Tewkesbury Abbey Club Site, Gloucestershire

We slept late this morning, a real treat, athough it did make for a delayed departure. The plan for today was to take us about sixty miles west of our camp, to the far north west corner of Herefordshire, straddling the border between England and Wales.

We travelled in part on the South Wales motorway, the M50, before turning easterly near Ross-on-Wye, on to minor roads, zigzagging through narrow hedgeways, south then north again at Pontrilas up the  River Dore through the Golden Valley, past the Abbey Dore, surely a relationship between “Dore”, “d’or” and “gold’, although none has been offered us.

The rural landscape was beautiful, although more frequently than not, shielded from view by the high roadside hedges. To the west the outline of the Black Mountains were clear; we were on the north eastern edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park. Soon we arrived at Hay-on-Wye, best known for the annual Hay Festival of Literature and Arts held every May, which has grown out of the special nature of the town, or that attributed by the “King of Hay”, Richard Booth.

In the very early sixties, Hay-on-Wye was fading away, the way that so many once vibrant rural settlements have gone over the past one hundred years or more. Rather than turn to the government for some sort of regeneration programme, Richard Booth decided that his town needed a brand, something quirky to draw business and population. He opened his first secondhand bookshop in 1961, and attracted others of the same ilk to set up in the town, turning it into the greatest market in  the world for used books. Today Booth’s own shop holds over 200,000 titles although only 10,000 or so are catalogued on his website. The books in this and all the bookshops we called into are wonderfully catalogued and one could spend weeks in any one of these amazing stores.

In 1977, Booth declared Hay independent and himself “king”, a bit like the Republic of Whangamomona in New Zealand; another way to promote the place and draw outside funds into an area. These days Richard Booth, while still well respected in the community, keeps a lower profile, not even managing to have himself elected when he stood for the Wales constituency at the Eurpopean Parliament election in 2009.

We parked up near the library, that alone cause for amusement; the fact that Hay would need a library. We then spent more than two hours wandering about, the streets crowded onto a mound above the River Wye. We checked out the remains of the castle, the remains of a 17^th century mansion house, very little left but undergoing major renovation. The original was built as part of the Norman invasion in either the late 11^th or early 12^th centuries, rebuilt about one hundred years later, then surviving through the ages in various states of dereliction. The castle was more latterly owned by Booth, all part of his regal image, however was sold in about 2011 for about two million pounds to the Hay Castle Trust who have grand plans to renovate the property to form an arts and education centre, although it appears little has been done in the interim.  

We lunched down by the river after checking the activity below the bridge. Several canoes about suggested that the advertised canoe hire business was alive and well, but it was the walk explained on an interpretative board that caught our attention. The Wye Valley Walk is a long distance trail following the river for 136 miles from Plylimon, near its source, all the way to Chepstow at the head of the Severn Estuary.

Here in Hay we found all the signs, and instructions on the complex parking machine, to be first in Welsh, then in English. Our guide book suggests that most of the population of the town these days are imports rather than the “natives” whose future Booth was trying to save, however whoever these folk are, they were all kept busy today catering for the hundreds and hundreds of visitors, devouring the books, the cream teas and pub lunches. We were delighted we had travelled so far to explore this curious small town for ourselves.

The whole tour itinerary for the day had many bullet points, Hay-on-Wye only one of them, however time was against us and the day was very hot, the temperatures in this part of the world this week tipped to reach 30 degrees Centigrade. 

We turned back eastwards, travelling another route, back through the wide Wye Valley, descending through beautiful farmland. Five miles west of Hereford, we came upon the sign for “The Weir”, a National Trust property marked by that minute oak leaf symbol on our map. We imagined we were to see a weir on the Wye, and having already discovered the river to be so beautiful, thought it would add to our impression. 

The Weir is no more, but the Weir Gardens are what the people come to see. Back in 2005 ITV’s Time Team did some excavation on the property and confirmed that there was once a large Roman building and two butresses, support for a terrace overlooking the river, here. A mosaic floor was also uncovered. This wasn’t the first time any one had poked about with archeological hats on, but these more sophisticated efforts proved the initial findings had been correct.

More recent historical records show the property belonged to a Smyth family, finally falling to a son-in-law, Timothy Markham, in 1765. He had grand designs for the property and built a second residence, The New Weir. Alas he overstretched his budget and ran into financial strife, forced to sell the new build and move back into the old.  It wasn’t until the 1920s the two properties were reunited by Roger Charlton Parr after a succession of other owners. The gardens we walked through today can be credited to Parr, and it was him who left The Weir Estate and Garden to the National Trust in 1959 on his deathbed, with provison for a lifetime tenancy to Victor Morris. Morris died in 1985 and very soon after the house was repaired and converted for use as a residential nursing home.

Today there were a number of folk enjoying the sunshine and shade, both on offer beside the river under the trees or out in the garden. On the opposite bank were a couple of fishermen trying their luck to catch the hundreds of fish visible from our vantage point. Our brochure advised that the biggest fish to be caught at The Weir Garden was in 1846, a royal sturgeon weighing 182 pounds and was 8 foot 6 inches long. Perhaps there have been other monsters since and left unrecorded especially if they were illegally take home for the plate. 

Despite the hour, we also checked out the walled garden where two volunteers were slaving away in the burning sun, planting and hoeing and doing all things that gardeners do. We returned to the car and pressed on to Hereford.

Hereford was long a border garrison town held against the Welsh and also became a religious centre after the Welsh murdered the Saxon king Ethelbert  near here in 794. Murder was pretty common in those days but it was the apearance of his ghost and determination to be buried here in Hereford that caused a cult to grow up around the legend and prompt the building of the town’s first cathedral. 

Unlike many other such establishments, this one did not start monastically.  Although the diocese of Hereford was founded in the late 7^th century, the present cathedral was  built in the 12^th century after an earlier building was destroyed by a rebel army in 1055. Much of the romanesque building survives, but it has been changed and enlarged over the centuries.

We wandered about here for a while before walking down to the river. We had hoped to walk along the bank however the path was not immediately evident, so we returned to the centre of the town, a tangle of narrow streets and lanes and alleys. The longer we explored, the more we liked the place, and realised we should have allowed ourselves much more time.