A gentle 8 mile walk on the Monmouthshire Way from Chepstow; walking in my own back yard (loosely)

Date walked: 24th November 2021

Map used: Ordnance Survey Explorer OL 14- Wye Valley and Forest Of Dean (having downloaded the route onto my phone).

Distance: about 8 miles. This is the first part of Stage 1 of the route as shown on the website for the Way (see below)

Website for path: There is no written guide to the path but this website has the basics. 

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For those of you loyally following my progress on Offa’s Dyke, an explanation: when I arrived at the excellent Swan Inn at Pontfadog at the end of the last walk I found that my injured knee was far from OK. My plan had been to wild camp for the following night and spend two days walking carrying provisions. The forecast was for rain and I just didn’t fancy it so I bailed out and caught the train home the next day. The good news is that I have booked to complete the walk at the end of March, sans tent and my friend Bob will be joining me. Huzzah. Meanwhile the doc has added me to the millions waiting for out-patient treatments but the knee seems to have sorted itself out so I’m hopeful that I might not need any attention for it. 

Winters being as they are this was not the time of year (for me at least) to do much “through” walking so it seems to me the perfect time to start my more local  project of walking the Monmouthshire Way.  It starts in Chepstow, just 5 miles from my home, so I will be able to pick those days to walk when the weather forecast is not offering a drenching/blizzard and I might get enough daylight to boost my vitamin D levels. 

Today was such a day.

Leaving the car in the Castle Dell Car Park….

Heck of a lot of signs for a car park!

….I approached the castle walls, passing a car who’s owner either couldn’t read or didn’t give a s**t.

According to Wikipedia, Chepstow Castle is the oldest surviving post Roman fortification in Britain.

That’s one of the many things that I like about writing this blog- I find out things I didn’t know. Though having lived so close to the castle for 34 years I might have found this out by now.

I can’t speak to how much re-building has been required to present it in it’s current state but by all accounts its a very fine castle indeed.

The Way takes the path by the side of the castle through the Dell…

… to arrive at the B4293 (Welsh Street) and turns right. This is my most direct but least preferred way into Chepstow from my home, it having several really annoying speed bumps. No doubt this is intended to protect the kiddy- winkies attending the Dell Primary and Chepstow Comprehensive Schools but me I think that kids should keep off the roads at all times bumps or no bumps.

At first sight this is a pretty boring stretch of road…..

… but in a car it’s surprising what you miss and I had never taken in this sweet little house before.

Toll house?

The Way turns off right shortly after the house…..

I have no idea what this means

…..to enter Alcove Wood, a place that I had never knew existed.

I don’t know who owns or looks after this wood but it seems an unlikely route for mechanised traffic.

This path leads directly into Piercefield Park which backs onto Chepstow Racecourse.

I’ve never been to the races (here or anywhere else), finding the idea of standing around watching horses being whipped as they run past unappealing. And I understand that it costs at least £35 a pop for the privilege but it occurred to me that you could see the spectacle for free from here.

According to the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales the park is “the par excellence outstanding example of an early sublime landscape”. Grade I listed, it is certainly a pleasant place and has the great virtue of having sheep.

And I’m no expert but I think pregnant sheep at that.

We like pregnant sheep best of all

The Park and house was bought by Valentine Morris in 1740 who developed it in the picturesque style. This chap was A Very Bad Man as he was a slaver and plantation owner. He was also described as a Creole, though when I was  at school he would have politely been described as coloured, when I was in work as  Mixed Race, then, Black of Mixed Parentage, then Black and now probably as a Person of Colour. Interestingly, the images I found of him suggest none of this. The house and estate was later owned by Nathaniel Wells (1779-1852) , who was also A Very Bad Man as he was also a slave owner and who Wikipedia describes as being of Afro-Caribbean descent and that he was Britain’s first black sheriff.

The house is in a very bad state and has been apparently since one Henry Clay inherited it 1925. He decided to move his family to nearby Wyndcliffe Court and sold the house in 1926 to the Chepstow Racecourse Company, of whom at the time, according to Wikipedia, all the directors were members of his family. The Clays still own Wyndcliffe Court, the garden of which I have twice photographed for publication.

The Way passes in front of the house ……

…..and for a short while joins the Wye Valley Walk above the River Wye (surprise surprise). Unfortunately you can barely glimpse the river for this half a mile co-habitation.

Personally I think a judicious bit of chain-sawing is in order.

Leaving the path and the valley at the far end of the park….

… the Way offers a final view of the racecourse…..

With a pair of binoculars you could have a very cheap seat.

… almost touches the A466….

The A466 is often closed from landslides

.. and then heads West through a scrappy yard …..

…. to join the A466 above the village of St Arvans.

St Arvans is the only village between my home and Chepstow and was on my way to work for 30 years. It has a church and a village Hall but for me it will always be known as where “Jeans” was.

