First impressions can be deceptive. When you arrive in Llanidloes the first place that catches your eye is its historic timber-framed Market Hall, a ‘magpie-style’ black-and-white building that’s characteristic of the Wales/England border country. But it’s not entirely representative of Llanidloes. Look around and you’ll see a pot-pourri of architectural styles – red-bricked Georgian, decorative Victorian and Edwardian, and traditional country-town terraces.

A foot in both camps

This playful mix of styles speaks volumes about Llanidloes’s location. It might well be located smack in the middle of rural Wales. But it occupies a spot that represents an east–west transition zone where the border country’s gentler, softer hills suddenly rear up into the remote moors, forests and barren plateaux of the Cambrian Mountains

Llanidloes is therefore a country town with a difference, a staging post between cross-border influences – epitomised by that timber-framed Market Hall – and the ‘Wild Wales’ of the Cambrians.

It’s also untypical because of its history and economy. Surrounded by farmland, it’s still a social and shopping hub for the rural community, as well as a convenient stopping-off point on the north–south A470 trunk route through Wales. But many visitors are completely unaware of the town’s surprising industrial past.

A hive of industry

Beneath Llanidloes’s green and pleasant surroundings there’s a mineral-rich geology of silver- and lead-bearing rocks. In the 17th century silver was mined locally. The boom years came later from the 1830s onwards, when increases in the price of lead led to a surge in mining activity. For a time, the mines near the town were the most productive in Europe.

Today, it’s difficult to believe that laid-back Llanidloes was such a busy place. In addition to its silver-lead mining past the town was also home from the 18th century to a thriving textile industry, producing fine flannel cloth. To see evidence of this, walk down Short Bridge Street to the river where an imposing three-storeyed building – now converted into flats – was originally a water-powered flannel mill.

Short Bridge Street is lined with shops and pubs (the latter, many timber-framed and full of character, are to be found in unusually high numbers here, a legacy of the town’s thriving, thirsty industrial past). The more engaging shopping thoroughfare is Great Oak Street leading to High Street, where you’ll find an eclectic range of small independents selling bikes and antiques, crafts and books, organic food and Welsh quilts.

Politics and religion

The pleasingly proportioned Trewythen hotel is a Grade II listed building with an interesting back story due to its links with the 19th-century Chartist Movement. With the decline in the textile trade and resulting hardship for its workers, Llanidloes became something of a hotbed for this grass-roots campaign for political rights, which led to rioting and imprisonment.

The hotel’s restaurant, named after the Chartists, is one of a number of places to eat and drink along Great Oak Street (the Great Oak Café, for example, serves up a tasty menu of salads, soups and vegan goodies – when the sun’s out, head for its lovely courtyard with attached wildlife garden).

Further along, where Great Oak Street meets High Street, you’ll find the Angel Inn of 1748, where the Chartist radicals used to meet, and Minerva Arts Centre featuring the work of local art and craftspeople, with a special interest in quilts.

At the opposite end of town, beside the river at the back of Long and Short Bridge Streets, there’s the Church of St Idloes, a medieval building on the site of an ancient Celtic religious settlement. Noteworthy features include an impressive hammer-beamed roof and pillars from the Cistercian church of Abbey Cwmhir.