Pontypool Folly – The First Light of 2026

Some mornings feel quietly important, even before you know why.
The first sunrise of 2026 was one of those, a thin, glowing page being turned in the sky and Paul Joy and I were standing on the ridge of the hill where Pontypool Folly stands like a stone sentinel, to watch it happen.

The path up was a ribbon of frost and shadow. Ahead of us, the lonely tree, the farmers track and the Folly itself were cut out in pure silhouette against a pre-dawn sky that burned with orange warmth, as if the horizon had been gently set alight. It wasn’t a harsh fire, more a slow embering glow, the kind that makes you whisper rather than speak.

Pontypool Folly stood tall and dark, a quiet sentinel on the hill, while the world below still slept.

And then the sky did something wonderful.

Behind the Folly — on the opposite side of the rising sun — a band of colour began to form. Soft at first. Then, suddenly alive. A vast arc of pinks and purples stretched across the sky like a cosmic bruise. This was the Belt of Venus, that fleeting optical miracle where Earth’s own shadow rises into the atmosphere as the sun lifts itself over the horizon. It’s a trick of light and geometry: sunlight scattering through dust and air molecules, painting the sky opposite the sun with colours so delicate they look almost unreal.

Standing there, watching it bloom behind the Folly, felt like standing inside a living painting.

And floating in that glowing band was something even more magical.

The Wolf Moon was sinking slowly into the Venus Belt. The Wolf Moon gets its name from old northern traditions, when wolves were heard howling through the deep winter nights, but on this morning, it felt anything but wild. It was serene, dignified, drifting down behind the Folly like a celestial curtain call for the night.

Paul and I were awestruck, and there was so much happening in the skies that we did not know which way to turn next.

Of course, being at Pontypool Folly and in 2026, technology had to get involved. I sent the drone gently up into the cold air, its quiet hum barely disturbing the stillness. From above, the scene was breathtaking, the Folly rising from the hilltop like a stone lighthouse, the orange glow to the east, and behind it all that impossible purple-pink Venus Belt with the Wolf Moon sinking into it. The camera drank in the light. Stills and video captured a sky that felt too beautiful to be trusted to memory alone.

The first sunrise of a new year is always symbolic, but this one felt genuinely earned. Winter, silence, frost, a stone sentinel, cosmic light, and a moon slipping away into colour — all stitched together in one perfect morning.

Pontypool Folly watches the years roll past from its hilltop, but on that dawn, it felt as though it was greeting the new year with us, standing proud against a sky that was briefly, impossibly, and utterly glorious.

Some mornings don’t just start a day.
They start a story.

Watch the video -

Epilogue

After our early morning up the Folly, Paul and I went for our customary celebratory Greggs breakfast in Pontypool. As we walked into town, we both joked about the fact that we were wearing matching camouflaged clothing and laughed, wondering what people must think when they see us.

Moments later, at the counter in Greggs, the lovely lady serving us said, 

"I got to ask you boys, are you dressed like that to go hunting?"

We laughed out loud and said the only thing we had been hunting was a sunrise up the Folly :)