On The Black Hill - Location

Location

The location is lightly fictionalised. Many real place names are used, the great majority indicating a site on the border of Herefordshire and Breconshire south of Hay on Wye. The Herefordshire Black Hill and Cefn Hill are outliers of the Black Mountains; Brecknockshire was west of the easternmost ridge of the Black Mountains to the west. Hay-on-Wye (with its castle and pre-war railway station) would be the principal town in the area but its name is notable by its absence; instead, it seems the name of the Radnorshire hamlet of Rhulen has been used. The name of the Shropshire location of Lurkenhope has been used for the principal village. Talgarth, although not mentioned in the film, is another small nearby town, which would have been of greater importance to the area at the time.

On the Ordnance Survey map, 'Abergavenny and the Black Mountains, Wales sheet 161' (1:50,000 series) and even better depicted on the more detailed 1:25,000 series at grid reference SO275348 the Black Hill itself is shown, towards Craswall. The name refers to a well known ridge descending very steeply from the very long Hatterall Ridge (which forms the England / Wales border) and carries Offas Dyke footpath on it, down into the fields of Herefordshire, and on the English side. The Black Hill is known locally as 'The Cat's Back' as viewed from Herefordshire it looks like a crouching cat about to pounce. On the same map at grid reference SO264310, just a little to the south, you will be able to see a real farm called The Vision Farm, situated in the Llanthony valley, also known as the Vale of Ewyas, on the Welsh side of the border, just below Capel-y-ffin.

Alternatively, the location that inspired the novel could be the Black Hill grid reference SO330790 between Knighton and Clun and a few miles from Lurkenhope. Chatwin stayed nearby in Cwm Hall, Purslow with friends during the 1970s and was confidently cited as such in a BBC programme by his biographer.

Chatwin amalgamated reality with his research amongst the local indigenous populace in the time he researched the book, interweaving fact and fiction, gossip, locations, stories and social history.