Llanwrtyd Wells
LLANWRTYD WELLS: Location for exhibition flights pre-WW1, pleasure flights shortly after WW1
(Aka ABERNANT HOTEL and ABERNANT AERODROME)
Location: Spread around, (it seems?), and roughly S of the Abernant Hotel which is just E of Llanwrtyd town centre on the A482. About 15nm SW of Llandrindod Wells town centre.
Period of operation: Very hard to say, records found from 1913 to 1920
NOTES: The existence of this location having a flying site came from a passing mention in an article. So, I asked Mike Holder, a great friend of this 'Guide' and a wizard at finding maps, pictures and obscure articles and adverts, if he could kindly look into it? Needless to say the results were astonishing - see below.
A MICHAEL T HOLDER GALLERY
Note: The newspaper article regarding the visit by Prosser was published in the Brecon County Times on the 6th November 1913. The fourth item, a newspaper article, was published in the Cheshire Observer on the 11th July 1914.
Note: The fifth item, an advert, was published in the Western Mail on the 15th August 1919, regarding the Avro Company holding a joy-riding operation here. Avro, after WW1, generally concentrated on holding joy-riding operations at seaside resorts. The seventh item was published in the Brecon County Times on the 14th August 1919.
Note: This eighth item, an announcement was published in the Brecon County Times on the 8th July 1920. The tenth item, another announcement, was also published in the Brecon County Times, but this time on the 2nd September 1920. I have added the local area and area views from my Google Earth © database.
MORE NOTES
It is interesting to see that in the period just before and just after WW1, Llanwrtyd Wells was seen, by aviation concerns, as a highly desirable destination to operate from.
In the main Covid period I often suspect that the main roads in Britain are clogged up with film crews desperately trying to film minor celebrities travelling around our green and septic isle. But of course the producers of such programs have mostly never been anywhere in the UK?
When the railway system was hugely expanded in the Victorian era, places in this central part of Wales became available as holiday destinations for the middle classes - and quite rightly so. Although largely ignored today, it really is a a most scenic region.
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