HLW (D) 5

Tywi Valley  

2001  

Outstanding  

Designated  

The Tywi valley extends south westwards from the source of the river in the south of the Cambrian Mountains, through Mynydd Mallaen and the low, rolling hills and ridges of Carmarthenshire, to its estuary mouth in Carmarthen Bay. The valley is some 90km in length and of varying widths, but rarely more than a kilometre wide across the valley floor. The Vale of Towy or Dyffryn Tywi is generally understood to extend from Llandovery to Carmarthen, but the area identified here is the geographical entity of the valley, valley floor, flood plain and hills on either side, which extends from the Llyn Brianne reservoir near the headwaters, to the estuary. The principal significance of the valley is as setting for a unique group of planned parks and gardens, and its historic, artistic associations with the Picturesque which are best summarised in John Dyer of Aberglasney’s loco-descriptive poem Grongar Hill published in 1726: ‘Now, I gain the mountain’s brow, What a landskip lies below! No clouds, no vapours intervene, But the gay, the open scene Does the face of nature show, In all the hues of heaven’s bow! And, swelling to embrace the light, Spreads around beneath the sight. Old castles on the cliffs arise, Proudly tow’ring in the skies! Rushing from the woods, the spires Seem from hence ascending fires! Half his beams Apollo sheds On the yellow mountain-heads! Gilds the fleeces of the flocks: And glitters on the broken rocks!’ This descriptive tradition continued through the 19th and into this century, and as a result there is a widespread popular sense of the Tywi valley as a cherished landscape. Late 17th and early 18th centuries artistic and poetic perceptions were fostered by their patrons, the county gentry. The area was dominated, but not exclusively, by the Vaughans of Gelli Aur and their many cadet branches who increasingly preferred to site their houses and mansions to take advantage of the scenic prospects of the valley. The 18th and 19th centuries gentry families were in many cases descended from the Welsh uchelwyr (noblemen) of the 15th to 17th centuries, whose ancestry, descent and houses have been chronicled by the late Major Francis Jones, the Wales Herald. Jones makes constant use of the descriptions of houses and their settings by such late medieval bards as Lewis Glyn Cothi whose cywyddau (stanzas) give a sense of medieval landscape values in this area. Despite destruction and neglect, the area still contains many important houses and mansions, and new discoveries continue to be made. The area was also the heartland of Ystrad Tywi. Much of this territorial unit remained in Welsh control under Lord Rhys and his descendants until late in the 13th century, albeit one heavily fought over. The legacy of stone castles as well as earth and timber mottes and planted medieval boroughs still dominate the landscape. Some survived and developed, but others, like Dryslwyn and Dynevor Newton, did not. The siting of castles and boroughs, like the earlier Roman military strongpoints of forts, have been dictated by that constant necessity in river valleys of communications, and the consequent desire both to establish and to control them. The River Tywi is a particularly active one and subject to radical course changes across its valley floor. This has affected both linear and crossvalley roads, fords and bridges, and gives depth and complexity to the surviving pattern of Roman and medieval routes, and to early modern turnpike, road and rail lines. The heavy concentration on grazing of modern and early modern farming in the valley floor, in what the Land Utilisation Survey of Britain described in 1946 as ‘the best quality dairying land in the county’, may overlay relict landscape and buried palaeo-environmental evidence for more diversified, earlier agricultural régimes. Certainly surviving areas of ancient woodland and medieval documentary evidence on forest-based economic régimes suggest heavily wooded valley sides. The prehistoric environment and settlement patterns of the Tywi valley are the least known. It is however apparent from small-scale, ad hoc, archaeological work that there are glacially deposited raised areas of ground on the valley floors, with potential prehistoric settlement and land use information. Evidence for Iron Age occupation on the lower valley sides and valley floors is at present lacking to complement the pattern of large, infrequently sited hillforts such as Carn Goch and Merlin’s Hill overlooking the valley.