OCTOBER 2023 · GROUNDED

Craig Cerrig Gleisiad, Bannau Brycheiniog

Central Beacons, Brecon Beacons

Craig Cerrig Gleisiad is a national nature reserve in the central Beacons, built around a cwm — a glacial basin carved into the escarpment, steep-sided, with a stream at its floor and birch on the slopes. October is the right time to be here. The birch goes amber and gold. The grass on the moorland above has dried to straw. The escarpment face goes dark in the morning until the sun clears the ridge.

Stone wall and fence post overlooking moorland cwm with distant escarpment — Rim of the cwm, October morning

— Into the cwm

The walk takes you along the rim and down through the cwm, then back up. The approach from the road climbs through dense birch woodland — a proper canopy, path going uphill, the light filtered. Then it opens onto moorland and the basin pulls away below you to the right.

The geometry of the human structure against the older geometry of the glacial basin.
Craig Cerrig Gleisiad — October 2023

Dense birch woodland path with canopy leading uphill through forest — Approach through the birch canopy

— Boundaries

Stone walls and fence posts run along the moorland up here. They mark the old boundaries, the paths between farms, the limits of grazing land that no longer functions as such. A stone wall corner with fence posts framing the cwm: the geometry of the human structure against the older geometry of the glacial basin. A worn fence post beside a cairn, both overlooking the valley. These aren't picturesque objects — they're the evidence of how this landscape has been used.

Stone wall corner with fence posts framing moorland cwm valley — Old boundaries, old grazing land

Worn fence post and stone cairn overlooking rolling valley landscape — Evidence of how this land was used

— The basin floor

The cwm floor has a lone tree in it, wind-shaped, growing from a rocky stream bed. The roots have found water in the rock. Morning mist sits in the basin when the upper moorland is already in clear light.

Lone wind-shaped tree in misty cwm valley with rocky stream bed — Roots finding water in the rock

— Afternoon light

By afternoon the birch on the slopes catches golden light from the south-west, the yellows and oranges of October against the grey-green of the escarpment above.