Riverside flower meadow, Talgarth

Riverside flower meadow, Talgarth

This section of the west bank of the river Enig is being developed as a wildlife corridor by the community group On The Verge Talgarth. See below for information about the river's name.

The group's aim is to preserve, maintain and create wildlife habitats in the Talgarth area. Here the aim is create a habitat featuring log piles – providing shelter to hedgehogs, dormice, slow worms and various invertebrates – along with bird nesting boxes and bug houses.

The planting plan for this north-facing site is based on creating a semi-shaded woodland meadow. Potential species include garlic mustard, ramsons, betony, nettle leaved bell flower, wild foxglove, bluebell, meadow sweet, hedge bedstraw, herb robert, wood avens, hairy St John's wort, wood forget me not, wild primrose, self heal, red campion, hedge woundwort, greater stitchwort, wood sage, upright hedge parsley.

The river Enig is central to Talgarth, physically and culturally. Its waters power the restored mill near here.

The river’s name is probably an imperfect form of Brenig. The earliest reference appears to be that given by the scholar and topographer John Leland c.1538 as Brennik. There are similar river-names in the old counties of Cardigan, Pembroke and Denbigh which probably contain brân, meaning ‘a crow’, with the common suffix –ig. The name probably means “river which is dark like a crow” or “river which dips and weaves like a crow’.

Enig – shown as Ennig on recent OS maps – probably developed from the name of the house Aberbrenig (Aber Brennik c.1538) at the confluence (aber) of this river and Afon Llynfi. In colloquial pronunciation the “br” was dropped because of its similarity to the “ber”, and the house, located on what is now Bronllys Road, is recorded in 1798 and 1842 as Aberenig and in 1833 as Aber-enig.

With thanks to Richard Morgan, of the Welsh Place-Name Society, for river-name information

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