Periods
The county in chronological order, with pointers to where each period is still visible on the ground.
Period · to AD 48
Before Rome
One of the largest timber enclosures in Neolithic Europe stood in a Radnorshire field, and almost nobody has heard of it.
Period · AD 48 to c.400
The Romans
Three and a half centuries of occupation and not one town. Powys was a military corridor, and the map of forts shows exactly what Rome wanted from it.
Period · c.400 to 1066
The Kingdoms
Powys, Brycheiniog, Buellt and Rhwng Gwy a Hafren. Four names for the ground this county now covers, and a dyke built to keep it out of Mercia.
Period · 1066 to 1283
Normans and the March
Three hundred motte-and-bailey castles, a private frontier run by lords who answered to almost nobody, and a treaty at Montgomery that lasted fifteen years.
Period · 1283 to 1500
Conquest to Glyndŵr
Two centuries of settling in, then a revolt that burned most of the towns in this county and left the man who led it with no recorded grave.
Period · 1500 to 1700
Shires and Civil War
The Acts of Union invented Montgomeryshire, Radnorshire and Brecknockshire out of a patchwork of lordships, and gave Wales its Bible.
Period · 1700 to 1830
Turnpikes, Drovers and Chapels
The century that built the roads, enclosed the commons, filled the county with chapels, and sent most of its cattle to England on foot.
Period · 1830 to 1914
Railways, Reservoirs and Leaving
The century of the greatest change and the greatest loss. Railways arrived, industry boomed and failed, water went to England, and the people went almost everywhere.
Period · 1914 to 2000
Clearance, Closure and Powys
The army took Epynt, Beeching took the branch lines, the counties were abolished, and the language retreated to the south-west corner.