Everything seems out of place in Wales’ rural Gwaun Valley, from Victorian-era pubs to New Year’s Day being celebrated 13 days late.
The Gwaun Valley is a quiet, pastoral landscape that is distinct from the rest of Wales. During the last Ice Age, geological convulsions in the form of strong and fast-moving water from melting glaciers shaped the steep-sided valley, resulting in a fertile and abundant expanse of water meadows, flat floodplains, and an ancient woodland that has long hidden Gwaun residents from sight.
Clusters of weathered stone cottages and traditional inns remain cut off from civilisation by steep, twisting roads and deep rivers crisscrossed by dense woods. Until the invention of the automobile, these characteristics discouraged people from coming and going, leaving locals isolated and free to practise the many ancient rites that are still unique to the area.
“We’re a strange bunch… “We stick to tradition,” Lilwen McAllister, owner of Erw-Lon Farm B&B overlooking the valley, said. She’s lived here for 54 years and confidently claims that the area’s unique customs “will never die out”.
McAllister, like the Gwaun’s other 200 or so residents, waits until the 13th of January to ring in the New Year, known in Wales as Hen Galan (the old New Year) and referred to as their “special day” by locals. The residents of the valley are not a fortnight late; rather, they are among the few remaining groups that adhere to the old Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar. The rest of the UK adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, establishing New Year’s Day as 1 January, but the Gwaun community refused to comply because they felt cheated out of 11 days when the new calendar was adopted to correct the Julian’s astronomical error. To celebrate the start of the year, the secluded, close-knit community has developed several other traditions, such as parading horse skulls on poles around the streets to offer blessings to their neighbours and partying the night away in one of Wales’ most unusual pubs, the Dyffryn Arms.
I only live an hour away in Carmarthenshire, but this remote community that refuses to conform has long captivated me. So, in late 2022, I decided to visit Gwaun to learn more about the origins of these unique customs and why the people of Gwaun are keeping them alive.
When I arrived, the Gwaun’s landscape felt like it was from another planet. The land had a powerful wildness to it, with walking trails that had been used for thousands of years, and the valley’s utter remoteness added to the mystery. The single-track roads I drove through on my way to Pontfaen, a small rural village known as the epicentre of the Julian celebrations, were surrounded by towering hedgerows that looked more like battlements than farmland. There were walls of vibrant and fertile hills beyond that.
In Allt Pontfaen, I drove past the fallen leaves of oak and ash, holly and hazel. This ancient woodland has a rich lichen population of national significance, making it a Site of Special Scientific Interest (a rare flora area). and designating Allt Pontfaen as a Special Area of Conservation (an area that protects special habitats or species).
The River Gwaun ran parallel to my path, cutting through the fields like a tectonic plate beneath Pontfaen’s entrance bridge. The river, another Ice Age relic, is home to grey wagtails and dippers, as well as one of the last otter haunts, according to author David Barnes in The Companion Guide to Wales. I didn’t spot an otter, but a local gentleman offered warm salutations and, after a brief chat, suggested I head to the Dyffryn Arms – known locally as Bessie’s Pub – to see the place where many spend their New Year’s “for fireworks and drinks!”.
Bessie’s has been in the same family since 1840 and is now run by Bessie Davies, a nonagenarian who has been serving beer since her twenties. The tiny bar, which is actually her front room, has brown and black chequerboard tiles, a couple of church pews, wooden tables, a warming coal fire, and international banknotes from visitors hung on the walls. It’s not just the pub’s design that’s a throwback. Bessie and her family serve beer through a hole in the wall, pouring directly from a barrel into a jug. There is no food here besides a few snacks – except on Hen Galan.
“Families come to the pub [in the evening] for a few drinks.” “Some food and a singsong,” Bessie’s granddaughter Nerys Davies said. The celebrations are never formally organised, and the people of the Gwaun take an unofficial day off while the rest of Wales continues to work. They come to an end at Bessie’s, where “everyone does his party piece… “There will always be someone with a guitar and a keyboard there,” McAllister assured me.
The evening of Hen Galan begins with schoolchildren singing traditional songs like Plant bach Cymru ydym nhi yn canu ein carolau (We are the children of Wales singing our carols). Indeed, Hen Galan is so important in Gwaun that local students are given the day off. They begin celebrating around 08:00, walking or driving for miles across the valley, from farm to farm, to carry on the ancestral tradition of Calennig (Welsh for “first day of the month” or “New Year celebration/gift”) in a manner similar to trick-or-treating.
I began walking the undulating lanes after parking near Bessie’s pub. At that point, I realised how difficult it was to reach these remote dwellings. Despite this, valley residents hit the road every year, come hell or high water – or several feet of snow. When the children arrive at each house, they serenade the owners with traditional Welsh songs that have a similar melody to Christmas carols:
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi / A happy new year to you
Ac i bawb sydd yn y tŷ; / And to everyone in the house;
Dyma fy nymuniad i, / This is my wish,
Blwyddyn Newydd Dda i chi / A happy new year to you
The final line is often yelled in childlike excitement and the young visitors are given gifts of sweets, fruit or money to welcome the new year. Unlike trick-or-treating, the children are invited into the farmhouses, which, McAllister told me, “provide a feast… [serving things like] cold meats, chutneys, [and maybe] a trifle and piece of Christmas cake”.