Black Mountain Pass & Brecon Beacons Drive Pack | The Stable

The A4069 Black Mountain Pass is, by common consent, the finest driving road in Britain. It climbs from the Amman Valley through open moorland to a summit at 493 metres, where the road stretches ahead in a ribbon of perfect tarmac across the roof of Wales. Top Gear, Chris Harris, and every British motoring journalist has driven it. None has been disappointed.

But this route is more than one road. The Brecon Beacons — now the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park — contain a network of mountain roads that together form the best driving day in the UK. The Gospel Pass climbs to 549 metres through the Black Mountains. The A470 through the Storey Arms is a flowing valley road beneath Pen y Fan, the highest peak in southern Britain. And the waterfall country around Ystradfellte offers forest roads that twist through ancient woodland to hidden cascades.

The landscape is elemental: bare ridges, glacial cwms, red kite circling overhead, and sheep that regard your car with magnificent indifference. The weather is part of the experience — mist rolling across the summits, sudden shafts of sunlight illuminating a valley, rain that makes the tarmac gleam.

The food has improved beyond recognition in recent years. Welsh lamb, Brecon gin, artisan cheese from the Wye Valley, and craft beer from local microbreweries have transformed the region from a culinary desert into a genuine destination. And the accommodation — from converted barns to Georgian coaching inns — matches the quality of the driving.