Black Mountain: Herefordshire County Top
Also Known As: Twyn Llech (Welsh)
Significance: Highest peak in Herefordshire (Historic CT).
Member of: Marilyn, Hewitt, Nuttall
Parent Peak: Waun Fach. NHN = Rhos Dirion
Elevation: 703m
Date climbed: April 20th 2014
Coordinates: 52°00′30″N 3°05′05″W
Route Start / End: Gospel Pass Car Park, Capel-y-ffin, Abergavenny, NP7 7NP
Route Distance: 8 km (5 miles)
Route Elevation Change: +/- 196m
Subsidiary tops on route: Hay Bluff (677m)
GPX File: get via Buy Me a Coffee
Other routes touched: Offa’s Dyke Path
OS Trig Pillar: TP5402 - Pen-Y-Beacon
Map: OS Explorer OL13 Brecon Beacons National Park
Guidebook: The UK's County Tops (Jonny Muir), Walking the County High Points of England (David Bathurst)
Links: Wikipedia (Herefordshire), Wikipedia (Black Mountain), Peakbagger, Hillbagging
If I had known that I’d be returning to the Ewyas valley many times in the future I probably wouldn’t have attempted this on on such a rainy day. As it happened we were on the last day of a long weekend in the Brecon Beacons and I was eager to bag this one.
Although Black Mountain is the high point of Herefordshire, an English County, much of the walk is in Wales. The obvious starting point is the car park at the top of Gospel Pass. From here there’s a well trodden path up the side of the valley to the Hay Bluff Trig Pillar. From the pillar, take the south-easterly path to join Offa’s Dyke. Continue for ~1.2k until you get to the high point. There’s nothing here except for a small group of stones. As visibility was very poor and it was raining a lot, we quickly retraced our steps back to the parking spot.
In the following years a good friend of ours would move to the valley and we have done a lot more walks near there. With better weather and more time I would plan a different walk that includes both Twmpa and Black Mountain.
