part of the Brecon Beacons National Park which juts up against Herefordshire and England, is clearly visible in the middle distance. This part of the mountain range includes the Black Mountain itself. Partially in Herefordshire it is arguably the Midlands highest point.
After some distance along the lane you reach a footpath running to the left out into open pasture lane, adjacent to a small copse of trees.
Head out into the pasture and then to the right following the line of a fence dividing two pastures.
Soon at the bottom of the valley below you see Hay-on-Wye beneath you.
Steadily head downhill past some old quarry workings, descending the steep hillside, heading to the left across a farm track.
On the far side of the farm track turn left and continue heading downhill until you reach a grassy field near the bottom of the valley.
Once in the field follow a path around the edge walking through a series of pastures until you approach the edge of Hay-on-Wye’s smaller English twin village of Cusop.
Passing the first houses in Cusop still in the field you reach a path into the village’s churchyard on the left.
Walk through the churchyard until you reach a lane where you turn right.
Follow the road down through Cusop until you reach a road near the Dulas Brook which divides England from Wales.
Soon you reach the main road where you turn left, cross the river that marks the national boundary and heading into the suburbs of Hay-on-Wye.
Continue straight ahead along the road to reach Hay-on-Wye’s main bus stop where buses between Brecon and Hereford stop. This is right in front of the town’s castle.
Then either continue straight along the road past a small modern shopping centre and the town’s post office to visit the centre or turn right and walk across the castle mound to reach the main square on the far side.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
At the time of writing (December 2025) Hay-on-Wye was primarily served by the X44 service between Hereford Railway Station and Brecon. This provided five buses back to Hereford on Mondays through to Saturdays. The last service of the day departing Hay for Hereford at 17:47. Two later services (18:25 and 19:52) did operate to Brecon. On Sundays a less frequent (three times a day) service run by Yeomans Travel the 39A operates. The first service of the afternoon leaving Hay at 14:55, the final service of the day departing for Hereford at 16:15.