The Wye Valley around Tintern

Sunday 22nd September

Tintern Abbey and the River Wye from Offa's Dyke

Saying farewell to the WOUGS people and leaving our somewhat quirky accommodation (especially the plumbing), we headed to Tintern in the lower Wye valley, parking near the Abbey.

Following the road past Abbey Mill, we crossed the old railway bridge over the River Wye. The tide was still high, though the strong current was already gathering speed and ebbing. From there, we turned right and went up a bit from the river to follow the route of the old railway for a couple of miles. Then steeply up the hill near the disused Tintern Quarry towards Tidenham, to join the Offa’s Dyke path to the Devil’s Pulpit.

Black and white photo of flow patterns on the River Wye, Tintern

The steep uphill bit was sticky in the still muggy, overcast weather. The main drawback of this walk was the lack of views for much of the way. Even on the lower levels, nearer the river, the Wye was hidden by trees still in full green leaf. We did though, get a sneaky view from the Offa’s Dyke, just before we got to the Devil’s Pulpit – across a cow field to the 2^nd Severn Crossing, with the upper parts of Chepstow in the middle distance. Had lunch here. Then, there was a view over the Wye and Tintern Abbey from one of the few open stretches of the Offa’s Dyke path here. There was still a similar view over along the valley from the Devil’s Pulpit, but disappointingly, the pulpit itself, a big lump of Carboniferous limestone shaped a bit like a pulpit, was now fenced off, with the Offa’s Dyke path now running above it.

 

Second Severn Crossing from Offa's Dyke

Zooming in on Tintern Abbey, viewed from Offa's Dyke

The second half of the walk, was down from the Offa’s Dyke, passing the now closed Horse Rescue Centre at Brockweir, Que Sera Sera and the like permeated from the vintage / military vehicles / 1940s nostalgia fair on in a field on the Welsh side of the Wye between Brockweir and Tintern. Though this felt a bit intrusive and not really my thing, the steep incised valley made for good acoustics. Then followed the lower level path back to the bridge we’d crossed this morning, back into Tintern. There, we had an ice cream at the Abbey Mill – now a café, craft centre and tourist info-cum-gift shop. Liked the ceramic tiles on one of the walls, designed by local school children, depicting views along the Wye Valley, many of them suggesting windows and arches in the Abbey. The Abbey Mill was the last of a series of mills once built along the small stream which ran steeply down the Welsh side of the valley into the Wye, the Angidy. By the now the tide on the Wye was well out, with shallows just above the old railway bridge. The tidal range here is still 20ft (6m) on springs. River was still muddy, the current strong, as always here.

 

Wye Valley tiles at Abbey Mill

Left Tintern around 3.00pm to head home. As the First Severn Bridge (Severn Road Bridge / Pont Hafren) was still closed, we followed the M48 westwards to the M4 to the Second Severn Crossing which we’d used to cross into Wales on the way to Pembrokeshire.

Severn Estuary - Beachley Point and Sedbury Cliff

Second Severn Crossing from Beachley Point

This excursion was part of a Geological field trip, organised by the Wessex Branch of the Open University Geological Society WOUGS, led by Alan Holiday on Saturday 21^st September. After doing the Upper Soudley Geological Trail on the eastern side of the Forest of Dean during the morning (see separate entry), we headed south along the A48 to the Severn estuary near Chepstow and the First Severn Bridge.

To get to Beachley Point, we turned off the main road just before the Chepstow bypass bridge over the Wye. This took us through Beachley, past the army barracks and college. We parked at the end of the road, underneath the bridge. The bridge towers were now painted off-white. Near here was the quay for the ferry which plied the Severn between here and Aust, before the bridge was completed in 1966. There was also a slipway for the SARA, the Severn Area Rescue Association who go out in high speed motor boats to assist people in trouble in the treacherous estuary. Indeed turbulent water swept round the slipway, the bridge spanning narrows in the channel. Beachley Point has the highest tidal range in the UK and one of the highest globally, after the Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada. Spring tides can exceed 14m (46 feet). Hence the massive support pillars at the base of the bridge towers.

Geologists at the rock face

Thankfully, the tide was now well out, enabling us to turn left off the track and on to the shore to the rock outcrops. These were set back from the water and the banks of deep, soft Severn Mud, behind salt marsh grasses. Judging from the flotsam on the grasses, it still looked as if high spring tides could reach the foot of the rocks. Perhaps they’d done so this morning and last night.

