Christmas Day lunch at £95 in two sittings, the rooms for a three-night Christmas, New Year's Eve with a band at £65, Boxing Day on the mountain
Christmas and New Year
Christmas at a pub with a fire: Christmas Day lunch at £95 a head in two sittings (noon and 2:30), a three-night Christmas in the rooms with lunch included, Boxing Day breakfast and a walk up Table Mountain with Huw, New Year's Eve dinner and a band in the barn for £65, and the bar open every day except Christmas evening. The Christmas week is high season for the rooms; December bookings open on the first of September.
Christmas here is the pub with a tree in the inglenook and the fire lit at ten in the morning, a lunch that takes three hours, and a walk up the mountain on Boxing Day to make room for the second one. We do it for forty people in two sittings on the day, and the rooms are usually gone by October, so this page is published on the first of September with the prices.
Christmas Day: two sittings, at noon and at half past two, twenty each. Smoked trout or a parsnip soup, then Welsh turkey from a farm in Talgarth or a rib of Brecon beef, with everything, then pudding, Welsh cheese and the coffee, £95 a head and £35 for under-twelves, with a glass of something on arrival. The bar opens at noon for the village and closes at four, and does not open in the evening because the staff have families too. Christmas Eve is the carols at the bar at six, the choir from the village, and the kitchen open until nine.
The three-night Christmas is the room from Christmas Eve to the twenty-seventh with breakfast, Christmas Day lunch, a cold supper on the day, and the Boxing Day walk and breakfast, from £420 for two in the Garret to £690 in the Sugar Loaf. Boxing Day: breakfast at nine for anyone, then Huw leads the walk up Table Mountain at ten (two hours, boots, dogs welcome), £15 with the breakfast, and the bar does cold cuts and the leftover pudding from one. New Year's Eve is dinner in the barn at eight, a band from ten, the bar until one, £65 a head and £25 for under-sixteens, and the rooms that night are the high-season weekend rate with a two-night minimum.
What is included
- Christmas Day lunch in two sittings, £95
- A three-night Christmas with lunch, from £420 for two
- Carols at the bar on Christmas Eve
- The Boxing Day walk up Table Mountain
- New Year's Eve dinner and a band in the barn, £65
- Bookings open on the first of September
What it costs
Christmas Day lunch £95 a head, under-twelves £35; the three-night Christmas in a room from £420 for two including lunch; New Year's Eve dinner and the band £65, under-sixteens £25; Boxing Day breakfast and the walk £15. Rooms in the Christmas week at the high-season rate. The rooms page has every room's six rates and tonight's picked out; the roast page has the sittings with the covers left.
Questions about christmas
Can we come just for the lunch?
Yes: the two sittings are forty covers and about half are non-residents from the village and Crickhowell. Book by the first of December; a £30 deposit a head.
Is the walk on Boxing Day hard?
Two hours up and down Table Mountain at a chatting pace, four hundred metres of climb, boots and a coat. Huw turns round at the fort if the cloud is down. Dogs come; children from about eight manage it.
A room with the rate on the page, a roast with the covers left, a bar with the village in it.
The rooms page works tonight's rate out from the clock, the roast page shows what is left in each sitting, and one form books either, a table, the barn or Christmas. Nia replies within the hour while the bar is open; nothing is charged until we confirm.