Monday, 27th to Friday, 31^st October 2008

A group from Castle Square and Porth United Reformed Churches, together with Tabernacle Congregational Church, Efail Isaf, and Gethin's family, visited Trefeca in October 2008.

  

The autumn colours were wonderful and the snow on the mountains very picturesque, but the weather was a little cold, so we were glad of the excellent facilities at Trefeca and enjoyed playing games and chatting.

But we did get out too...

  

On Tuesday morning, we went on pilgrimage to Llanelieu church and to Maesyronnen chapel (above), where we were warmly welcomed and led in communion by the minister of the Brecon Beacons Group of United Reformed Churches, Revd Michael Hodgson. We were amazed to hear that Oliver Cromwell had worshipped here, perhaps sitting on the very same pews as we had!

On Wednesday, we visited Pantycelyn, the home of the hymnwriter William Williams, and were warmly welcomed by his descendants, who still live at the farm.

 

The more adventurous among us went out on Thursday to the Pwll y Wrach nature reserve - which was very muddy, but stunningly beautiful.

 

We also prayed together, talked a lot, looked at the stunning scenery, heard about the Talgarth Regeneration project, and much more. But everyone agreed that the best part of the holiday was the excellent Trefeca food...

Pictures from the 2007 holiday
by Jan Harris and Fiona Liddell.

May 2007 was our second Pastorate Holiday for Castle Square and Porth churches in Coleg Trefeca in Breconshire. We had a wonderful time, as we hope you can see from these pictures.

     

The lovely grounds of Coleg Trefeca entranced us and the Howell Harris Museum educated us

   

We drank plenty of cups of tea, ate lots of home-made cake and even the washing up was fun!

We went on a pilgrimage to places associated with Howell Harris, including St Gwendoline's Church, Talgarth (where he is buried) and St Gastyn's church, Llangasty (on the shore of Llyn Syfaddan, Llangors lake), where his conversion was sealed in June 1735 as "I felt my heart melt within me like wax before the fire."

 

 

 

Our outing to Hereford was a little wet - but the Cathedral provided welcome shelter for our picnic.

 

We were taken everywhere by our trusty Charter mini-bus - and the Trefeca food was wonderful!

 

And there was so much else to do - local walks (the picture on the left shows walkers in front of the beautiful manor house, Trefeca Fawr), playing bowls on Brecon Promenade, playing snooker in the games room - and last, but not least, taking a well-earned rest!

 

 

Read Jan's report on the 2006 holiday below.

Trefeca 2006

In June this year I set off on a trip to Trefeca with some apprehension. I was the only one going from Castle Square and I wondered if I would feel’out of it’. Well, I needn’t have worried. There were eleven of us and we had a great time. By the end of the week, we were all good friends.

Gethin and Fiona and the girls picked me up in our mini bus and then we travelled to Porth to collect the others. The drivers were excellent – no worries there! 

The centre is a most interesting place to visit and the welcome was warm and the food good!! There was also plenty of it. A rather nice touch was home made cakes every afternoon with tea or coffee.

We were fortunate to have good weather and the trips we made to Brecon and to see the red kites were very enjoyable.

We gathered together every morning and evening for a short time of worship and some of us took turns in leading the evening worship.

  Jan