We started with the exposure beneath one a tall electricity pylons. On our left, facing the rockface, was cream coloured Carboniferous limestone. On our right were rusty red Triassic beds – mudstones, sandstones and conglomerates. These were brought together by a fault, which was most obvious when stood back from the cliff. This was also an unconformity in which strata spanning much of the upper Palaeozoic era were missing. A bit further along, near the fine grained, slippery low cliff of limestone we clambered over, there was some conglomerate – fine grained rusty red Triassic material containing rounded pebbles of limestone from the Carboniferous, and a fault breccia with more angular pebbles. This and the limestone were coloured with yellow lichen above the high tide mark Some of the limestone was stained red from the Triassic material being washed over it.

Carboniferous outcrop at Beachley Point

From here, there were good views of both Severn bridges, as well as Austcliff on the far side of the other side of the first bridge. The first bridge, now known as the Severn Road Bridge, is a Suspension Bridge, like the Forth Road Bridge which was completed two year earlier and is now afflicted by corrosion problems in the cabling. The same problem is highly here, then. Being a suspension bridge, it is vulnerable to the wind and, used to be at least, closed during high winds. The estuary here is about three quarters of a mile wide. At the Second Crossing it is about three miles wide, where the Severn estuary opens out into the Bristol Channel. This is a sturdier bridge – only the middle bit is suspension. Of the two, I reckon it’s the better looking one. The first one looks a bit old tired by comparison (like many other structures built during the 1960s-1970s do now), even if the view is more restricted when crossing.

Views of the bridges

Add caption

Both bridges have become increasingly expensive to cross – the tolls are now £6.20 for cars, payable going west only. In my dim and distant past (mid-1970s) they started at 12p. For some time, they’ve been steep enough to put people off crossing too often, though I dare say that if they lowered them the traffic and development would become even crazier.

Pedestrians enjoying a traffic-free Severn Road Bridge

It took me a while to register it, but there were no cars or lorries crossing on the bridge as we went under it walking to and from the rockfaces, only a few vans which were probably people working on the bridge. It was closed at least throughout this weekend for maintenance – it’s always needed lots of that. I now saw why the M48 was so quiet when we came into Chepstow yesterday. Come to think of it, I don’t think I registered much road noise. Invariably it’s so ubiquitous that it blends into the background. There were, though, quite a few pedestrians. Locals, perhaps, enjoying a rare, quiet traffic-free view. There is a foot-cycle way on the north side. The Second Crossing is motorway only. As with any normally busy road devoid of traffic, it seemed a bit creepy. It would just have needed thick Severn fog to complete the picture.

Further to the lecture given by engineers from Cardiff University at this year’s WOUGS AGM my Water & Art piece shortly afterwards (30/01/13 – Renewed Interest in Severn Barrage, ref 5), nothing’s happened and it looks unlikely that anything will for the foreseeable future (ref 6,7)

Sedbury Cliff

Leaving Beachley, we continued north of the bridge, onto Sedbury Cliff parking on the road out from Beachley (Loop Road), just opposite the public footpath sign for the southerly end of Offa’s Dyke . We crossed the road and followed dyke part of the way, before turning right and going through the wood down to the shore. As at Beachley, a wide strip of saltmarsh grass separated the cliff here from water and mud of the estuary. The First Severn Bridge was now to the south.

Ammonite

The geology in the cliff is the same as Austcliff across the estuary: rusty red Triassic mudstones overlain with younger Blue Lias beds of Jurassic age, though actually, these were pale creamy colour limestones and shales. One of the upper layers in the Triassic sequence is known as the Westbury Bone Bed as it contains the bones of fish and marine reptiles living in lagoons in a hot dry desert. A small landslip near the northern end of the cliff had brought down chunks of the creamy material containing fossils. One chunk was full of oyster fossils. A couple of other pieces contained small ammonites, up to 10cm across. Otherwise rockwise, there was less to see here than we’d hoped. This is because the cliff was tree-clad and overgrown. According to Alan, it had become all the more so since his recce in July. The last bit we looked at was muddy underfoot, too.

