Clydach Ironworks, Monmouthshire: Ruins in the gorge that inspired Shakespeare

An oasis of quiet now stands where the steam hammers thudded at this Welsh ironworks, in a river valley that may have moved Shakespeare to write A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Restored remains of ironworks Clydach Gorge
Peace reigns where once the furnaces raged at Clydach Ironworks
(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

Once, flashes of light from great blast furnaces illuminated the hills of Monmouthshire at night, roaring along to the thud of monster steam hammers.

Now, all is quiet in the Brecon Beacons, save for the tramp of the hiker’s boot, the whistling wind and the whirr of cyclists.

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Apparently, Shakespeare was inspired to write A Midsummer Night’s Dream after a visit to the caves at Cwm Clydach or Clydach Gorge.

Enjoy a view of the river as it descends almost 700ft over little-visited waterfalls and cascades, leading to the eerie ruins of Clydach Ironworks and an old iron tramway bridge, beneath which a hardy few enjoy peaceful swims.

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Annunciata Elwes

Annunciata grew up in the wilds of Lancashire and now lives in Hampshire with a husband, two daughters and an awful pug called Parsley. She’s been floating round the Country Life office for more than a decade, her work winning the Property Magazine of the Year Award in 2022 (Property Press Awards). Before that, she had a two-year stint writing ‘all kinds of fiction’ for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, worked in internal comms for Country Life’s publisher (which has had many names in recent years but was then called IPC Media), and spent another year researching for a historical biographer, whose then primary focus was Graham Greene and John Henry Newman and whose filing system was a collection of wardrobes and chests of drawers filled with torn scraps of paper. During this time, she regularly gave tours of 17th-century Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, which may or may not have been designed by Inigo Jones, and co-founded a literary, art and music festival, at which Johnny Flynn headlined. When not writing and editing for Country Life, Annunciata is also a director of TIN MAN ART, a contemporary art gallery founded in 2021 by her husband, James Elwes.