Vera Watkins was born at the Carpenters Arms and has run it for decades, taking over from her mother — the pub has been in one family for generations, and it shows. Three hundred years old and warmed by an old kitchen range, it’s on CAMRA’s national inventory of historic pub interiors, pouring local ciders from both sides of the Welsh border, with a garden that looks across to the Skirrid. Cash only. Abergavenny station is around 12km south.