Austcliff

Though Austcliff is much better exposed, it doesn’t seem as easily accessible as Sedbury (conveniently accessible via Offa’s Dyke), though it is listed as an SSSI and described in a Geology Guide to South Gloucestershire (ref 4). I went down there on a field trip led by my secondary school Geography Teacher during the mid-1980s, later that same February Saturday he took us to the see the Severn Bore (see separate entry). From about that time, too, I have a photo of my father sketching the First, then only, Severn Bridge, above the cliff. This would have at Aust Services, on the way to Pembrokeshire, or the camping in the Forest of Dean. Back then, it was the highlight of the journey, though very regrettably now, that’s all gone. There’s still Severn View Services near the bridge, but that’s set back about 600m from the bridge, the area where we’d picnicked for free having been privatised with the building of motel and conference centre. From Sedbury we could see a silvery sheened executive building just north of the bridge. As we saw on the way to Pembrokeshire last week, there are no services near the Second Crossing. I won’t bang on about much more here, but when they tell motorists and their car loads to take a break from the motorway, please give us a proper break, with seating outside, away from the car park for some air.

Views of the Severn estuary from Sedbury

Naturally, I was reluctant to head back to the cars from the Severn, seemingly so soon, just as the weather was brightening, with the sun on the river, bringing out the rivulets in now silvery looking mud (mentally filtering out d Oldbury Power Station, of course). Continuing on from the series of paintings and printmaking I’ve done on this theme during the past year, I’d looked forward to revisiting the Severn estuary this year for more reference material and inspiration. I took lots of photos, but was unable to do any sketching, due to time constraints. I’d liked a bit more time at Beachley, particularly, to walk along the track above the rocks to get a better view of the confluence of the Wye., though I did go down that way in 2003.

  

References and Links

1.Alan Holiday, The Severn Bore, Soudley, Beachley Point and Sedbury Cliff, Open University Geological Society Wessex Branch field trip handout (2013).

2. Wikipedia – Severn Bridge, accessed 24/09/13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Bridge

3. Wikipedia Aust Cliff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aust_Cliff

4. The story of landscape and geology in South Gloucestershire, Avon RIGS pdf

http://www.brerc.eclipse.co.uk/files/rigs_boards/geo_landscape_sglos.pdf

5. Joan Lee, Renewed Interest in Severn Barrage, Water & Art, 30/01/13

http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/renewed-interest-in-severn-barrage.html

6. Wikipedia – Severn Barrage -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage

7. MPs say case for Barrage Unproven, June 2013

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/energy-and-climate-change-committee/news/severn-barrage-publication/

Geology in the Forest of Dean

Upper Soudley Geological Trail - Saturday 21st September

Near Upper Blue Rock Quarry

Here are some photos and a couple of pencil sketches of rock outcrops / former quarries seen along the Upper Soudley Geological Trail on the eastern side of the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. This was part of a Geological field trip in the area, organised by the WOUGS and led by Alan Holiday on Saturday 21st September. After the trail, we had lunch at the Dean Heritage Centre, before heading south to Beachley Point and Sedbury cliff, to look at rock outcrops along the Severn estuary near Chepstow and the Severn Road Bridge – see next entry. 

Particularly for late September, it was an exceptionally sticky Saturday, with little or no wind and temperatures in the high teens – low 20s degrees celcius. It was better near the estuary this afternoon, where there was some breeze, though it felt oppressive in the Forest, which had a close, hemmed in feel to it, anyway and no wind at all. In such weather, the cooked breakfast at the start of the day felt a bit much. Particularly near the start of the trail, the ground underfoot was very moist, a bit muddy in places. I preferred the cooler, much fresher weather we’d had on the north Pembrokeshire coast the week before.

Hod Boy Memorial

Taking the road through the heavily forested eastern side of the Forest of Dean – a mix coniferous and deciduous woodland, we headed towards the  Dean Heritage Centre at Upper Soudley. Here, we met some of the  WOUGS members, before going on to Upper Soudley village Hall. From there, we took a short walk through a residential area to the start trail, our leader. Pointing out a couple of houses built with the local Devonian Old Red Sandstone. 

The trail followed the track of a former railway line servicing the former mining and quarrying industries in the Forest. As Alan said near the beginning, part of the trail was very overgrown, so we didn’t see everything in the guidebook. Moving along it, the outcrops of rock became progressively younger: the Devonian Old Red Sandstone Series near the entrance to the trail to limestones of upper Carboniferous age further along. The big geological picture was a syncline, in which the beds are folded to form a trough in cross-section, with the youngest beds in the core. Some of these contain coal seams. These were once mined, though not on the scale of the coal fields in northern England. 

