Gwen Wynn: A Romance of the Wye

A tourist descending the Wye by boat from the town of Hereford to the ruined Abbey of Tintern, may observe on its banks a small pagoda-like structure; its roof, with a portion of the supporting columns, o’er-topping a spray of evergreens. It is simply a summer-house, of the kiosk or pavilion pattern, standing in the ornamental grounds of a gentleman’s residence. Though placed conspicuously on an elevated point, the boat traveller obtains view of it only from a reach of the river above. When opposite he loses sight of it; a spinney of tall poplars drawing curtain-like between him and the higher bank. These stand on an oblong island, which extends several hundred yards down the stream, formed by an old channel, now forsaken. With all its wanderings the Wye is not suddenly capricious; still, in the lapse of long ages it has here and there changed its course, forming aits , or eyots , of which this is one.
The tourist will not likely take the abandoned channel. He is bound and booked for Tintern—possibly Chepstow—and will not be delayed by lesser “lions.” Besides, his hired boatmen would not deviate from their terms of charter, without adding an extra to their fare.
Were he free, and disposed for exploration, entering this unused water way, he would find it tortuous, with scarce any current, save in times of flood; on one side the eyot, a low marshy flat, thickly overgrown with trees; on the other a continuous cliff, rising forty feet sheer, its façade grim and grey, with flakes of reddish hue, where the frost has detached pieces from the rock—the old red sandstone of Herefordshire. Near its entrance he would catch a glimpse of the kiosk on its crest; and, proceeding onward, will observe the tops of laurels and other exotic evergreens, mingling their glabrous foliage with that of the indigenous holly, ivy, and ferns; these last trailing over the cliff’s brow, and wreathing it with fillets of verdure, as if to conceal its frowning corrugations.
About midway down the old river’s bed he will arrive opposite a little embayment in the high bank, partly natural, but in part quarried out of the cliff—as evinced by a flight of steps, leading up at back, chiselled out of the rock in situ .