Turn Right At Liverpool And Keep Walking- Day 180 – Cadora Woods To Hendre

You get a good night’s sleep in a Weatherspoons. My only gripe was that the room was a tad warm. The other gripe was that it was pouring down. This was not a good start, but fortunately we were walking through some quite dense woodland. This at least meant that we were spared the worst of the showers. On the other hand it did put a downer on the day’s walk. I am at heart a fair weather walker. I want to see things and stay dry.

From Cadora to Redbrook it was mainly a steady climb through woodland, along woodland and through the occasional clearing so we could fully enjoy the traditional Welsh Weather. As we started our descent back into the valley the view down to the Wye and Penallt Viaduct at Redbrook briefly opened up to us.

The railway is no longer there. What were tracks are now just empty drops to the river. There is a footbridge alongside it which gives access to the Welsh side of the river and the Boat Inn. The Wye Valley Railway ran from Chepstow to Monmouth and opened in 1876 in the hope of opening up a route from Bristol to the Midlands. The dream was never achieved, but it did provide a boost for tourism and enabled quarry traffic. Redbrook had a station, but like all the stations along the line it closed to passenger service in January 1959, with a quarry service lasting to Tintern until 1981.

Our dream of coffee at the Boat Inn was also dashed, as it did not open until midday and we had arrived an hour before that. Still we had a snack of nuts and some water, whilst I took the opportunity to use the loos. I did later learn a useful fact, many of the churches along the route provide self serve tea or coffee for a donation. All you need to take are some sachets of milk.

I am not sure if I was prepared for the route out of Redbrook. For nearly three miles it is a steady climb with a lot of false summits. It took over nearly an hour to reach the Kymin, our next stop. First a B Road, followed by a minor road, then a track, this changes to a path. They all have the same characteristic, the tendency to upness. It was a slog in the relentless humid drizzle.

We were therefore extremely pleased to reach the Kymin. The Kymin is a hill which overlooks Monmouth in the valley below, it houses a Roundhouse and Naval Temple. It was built by Gentlemen from the Monmouth Picnic club who wished to have somewhere congenial to dine, away from the inclement weather (them too). The house was started in 1794 and completed two years later. A few years later they constructed a Naval Temple nearby to commemorate the Battle of the Nile. During Nelson and Lady Hamilton’s visit to Monmouth in 1802 (accompanied by her husband Sir William) Nelson visited the Roundhouse and breakfasted there. He was struck by the temple, and praised it as the only one of its kind in England.

The views over Monmouth were worth the climb, a steady roar of traffic in the valley below contrasted with the peace and quiet of the hilltop. We sat and ate our lunch taking in the vista.

What goes up must come down, and so we started our descent to Monmouth. The first part through the woods was particularly slippy as the mixture of mud and leaves made our footing precarious. However, it was nice to be going down, something we managed in around half and hour and were soon entering Monmouth across the Wye.

I was very impressed with Monmouth as a town. I travelled by it last year whilst going to a wedding in Abergavenny. It is a typical Coaching Town, retaining many features.

The King’s head was reputedly visited by Charles I in 1645. The Inn was quite new then, but it has served as a hostelry for centuries. The Shire Hall, which is currently used by the Town Council dates back to 1724 and is at least the fourth building on the site, perhaps the earliest being an Elizabethan court from 1536. At the front there is a statue of Charles Rolls, of Royce fame, who all proper thinking Mancunians know did not meet his business partner at the Midland Hotel. Charles also was the first person to take the future King George V and Queen Mary in a car, when the visited Hendre in 1909. Charles has a sadder claim to fame than his Rolls Royce connection. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident in a powered aircraft when his Wright Flyer crashed during a flying display at Bournemouth in 1910.

Whilst I knew that Jake Thackray spent his last years in Monmouth, I didn’t think to look if there was any memorial to him. Had I done so I would have popped into the Savoy theatre and seen a bust of him in the foyer.

As we were making good time, we stopped at our now favourite cafe and partook of jam and cream cake and their excellent coffee once more.

The rain wa not going to stop and we still had three miles to traipse, so it was across the bridge. The Monnow bridge is the only remaining medieval fortified river bridge in the UK. Construction began in 1272, to replace an earlier Norman crossing. The Monnow itself forms the England/ Wales border for much of its length.

Looking over into the river, we spotted some boys swimming. I suppose it passes for a heatwave in this part of the country.

The final stretch of walk was thankfully flat but still through woodland, although not as dense.

Just before we reached the car, I saw the Hendre to the right. This was designed as a shooting lodge for John Rolls in 1829. Today it houses a golf club.

Picking up the car, we drove to meet the ladies at The Hunter’s Moon pub. 13 miles covered today. 27 Offa and 1,809 in total. Map below video here:

© Allan Russell 2023.

Turn Right At Liverpool And Keep Walking- Day 179 – Sedbury Cliffs To Cadora Woods

Keith & I, of Hadrian fame, are starting Offa’s Dyke along the Welsh/English border today. Like the Wall, it was built as a border feature, and although not as solid as the Roman artefact to the North – it was an earthwork rather than a stone structure. It is twice as long as the Wall being 177 miles between Chepstow and Prestatyn,

We are also being joined for the journey by Keith’s wife Marion and her friend Caroline. They are walking one stage ahead of us, so transport to and from the walk is easier – we are dropped off, and pick the others up when we finish at what was their start point.

