Many obituaries have been written for the British

Many obituaries have been written for the British high street in recent years. Not so Machynlleth, whose handsome main thoroughfare counts among its mainstays an organic foods shop, a natural health centre and an Ayurvedic chocolatier and apothecary. I turned from the window of the latter, advertising ashwagandha powder and triphala remedies, to see a man in a rainbow poncho, carrying a wizard's staff, walk into a branch of swanky paint merchants Farrow & Ball. It's an image that sums up at least one facet of modern Machynlleth: an air of well-heeled bohemianism, shared with the likes of Glastonbury and East Grinstead across the border in England.