Smooth operator delivers peak performance THE FACTS BENTLEY CONTINENTAL GT

SUNDAY DRIVER Jeremy Taylor tackles the roads around the Black Mountains and uncovers an unlikely connection with the world’s highest mountain

Colonel Sir George Everest was said to be a very grumpy civil servant. When his successor named a large mountain in Nepal in honour of the former Surveyor General of India, Sir George took serious offence.

The move was meant as a tribute to the geographer – his moniker put forward by the newly installed Andrew Scott Waugh, who himself made the first official observations of the Himalayan mountain in the 1850s.

The Royal Geographical Society had struggled to give Peak XV a name because of problems finding a native alternative that was easily pronounced. Chomolungma and Sagarmatha were two options.

It is not known if Sir George himself ever actually saw the great mountain, untamed by man for almost a century afterwards. Although he objected at the time, he would likely have been more annoyed that his surname would one day adorn a brand of window double-glazing.

What is also unclear is the exact whereabouts of his birth. He was baptised in London but some historians claim Sir George was born on the family estate at Crickhowell, in the beautiful Usk Valley, just south of the Black Mountains.

Driving through Crickhowell’s 19th-century high streets bustling with weekend shoppers, there’s no obvious evidence of Sir George’s existence whatsoever. No Everest road, lane or street – just a note on the town’s website that he lived in Gwernvale Manor, now the Manor Hotel. It has named a bistro in his honour – what would he have made of that?

A surveyor relies on precision tools and I’m certain Sir George would approve of our Continental GT. Hand-built in Britain, this latest version is a sumptuously well-appointed grand tourer with the right name insignia on the bonnet. The Bentley has an interior to match a Rolls-royce, with leather and fine wood veneers at every touch. A 12-cylinder engine pulls along a slimline body that is 80kg lighter than the previous model. The 2+ 2 is capable of more than 200mph.

There’s no chance of 50mph here in the winding valleys of the Black Mountains. We’ve traversed south from Crickhowell along the A40 to Abergavenny – today gridlocked with a food festival celebrating local produce – and north via Pandy on to the single-track road past Llanthony Priory.

The Continental GT wasn’t designed for this type of road. It soon becomes an object lesson in how to reverse a £160,000 car in a narrow space, as tractors and tourists confront us around every blind bend.

On we go, past the chapel at Capel-yffin, removed from the outside world by the surrounding ring of mountains. This is where Wordsworth enjoyed one of his favourite walks, novelist Bruce Chatwin found inspiration and Norman warlord William de Lacy hung up his sword and became a hermit (later founding the priory).

The hedgerows disappear as Gospel Pass climbs to moorland and reveals a spectacular view north from Hay Bluff. It stretches past the “titter-ye-not” mountain of Lord Hereford’s Knob – immortalised in a song of the same name by rock band Half Man Half Biscuit. Sir George would be spinning in his grave.

Here the road narrows again, twisting down to the tourist honeypot of Hay-on-wye. These days there are as many delis and cafés as book shops in the festival town. Between the sustainable Fairtrade store and a gallery “geospace” dedicated to love and light, Hay is an emporium of the eclectic.

The Continental GT is patrolling the meandering English-welsh border, which at this juncture follows the course of the river Wye. To cross it requires a £1 coin and squeezing over the wooden-decked Whitney-on-wye bridge. You don’t have to be in a 2.5-ton Bentley to wonder if the structure will manage the weight of a car.

Nestled in the rolling Welsh hills beyond is Alchemy Hill, a 17th-century farmhouse transformed into a luxury holiday home. Pumped up with soft furnishings and tasteful decor, it offers vast views back towards Hay Bluff. If you can haul yourself away from the log-fired hot tub, there are walks via a secret back gate straight on to Offa’s Dyke Path and a hilltop wilderness of common land beyond.

The only disturbance in the morning is the sound of riotous birdsong and bleating sheep. The farmhouse is just five miles from Hay but allow extra time for the tractors and cyclists. Once tucked up beside a wood fire here, you may decide to stay put instead.

Long before American cowboys moved their cattle over the prairies, medieval drovers passed by this remote spot. They moved sheep and other animals from the upland grazing of Wales to the fattening pastures and markets of the Midlands.

This long-distance movement of cattle was an arduous task and often followed ancient byways and drovers’ paths. The routes are still cut in the landscape around Alchemy Hill and the nearby villages of Newchurch and Rhosgoch. You can explore some of them on horseback at Bryngwyn Riding Centre, otherwise a decent Ordnance Survey map is essential.

Canoe tours of the river Wye are plentiful around Glasbury; it takes four days to paddle and camp the 100 miles downriver to Chepstow.

Kington is just a few miles north of Alchemy Hill, a market town snuggled in the duvet of undulating hills. A tiny museum provides a historical overview, including the bones of the Kington elephant, a circus animal that died en route to a local performance in the Thirties.

Rather more touchy-feely is the Small Breeds Farm Park and Owl Centre, a lovable collection of miniature, rare and friendly creatures in an idyllic hillside setting. Time your visit to coincide with the feeding schedule.

Sir George ended his days in London and was buried near Brighton. There are plenty of mountains he could have explored around here, but the man with the map was obviously destined for greater things.

It soon becomes an object lesson in how to reverse a £160,000 car in a narrow space

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