The Dyke itself is thought to have been commissioned by Offa, the King of Mercia between 757 and 796. Unlike the Wall, there is much less evidence of its existence, parts having been lost as late as 1928. More recent investigations have dated some parts of the wall to between 430 and 652 and some to as late as 1019.

We are setting off today from Sedbury Cliffs on the Severn near Chepstow. The ladies completed their first stage in April. This gives a spoiler alert, as they did their walk in the early spring. They had better views – the trees were bare and the views better. However, the girls are coy about the route which means I did not rely on Komoot for stage one even though I had planned a path from an Offa GPS. That gave us a couple of small problems but the route was in the main well signposted.

There’s also been a lot of rain, but the weather is good today, and surprisingly there is little mud around. I stayed over last night at Keith’s and we set off at a sensible time to start from the River Severn near the Prince of Wales Bridge which was originally built in 1966.

And of course a selfie to start the route.

Sedbury cliffs are known for fossils. There isn’t much cliff to see at our start, it is covered by trees. Still the first half mile or so is through nice easy country, although it is UP. I do realise being a coastal walker the default is flat but we are walking a border up a river into the Welsh mountains. The corn is as high as an elephants eye en route and we soon come into the outskirts of Chepstow which we relatively quickly circle to get back into the countryside after navigating through some estates.

Over the Wye on the other side of the valley Chepstow Castle (built 1067) is just visible through the foilage, and we pass Folly Mill in Tidenham, a cornmill built in 1754.

A little further on we walk near Pen Moel which was built in 1842. This was built for the Philips family of Manchester, I have written about these on my Halls blog. Robert Philips daughters, Isabella (1807-1889) and Anna Priscilla (1804-1879) came to live here. After they died it was inherited by their niece, Margaret Philips Price, who demolished it and rebuilt it in the current Arts and Crafts style. She lived their with her husband, but had visitors including Arthur Hyde, whose family owned Quarry Bank Mill.

It’s a lovely house, but if you are thinking of buying it, it went for £1.5m in 2016.

After this it was a case of walking up through the forest alongside the river. As I said we were deprived of great views, and had to spend a lot of our time looking down to avoid tripping on the tree roots below. We then fell foul of a misdirection. Someone had switched the direction of the sign as we walked onto the B4228. To be honest it did not feel right to be walking in the direction we did, and after half a mile a look at the compass confirmed we were heading south, so we turned back and rejoined the route.

We did get a good view of the Wye at Wintours Leap, where Sir John Wintour escaped the Roundheads by descending the cliffs. It was not as treacherous then. We did meet someone who intended to climb down the rocks, but we thought better of it.

At this point we are walking on a hill between two rivers, and could see the Severn in the distance at times. The Wye flows into the Severn, but they start only two miles apart.

Soon after that we actually walked along the Dyke, The workings are still visible, if obscured, but you can make out that there is a structure here.

The path was easy here as we walked under the canopy of trees, but as I said earlier views are at a premium.

However, after a long climb we came to the Devil’s pulpit and were treated to magnificent views of Tintern Abbey in the valley below. It’s a shame as this was a perfect spot to eat lunch, but we had given up and dined in a small hey earlier on, sitting on some logs.

I visited Tintern in 1976 when I took a motorbike holiday around South Wales and was enraptured by it even then, having seen Turner’s painting around the same time. It was founded in 1131 and work on the current structure began in 1269. However in 1536 it fell victim to Henry VIII and entered a slow decline.

It is a popular spot to sit and take pictures, and this was evidenced over the next mile or so when we passed a lot of people climbing the hill. Most of them asking how much further. I do wonder how many managed it to the top.

After the long descent we reached Brockweir on the Wye. This was the highest point that seagoing vessels were able to reach on the river, after that cargo had to be carried on shallow barges, which were manually hauled upriver. We had hoped for a coffee or ice cream here, but were disappointed. So instead we took in the peaceful view whilst sat on a bench.

Only three miles were infront of us now, and it was very easy going along the riverbank, passing the pretty village of Llandogo nestled in the valley on the other side and Bigsweir House, a mid 18th Century Grade II listed building.

An easy walk from Bigsweir House got us to the bridge. Reaching Bigweir we found the car at Cadora Woods carpark.

We then drove to Monmouth, where we had what is possibly the best cup of coffee I have ever had at Estero Lounge. Plus some excellent Jam and Cream Cake. What’s not to like. We stayed the night at the King’s Head, a Weatherspoons in Monmouth (excellent value, my second stay in a WS. The evening we dined at the Lion Inn a few miles out. Marion, Keith’s wife, has developed a love of open mike nights after an enjoyable evening in Tynemouth at the end of the Hadrian Walk.

So, 14 miles covered. First stage of Offa. There is a slight cheat here. This may count towards my coastal walk, if I dont make it this far. It can be a circuit of Albion. I think there is mileage in that. Talking of mileage (segue) 1,796 in total now. Map below. Video here.

© Allan Russell 2023.