Photo: R. Tudor Williams, Monmouth.
THE MONNOW BRIDGE AND GATE-HOUSE, MONMOUTH (p. [141]).
Midway between Ross and Monmouth stands Goodrich Castle, grandly seated upon a steep, heavily-wooded hill—a castle built so long ago that the memory of its beginning is lost, in the haze of ancient days. During the Civil War it was besieged and at length successfully stormed by the Roundheads, in 1646. It is in form a parallelogram, having a tower at each angle, and a keep in the south-west part of the enclosure; and, viewed from the Wye, it is a splendid ruin, trees that cling to the face of the cliffs heightening the effect of the picture. The Wye, flowing swiftly, soon sweeps one’s boat round its many bends, until the district known as the Forest of Dean is reached, lying between the Wye and the Severn. Striking scenes of stream and forest-clad cliffs, of castles and courts, of abbeys haunted by memories of events rich in historical interest, now follow one another as rapidly as changes in a kaleidoscope. Courtfield claims the honour of being the place where Henry V. was nursed; and there is a cradle to substantiate the claim. After passing Mailscot Wood, the river forms itself into a loop like an elongated horseshoe. On one side of the narrow neck of land are the famous Coldwell Rocks, the beginning of the great limestone cliffs that, onward to the sea, hem in the stream, and carry on their rugged sides clinging woods and ivy. Rains and storms have beaten these Coldwell Rocks into fantastic shapes, until to the traveller who first sets eyes upon them they seem to be castles cut out of stone by a race of mighty giants. “Castles and towers, amphitheatres and fortifications, battlements and obelisks, mock the wanderer, who fancies himself transported into the ruins of a city of some extinct race.”[8]
TINTERN ABBEY, FROM THE WYE (p. [145]).
Anyone who has seen the beauty of both the Moselle and the Wye must be struck by the similarity between the two rivers. The Moselle, to be sure, is in every way more important than the Wye—in depth and breadth of stream, in height of the bluffs that at many points form the banks, and in the number of castles that crown the hills; but, notwithstanding these differences, they might almost be called twin rivers. There are no neatly-trimmed vineyards sloping down the sides of the Wye heights, but, on the other hand, the Moselle cannot show such grand forests as can the English stream. And each river, at least once in its course, doubles back upon itself, so that the spectator can trace the loop, and see the stream flowing far beneath on either hand. At Symond’s Yat, a little below Coldwell Rocks, the neck of land that divides the Wye from itself is only some 600 yards across; and by standing on the rocky plateau, one may see the river flowing by on both sides. The prospect, one of the finest in all England, embraces large parts of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Monmouthshire, including Coppet Hill, Huntsham, Rocklands, Whitchurch, Goodrich Castle, Coldwell Rocks, the Forest of Dean, Courtfield, and—it is difficult to escape this—the spire of Ross Church.
THE NAVE, TINTERN ABBEY.