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.
