Although the lower passage of the river commences at Ross, we do not, for two or three miles further, get fairly into its peculiarities. From the gentle, the graceful, the gay, it glides almost insensibly into the picturesque, the bold, and the grand. The tranquillity of its course from the Hay—a tranquillity dearly purchased by the labours of its wild career during the upper passage—has prepared it for new vicissitudes, and new struggles. The following description, by archdeacon Coxe, applies to a great part of the portion we are now entering upon, and cannot be improved either in fidelity or style.
“The effects of these numerous windings are various and striking; the same objects present themselves, are lost and recovered with different accompaniments, and in different points of view: thus the ruins of a castle, hamlets embosomed in trees, the spire of a church bursting from the wood, figures impending over the water, and broken masses of rock fringed with herbage, sometimes are seen on one side, sometimes on the other, and form the fore-ground or background of a landscape. Thus also the river itself here stretches in a continuous line, there moves in a curve, between gentle slopes and fertile meadows, or is suddenly concealed in a deep abyss, under the gloom of impending woods.” “The banks for the most part rise abruptly from the edge of the water, and are clothed with forests, or are broken into cliffs. In some places they approach so near that the river occupies the whole intermediate space, and nothing is seen but woods, rocks, and water; in others, they alternately recede, and the eye catches an occasional glimpse of hamlets, ruins, and detached buildings, partly seated on the margin of the stream, and partly scattered on the rising grounds. The general character of the scenery, however, is wildness and solitude; and if we except the populous district of Monmouth, no river perhaps flows for so long a course in a well cultivated country, the banks of which exhibit so few habitations.”
A little below Ross, on the right bank of the river, are the ruins of Wilton Castle, which was for several centuries the baronial residence of the Greys of the south, and was destroyed by the Hereford royalists in the time of Charles I. Let us relate, however, as a circumstance of still more interest, that it was left, with the adjoining lands, by Thomas Guy, to the admirable charity in London which he founded, known by the name of Guy’s Hospital.
The Wye here passes under Wilton bridge, a construction of rather a curious kind, which dates from the close of the sixteenth century. Coracles are seldom seen so high up the river as this; but we mention them here because the hero of Gilpin’s often repeated anecdote was an inhabitant of Wilton. This man, it seems, ventured into the British Channel in a coracle, as far as the isle of Lundy; a very remarkable voyage to be made in a canvass tub, the navigation of the estuary of the Severn being quite as trying as that of any part of the British seas. Previously, however, to this exploit, the very same feat was performed by an itinerant stage-doctor of Mitchel Dean in the Forest. The coracles are a sort of basket made of willow twigs, covered with pitched canvass or raw hide, and resembling in form the section of a walnut-shell. Similar rude contrivances are in use among the Esquimaux and other savage tribes, and were employed by the ancient Britons for the navigation of rivers. They are now the fishing-boats of the rivers of South Wales; and when the day’s work is done are carried home on the shoulders of their owners, disposed in such a way as to serve for a hood in case of rain. The early ships of Britain are described by Cæsar and Pliny as being merely larger coracles—clumsy frames of rough timber, ribbed with hurdles and lined with hides. According to Claudian they had masts and sails, although they were generally rowed, the rowers singing to the harp.
At the farm of Weir End, the river takes a sudden bend, and rolls along the steep sides of Pencraig Hill, which are clothed with wood to the water’s edge. Soon the ruined turrets of Goodrich Castle present themselves, crowning the summit of a wooded eminence on the right bank, and as they vanish and reappear with the turnings of the river the effect is magnificent.
CHAPTER V.
Roman passes of the Wye—Goodrich Castle—Keep—Fortifications—Apartments—Its history—Goodrich Court—Forest of Dean—Laws of the Miners—Military exploit—Wines of Gloucestershire.
If the conjecture of antiquaries be correct, that the great Roman road from Blestium to Gloucester, by Ariconium, proceeded by the ford of the Wye at Goodrich Castle, it is possible that this spot may have been of some consequence before the period when history takes any cognizance of the fortress. Blestium is supposed to be Monmouth, from which the road probably led along the line of the present turnpike, between an entrenchment to the left, opposite Dixon Church, and an encampment on the Little Doward, to the right, supposed by some to be Roman, but usually described in the road books as British. The name of Whitchurch Street, applied to a portion of this route further on, favours the supposition of a Roman origin. Ariconium, the next station from Blestium, is Rosebury Hill, near Ross, according to those who identify Monmouth with Blestium. There was another Roman way which led from Blestium to Glevum (Gloucester) by a more direct route; crossing the Wye at the former place, and leading up the Kymin from the left bank of the river. At Stanton, a little further on, the vestiges of a Roman settlement are indubitable, not only in the name of the place itself, but in the entrenchments that may be observed near the church, and the Roman cinders scattered about the fields. At Monmouth and Goodrich Castle, therefore, were the two great passes of the Wye used by the Romans. At the latter the river is crossed by a ferry.
“The awe and admiration could not be enhanced with which I wandered through the dark passages and the spacious courts, and climbed the crumbling staircase of Goodrich Castle.” So says the German prince: although the time of his visit was winter, when the Wye and its ruins are stripped of the adjunct of foliage, which in the imagination of common travellers is inseparably connected with ideas of the picturesque or beautiful in natural scenery.
Goodrich Castle forms a parallelogram, with a round tower at each angle, and a square keep in the south-west part of the enclosure. A minute account of this remarkable ruin is given in the “Antiqua Monumenta;” and Mr. Bonner introduces his brief description, in illustration of his perspective views, with the remark that “the fortification (although not of large dimensions) contains all the different works which constitute a complete ancient baronial castle.” For this reason, if for no other, it would demand special observation; but the tourist of the Wye, even if ignorant of the interest which thus attaches to Goodrich Castle, will acknowledge that it forms one of the finest objects hitherto presented by the banks of the river. It stands on the summit of a wooded hill, in the position of one of the castles of the Rhine, and in the midst of a scene of solemn grandeur which Mason may have had in view when he wrote his spirited description of the sacred grove of Mona, in “Caractacus.”