Tree Sculpture on the Upper Soudley Trail

As well as Geology, there were hints of the Forest of Dean’s industrial past. Between the first two rock outcrops we visited, we went down some steps to the Hod Boy Memorial, a poignant tree sculpture placed here in 2002, the year of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee.  It honoured the young boys who went down the mines, and very young they were. I suppose they wanted people small enough to squeeze along very claustrophobic narrow passages. In the Heritage Centre car park, there was another powerful image tree sculpture of two men in a mining rescue. This was one of the more serious sculptures amid a company of Gruffaloes ( as in the popular children’s stories by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler) and a praying mantis. I didn’t notice it on the way in, but on the way back along the trail at the end, I saw the carving of an older man sitting by what would have been the railway side here. 

Lined stream

Some of the streams were still lined with impermeable material to stop the water sinking down through the cracks in the Carboniferous Limestone.

The Upper Blue Rock Quarry and Shakemantle Quarry were interesting for me both from a rocky and arty perspective. At both, the beds were fairly steeply dipping, like the lower Palaoezoic sandstones and mudstones in Pembrokeshire. At Upper Blue Rock Quarry, up the hill from the track and into the woods, were two rows of archways, where quarry workers had cut in to the stone. A few loose blocks containing fossils - crinoids and a few corals. This quarry was set amid ferns and beech trees, rooted into the rock face.

Sketch at Upper Blue Rock Quarry

Shakemantle Quarry was high, a much more open rockface, with pine trees growing on the slopes. The greenery of the trees complemented the  pale pinkish grey of the dolomite limestone. Near the middle of it, a near right angle chunk had been blasted out, exposing the the bedding plane.

It was a pity we didn’t have more time here, as I’d liked to have sketched and looked at the rocks in more detail, but time was getting on and we still had more rocks to see by the Severn this afternoon. 

Sketch at Shakemantle Quarry

Links 

Open University Geological Society homepage

http://ougs.org/index.php?branchcode=ouc

Wessex branch

http://ougs.org/index.php?branchcode=wsx

1.Alan Holiday, The Severn Bore, Soudley, Beachley Point and Sedbury Cliff, Open University Geological Society Wessex Branch field trip handout (2013).

Shakemantle Quarry

Miner rescue tree sculpture

The Severn Bore by night

Severn Bore by Moonlight - copyright Joan Lee (2013)

This is a collage I did shortly after we returned from our trip away in September, inspired by the Severn Bore I watched towards the end of it. I used some artistic licence: on this occasion, it wasn’t a clear, crisp moonlit night. I also drew on memories of tidal races and Severn Bores past.

More of my artwork at Water & Art

http://www.artywater.blogspot.co.uk/

This night time viewing of the bore was at the beginning of a weekend trip, based in the Forest of Dean, organised by the Wessex Branch of the Open University Geological Society (WOUGS). For various reasons, it’s been a while since I’ve studied anything with the OU. The level 2 Geology Course was among the courses I did during the 2000s. Like most of their courses, it was intensive to study, but the content was excellent. It transformed days out and holidays – since doing it I’ve always been on the look for rocks and I still, occasionally going on some of their trips around the UK to sites of Geological interest. On the Saturday and Sunday (21^st / 22^nd September) they had field trips to the Forest of Dean and both sides of the Severn estuary / Bristol Channel. I did the Saturday one, see separate entries for the Upper Soudley Trail and Severn estuary.

Leaving Chepstow, we headed towards the Forest of Dean, taking the route my parents took during my childhood camping holidays in the area. We crossed the River Wye, over the town bridge, taking the B’ road onto the A48, through Lydney, Blakeney and Newnham. There didn’t seem to be quite so many views of the Severn from the main road as I'd seen through the rose tinted spectacles I wore during my childhood. Frequently, it was hidden behind hedges and, at Newnham, a floodbank. Caught glimpses, at Newnham and from some of the higher ground. Oldbury nuclear power station was just as prominent on the far side as it’s always been. Believe this and Berkeley just upstream are now being decommissioned, a process which will take many decades. Don't know off-hand whether there are any plans to replace them. From what I could see at Newnham, the low tide water level was very low, the water there was dead calm, with birds on the sand-mud banks.

