Monmouth to Tintern

This is Sam enjoying a cuppa and the view from the Monmouth showground bench just after he had installed it! It's beautifully sited beside the Wye and looking downstream towards Redbrook. These fields are owned by the Monmouthshire Show Society and it is here that Monmouthshire Show is held in August. It's a long-established, one-day agricultural celebration bringing together the very best of rural life in the heart of the Wye Valley.

Look out for this bench just a few feet off the Wye Valley Walk under the trees to the left. It is soon after you enter Duchess Ride walking south,  just at the start of where the woodland has been recently harvested, opening up a glorious view down the lower Wye Valley towards Tintern, with the river Severn in the far distance. This long straightish track line with Scots Pine trees is known locally as the Duchess Ride because much of this area was owned by the Duke of Beaufort estate. Presumably it was one of the Duchesses favourite places for a carriage ride.

This bench sits in the peaceful churchyard of St Michaels, Tintern Parva, beside the now tidal river Wye. This was the site of an important Roman river crossing of the Wye and the remains of a slipway can be seen at the edge of the churchyard. It is thought a Celtic church here was dedicated to St. Michael around 765 A.D.

Cleddon Falls is a Site of Special Scientific Interest important for liverworts and mosses. A stone’s throw from the falls are the strangely shaped Bread and Cheese Stones, once a lookout for Cleddon residents, who could spot trows coming up the river and race down to the quay to get work unloading cargoes. It is thought the views here inspired Wordsworth, when he visited the area in 1798, to write his famous ‘Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey’.