Valleys 100 Section 15 - Llanellen to Goytre
Section 15 of The Valleys Hundred will be one of the easiest sections on the Valleys 100, and after 90 miles you’ll deserve it as the route heads for Goytre.
Llanellen was the home village of author Alexander Cordell in his latter years. Cordell wrote many books, but his most famous was ‘The Rape of the Fair Country’ which wrote about the Mortymer family who initially lived in Blaenavon but then moved to Nantyglo when Hywel Mortymer broke the strike that had been taking place for several months. The book climaxes with the story of how Iestyn Mortymer joins the Chartists as they march on Newport where they battle with the English troops. They lost and Mortymer was killed as he tried to escape. The leaders of the rebellion were banished to Australia. But nearly every bullet point on the Charter is now encapsulated in British Law, and so it can be argued that democracy, as the United Kingdom now knows it, was born in this part of the world. Cordell based his fictional books on the history of the area.
The route returns to the Monmouthshire and Brecon canal and then follows it for 4 miles before it leaves and follows field paths to checkpoint 15 at Goytre Scout Hut.