The apse of the Llandetty Farm Hall; what could one say about it? It was ever so charming, steeped in a quiet aesthetic grandeur and touched by something almost fantastical. From outside, because the road to the hall was hemmed in by deep, verdant valleys, it was difficult to see what the place looked like. “Where is this place?” the girls and I kept asking, both ecstatic and slightly bewildered by the unfamiliar territory we had entered. After a few minutes, we found ourselves before the door: an archaic building overshadowed by a colossal tree whose sheer size pressed upon me the persistent question of how many centuries it had lived to see.

Whenever I encounter such trees, I feel an almost involuntary awareness of time and ephemerality. In their quiet persistence, they remind me how brief human life is, and how many patient witnesses of history outlast our own. The absence of such nature in metropolitan cities makes it easy to forget this truth. Standing there, I wondered whether this feeling of insignificance in the grand scheme of the world could truly be mine alone, or whether it is a quiet sentiment shared by anyone who pauses long enough in the presence of such scenery.

I walked to the gate opposite the house to look across the vast green valleys, letting my lungs fill slowly with the sweetness of the season. We were a quarter of the way through winter. The tall umber willow trees had lost the luminescent green chandeliers that once hung from their crooked branches, their delicate flowers no longer drifting gently through the air; now many of their leaves lay broken in waves of fragment foam — withered, shrunken, dark, dry, almost desecrated.

Watching them, I was reminded of the ayat in the Qur’an:

أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ أَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَسَلَكَهُ يَنَابِيعَ فِي الْأَرْضِ، ثُمَّ يُخْرِجُ بِهِ زَرْعًا مُخْتَلِفًا أَلْوَانُهُ، ثُمَّ يَهِيجُ فَتَرَاهُ مُصْفَرًّا، ثُمَّ يَجْعَلُهُ حُطَامًا ۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَذِكْرَىٰ لِأُولِي الْأَلْبَابِ

“Do you not see that Allah sends down water from the sky — channelling it through streams in the earth — then produces with it crops of various colours, then they dry up and you see them wither, and then He reduces them to chaff? Surely in this is a reminder for people of reason” (39:21). We, too, will wither and be consumed by the soil of the grave. Nature and death are inseparable, both fundamental to human existence, yet easily overlooked amid the pandemonium that is life itself. In this sense, the Welsh proverb dod yn ôl at fy nghoed means to me more than simply “to return to my tree,” or even “to return to a balanced state of mind.” Rather, it invites a deeper question: what is true balance? Might pondering death, provoked by nature’s grandeur, itself be a return to the foundations of existence? I think it may be.

The name ‘Llandetty’ is itself a fascinating one, worth breaking down. In Welsh place names, llan originally indicated a sacred enclosure of land around a church, later coming to signify the church or parish settlement itself.¹ The village name refers to the church dedicated to St Tetti, with the second element derived from the saint’s name; some sources also suggest an earlier connection to a figure known as St Dedyw, associated with early medieval Welsh Christianity.² Llandetty, then, is not merely scenic countryside, but a place old and historically rich, layered with Welsh history. The Llandetty Hall Farmhouse, Grade II-listed and legally protected for its architectural and historical significance, has remained in use since at least the seventeenth century and may even hold connections to the Cromwellian period.³ It is situated in Bannau Brycheiniog — also known as Brecon Beacons National Park — in Powys, a vast expanse of roughly 1,344 km² which, when one stands within it, feels almost endless, the mountains, valleys and uplands unfolding one after another. Even the shortest journeys seem to stretch into an eternity of wandering. The park extends across places such as Abergavenny, the Black Mountains, Hay-on-Wye, Crickhowell and the Usk Valley, its depths filled with rivers, lakes and hidden valleys. From a distance, snow-capped mountains rise through misty clouds, with a shy sun occasionally dipping in and out of the grey-cast sky.

On one of the longest walks we took from the hall, we passed through a rustic gate that opened onto a narrow path beside the River Usk. Though thousands must have walked on this stretch of land, it felt as if we had stumbled upon a secret, a hidden beauty unknown to the world.

The River Usk is hemmed in on either side by rows of yew, holly, beech, dogwood, willow, and oak trees, with deciduous leaves strewn along the pathway and spilling to the edges of the desolate river. The murky, almost unpleasant water, darkened by the shadows of the colossal trees towering about it, stood as an insignia of age and decay; yet even within such wholly organic creation, it is easy for man to be distracted by the reflections his mind casts upon it. The white cottage brought to mind, “How nice would it be to live here, to own a house like this?” Ownership, money, the future — why is it so difficult to forsake these trivial thoughts and be wholly present in the full glare of the sun, along a path filled with sombre, luminous, and dense shrubbery and waterside vegetation? The air is bracing and cold, and a creeping numbness in my fingers reminds me exactly where I am.

As we sauntered along the river, the familiar outline of a Victorian-looking cottage emerged, conjuring images from the pages of a Jane Austen or Bram Stoker novel. Its flowers, garden and trees recalled the pleasure gardens scattered across history, from ancient Mesopotamia onward. Though nowhere near as grand as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (if they ever existed), such beauty felt rare to someone like me, who rarely escapes to the countryside. Without a doubt, things untouched by man are the most exquisite, alluring, and achingly mesmerising.

I slowed my pace slightly, lingering behind the others, and felt a tinge of sadness rise as I realised that, sooner or later, I must leave this place.

¹ West Wales Life and Style (n.d.) What’s in a Name: Llan. Available at: https://www.westwaleslifeandstyle.co.uk/what-s-in-a-name-llan (Accessed: 22 February 2026).

²  National Churches Trust, ‘Llandetty – St Tetti’, n.d., available at https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/llandetty-st-tetti? (accessed 22 February 2026).

³ Llandetty Hall Farm, ‘Llandetty Hall Farm’, n.d., available at: https://llandettyhallfarm.co.uk/