History
Following the Norman Conquest the area was owned by the Lord of Brecon, Bernard de Neufmarche, eventually passing into the possession of the Crown in 1521. It was sold by the Crown in 1819 to raise funds depleted by the cost of the Napoleonic Wars. The entrepreneur John Christie purchased some of this land and subsequently constructed a tramroad across the area from Sennybridge to Ystradgynlais in an effort to improve agricultural production though the venture ran into financial difficulties.
Parts of the area, notably on the flanks of Cefn Cul above Cray Reservoir, were set aside during the 19th century for rabbit breeding for both fur and meat. 'Pillow mounds' remain as the most obvious sign of this venture. These long low earth mounds were constructed to allow the animals to burrow in what were otherwise thin soils.
Since October 2005 it has formed the core of the Fforest Fawr Geopark, the first Geopark in Wales and one of several areas in the UK designated for their outstanding geological heritage.
Read more about this topic: Fforest Fawr
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)