It has a station on the Cambrian line between Moat Lane and Brecon, and two others (high and low levels) at Builth Road about 14 m.
With him, as with his father, the politics of the Marches had been the main consideration; his final change of side was due to jealousy of the younger Despenser, whose lordship of Glamorgan was too great for the comfort of the Bohuns in Brecon.
The Neath and Brecon railway has a terminus in the town.
The town perhaps occupies the site of the ancient Nidus or Nidum of the Romans on the Julia Maritima from which a vicinal road branched off here for Brecon.
The ecclesiastical parish of Brecon consists of the two civil parishes of St John the Evangelist and St Mary, both on the left bank of the Usk, while St David's ih Llanfaes is on the other side of the river, and was wholly outside the town walls.