Powys

The first volume to be published in the series covering Wales, encompassing the old counties of Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire, and Breconshire. The gazetteer ranges from intricately designed early Christian memorials in remote rural churches to the splendours of Powis Castle's baroque interiors and terraced gardens and the monumental achievements of the Victorian reservoir engineers. The vernacular traditions of the area are amply demonstrated by robust medieval cruck-framed halls and by substantial stone and timber-framed manor and farm houses of the seventeenth century. Among the urban highlights, the predominantly Georgian town of Montgomery, sheltering below its castle, contrasts with the surprising late Victorian spa of Llandrindod Wells, while throughout the county intriguingly original chapels and churches emerge as some of the most distinctive of Welsh nineteenth-century buildings.