The Goose and Cuckoo is a traditional country pub on the hillside above Llanover, near Abergavenny, inside the Brecon Beacons National Park on the edge of the Black Mountains. It’s built for people who arrive with mud on their boots: walkers, cyclists, horse riders and anyone climbing up from the canal for a drink and something to eat.
The inn stands alongside an old track once used by workers travelling from Blaenavon and Cwmavon to the lime kilns and charcoal burning sites nearby, and the same web of routes now brings in a very different crowd. Goytre Wharf, on the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal, is down the hill, and the walk back up runs through ancient beech woods - a fair way to earn your pint. For longer days out, the Skirrid, Blorenge and Sugar Loaf are all within reach. Inside, it looks every inch the traditional country pub, with stone walls, wooden tables and chairs, cushioned bench seating and a timber bar lined with bottles and hand pumps. A stone fireplace adds to the old-school feel. Current photographs of the pub support these interior details.
Food follows the seasons. The menu changes regularly, with new seasonal dishes added as it updates, and the cooking sits firmly in hearty pub-food territory, with meat, poultry, cheese and soup among the dishes associated with the current offering. Pork and traditional faggots have also been highlighted by recent diners.
The bar is where the pub really shows its hand. Three real ales are always on tap, rotating between Welsh breweries and others from further afield, so the line-up shifts from one visit to the next. Whisky gets the same attention, with a selection built around single malts of different ages - classic Scottish distilleries sit alongside Penderyn from closer to home, so there’s plenty to work through after a day on the hills.