Brecon

Sister cities

• Saline
• Gouesnou

History

The Welsh name, , means 'mouth of the Honddu'. It is derived from the River Honddu, which meets the River Usk near the town centre, a short distance away from the River Tarell which enters the Usk a few hundred metres upstream. After the Dark Ages, the original Welsh name of the kingdom in whose territory Brecon stands was (in modern orthography) , which was later anglicised to Brecknock or Brecon, and probably derives from , the eponymous founder of the kingdom. Before the building of the bridge over the Usk, Brecon was one of the few places where the river could be forded. In Roman Britain Y Gaer () was established as a Roman cavalry base for the conquest of Roman Wales and Brecon was first established as a military base. The confluence of the River Honddu and the River Usk made for a valuable defensive position for the Norman castle which overlooks the town, built by Bernard de Neufmarché in the late 11th century. Gerald of Wales came and made some speeches in 1188 to recruit men to go to the Crusades. Brecon's town walls were constructed by Humphrey de Bohun after 1240. The walls were built of cobble, with four gatehouses and was protected by ten semi-circular bastions. In Shakespeare's play King Richard III, the Duke of Buckingham is suspected of supporting the Welsh pretender Richmond (the future Henry VII), and declares: O, let me think on Hastings and be goneTo Brecknock, while my fearful head is on! A priory was dissolved in 1538, and Brecon's Dominican Friary of St Nicholas was suppressed in August of the same year. About north of the castle stands Brecon Cathedral, a fairly modest building compared to many cathedrals. The role of cathedral is a fairly recent one, and was bestowed upon the church in 1923 with the formation of the Diocese of Swansea…

Geography

The town sits within the Usk valley at the point where the Honddu and Tarell rivers join it from north and south respectively. Two low hills overlook the town, the 331m high Pen-y-crug to its northwest and 231m high Slwch Tump to the east. Both are crowned by Iron Age hillforts. The modern administrative community includes the town of Brecon on the north bank of the Usk together with the smaller settlement of Llanfaes on its southern bank. Llanfaes is built largely on the floodplain of the Usk and the Tarell; embankments and walls protect parts of both Brecon and Llanfaes from this risk.