“Jeans” is officially called Parkfield Stores and Jean (who gave up the shop a year or so  ago) was a short, round, smiling woman who always greeted me with a “Hello” that was delivered very slowly and in a broad Forest (of Dean)  accent. I can hear her as I write this. Jean’s was our source of papers, milk and occasionally Lardy cake if the wonderful bakery in Olveston that I passed through on my way back from work in Bristol was closed. Jean took a keen interest in our garden and was always hugely and gratifyingly impressed if we appeared in a magazine that she sold.

At the fountain in St Arvans….

Not splashing in living memory

… the Way turns right and shortly afterwards left down Church Lane.

I’ve never been in the church….

… and if you have to make an appointment to go in I probably won’t be visiting in the near future.

Passing the church the Way takes a lane behind an estate of modern houses that quickly leads into open countryside.

Rogerstone Grange sits at the end of this lane where Dawn, our garden volunteer,  lives but the path turns right before reaching it, passing what I take to be an old mill house.

Couldn’t see evidence of the mill race or stream though.

A yapping dog emerged to pursue me down the lane, followed closely by an apologetic owner but the dog quickly retreated, reading my mind that I would have no compunction of giving him a thorough telling off if he went for me.  This lane led to what must be one of the ugliest buildings in  the Monmouthshire countryside….

Courtesy of Welsh Water

… but before reaching it the Way leaves the road to head up a hill slightly beside Pilmore Wood about which I can tell you nothing.

The next mile or so was an undulating yomp over some stiles in not very good repair and, at times,  quite boggy ground, heading towards Chepstow Park Wood.

A shallow stream was forded which my boots withstood without ingress and then the path climbed through a field to a stile at the edge of the wood.

The village of Itton (no shop) was just ahead but the Way takes a right turn at the Forestry Car Park to enter Chepstow Park Wood.

I have two walks that I do regularly from home – a circuit of Chepstow Park Wood’s outer track is the longer of the two, so I was now on home territory.

Chepstow Park Woods 750 acres (I’m amazed it’s that big)  was a medieval hunting park and still retains a now low stone wall around most of its perimeter. It’s a popular place for dog and children walkers and the occasional rave. Years ago there was a proposal for it to accommodate a Centre Parks type development. This was vigorously opposed by a local group headed by a man called Derek Trimby who lived in Itton and was a formidable, tenacious and occasionally quite irritating campaigner. There are still a few of his “No” signs attached to some nearby trees.

The circuit of the woods is wide, firm and level underfoot so is always a good opportunity to look at the trees.

The species mix is more varied that you might think at first glance. There are sections planted with now huge spruce but in other parts are larch and a surprising number of deciduous trees, too, mostly oaks. Most of the larch is in the process of being clear felled because of phytophthora which is very sad; I love their golden/orange winter foliage. But in the swathes where they are being felled they are being replanted with a mix of  trees protected from deer and rabbits by six foot high plastic shelters.

Most of these saplings started off as short whips heeled out in temporary nursery enclosures.

As far as I can see once planted out these young trees are then left to their own devices and I do wonder what the success rate will be of them reaching the tops of their temporary prisons. Some have even been planted underneath the mature canopy of massive conifers.

Surely these have little hope to survive?

Having crossed one of the highest points of the wood (views to be had to the Severn Estuary and bridges) the Way gently descends to the Car Park on the Devauden-St Arvans Road.

At the height of the madness of restrictions of our liberty during the pandemic, when we were instructed that we should not drive to take exercise, the car park was cordoned off to prevent criminal dog-walkers.

The Way crosses the road here (“Look left, look right and left again”)….

… and enters New Wood.

Not far in from the road some young person or young-at-heart person had made a little camp.

The path takes quite a steep and narrow gully…..

….crosses a flat area where in summer there is a huge colony of Alcemilla mollis and then arrives at an ex- stile.

A wide grass path follows for a hundred yards, passing a property belonging to neighbours of ours.

This is one of 11 properties on the lane we live in which we call The Veddw, the Highways department now call, The Fedw and , bizarrely, the planners call Ravensnest Wood Road. The lane has houses called, The Cottage Fedw, Veddw House (where we live) , Fedw Cottage, Lower Veddw, Fedw Barn and Veddw Farm.  Names are like that around here. Fluid, changing. My wife has been studying our local history for years and has done two blog posts about our lane, one on the name itself, and one about the settlement . When we came there were 10 houses, soon there will be 13. One neighbour has been trying for years to make it 14. But there are several more ruins of cottages; we have one in our garden.

They’ll be more of our own history here in the next post. For now, having walked down our neighbours drive to join the Veddw, I turned left and walked home where I cadged a lift from Anne back to Chepstow. And the knee had held up fine! Huzzah.

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