Heritage Nature Trail

About the Trail

The Josef Herman Art Foundation has created this trail as a celebration of the industrial heritage and natural history of the village and surrounding locality of Ystradgynlais. It is an area steeped in rich industrial significance, demonstrating the heavy industry that made this area of south Wales so important during the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th Century, and continuing to be of national importance during the time of Josef Herman’s residence in the village.

Josef Herman was a Jewish emigre artist, who found sanctuary in Ystradgynlais after fleeing Warsaw during the Second World War. Herman is renowned as an artist that documented everyday life for the miners, farm workers and metal workers that lived here. His time in Ystradgynlais inspired and left a lasting legacy on the people and culture of this small mining community nestled in the Upper Swansea valley. Through this trail we are sharing some of the locations that Josef would have been very familiar with and we intend that the trail will help to inform post-industrial generations of this rich heritage.

The route begins in the centre of Ystradgynlais, in Gorsedd Park at the site of the Royal Royal National Eisteddfod in 1954, progressing past St Cynog’s Church, the Cafe Chameleon and the ‘Machine Incline’ before entering Diamond Park and progressing through to the nature reserves of Werm Plemys and Ystradfawr. Parts of the trail also follow the lines of the old railway and the station. All areas would have been familiar to Herman, but the environment has greatly changed since his time in the village.