We got to the hotel around 5pm, joined the other WOUGS members for dinner at half-seven. We then headed off to the Severn Bore Inn, on the A48, just south of Minsterworth. We arrived just before 9pm, about 35 minutes before the Bore was due – they say be there at least thirty minutes before; tidal bores being even less punctual than buses or trains. The predicted time here was around 21:30 BST, a three star. They can go up to four or five and exceed 2m in height. Very conveniently, there was a green area in front of the pub car park, which we had all to ourselves, along the banks of the Severn. Here it looked more like a river than an estuary, much narrower. Of course, it was dark, so I wasn’t sure how much we’d actually see of the bore.  The Moon was just past full - Full moon 19/09/13, Thursday, 12:15h BST. I’d hoped it would be out and reflected on the water. It was for some of the time, though it was very hazy and it kept drifting behind cloud. Light pollution from the street lights in the car park and passing traffic on the A48 was less of an issue than when trying to stargaze, though our view down the river was easier with when there wasn’t any glare. The car park lighting was less noticeable standing in some places along the river bank than others. All in all, we all twigged that we were looking down the river towards a bend.

Before the bore, the water was remarkably calm almost still; just a few ripples lit by the Moon as it came and went. The trees on the far bank and in the distance along the river were reflected near perfectly. Little or no wind and it felt very mild. I was just dressed in a light coat. On the far bank a ribbon of white torch lights on the move. We made out that they were runners. Probably some charity moonlit run.

Increasingly, as the predicted time approached, we looked down the river for any signs of the wave, or waves - usually one or more behind the leading one - and for signs of any water movement. At one point, we thought we saw a tantalising change in the distant reflections of the trees, only to find not.  As 9.30pm came and went, I heard people around doubting, “It’s stuck”.

“Is this the Avon, or the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal?”

“It’s gone up a tributary”, the Wye perhaps?

Someone phoned on their mobile from Newnham, to say it was ten minutes late there – a bit more reliable than Southern Rail can be, then.

We heard it first: a distant roar of the kind sea waves make when breaking on the shore, only more prolonged. Then the reflections upriver disappeared. “Here she goes…”, someone said, shortly be we made out a white breaking wave angled to the far bank. The mobile phone went again, just as we saw it break on the far side, then race past us. It was hard to tell what speed it was doing – C C.Eng arl’s estimated 10 miles per hour. It was definitely faster than the flood tide current on the Arun. The main wave was quickly followed by a second one, this time breaking on the nearside; though we didn’t see it do so as it was hidden behind the rushes. We made out the rise in water level, no longer any reflections. After the waves had passed, it felt a bit cooler, just as it can do by the sea when the tide is in. No surfers, as there usually are on daytime bore. After the waves had passed, the water quickly calmed down, within minutes.

At dinner the following even one of the WOUGS organisers said we were all “A bit impressed”, though perhaps not overwhelmed or amazed. I regret not seeing it in daylight this year – it’s been a while.  

Severn Bores Past

 

Severn Bore - February 1984

My by best view of the bore during daylight is still Lower Parting, near Gloucester, now nearly 30 years ago, on a February Saturday. My secondary school geography teacher led a field trip, beginning with an early morning start to view the bore, followed by looking at Jurassic fossils on the Cotswold escarpment, then Aust Cliff in the afternoon. I have a grainy photo here.

The full moon in my collage here is more reminiscent of the night at Newnham-on-Severn, when it was clear. This was again part of a WOUGS trip. There, where the river is much wider, it was a fairly shallow wave of only about 30cm / 1 foot high. Some of my fellow WOUGers were disappointed, “Is that it?”. But there then followed a great tidal race, most of the high tide rushing in over a period of about 30 minutes as a turbulent current. Certainly when it came to the power of the water, I was actually more impressed by this than what I’d seen this evening. As were staying somewhere nearby overnight (now apparently closed down) were able to return to the river the next morning and view it in the daylight. My other art work here – mixed media paintings – were done around this time.

 

Tidal Race (2007) - Copyright Joan Lee

Making Waves (2007) - Copyright Joan Lee

Background

There aren’t tidal bores on every tide on the Severn, just the spring tides, when the high tide at Beachley exceeds 8m, 9m for the larger bores. The highest spring tides occur around the spring and autumnal equinoxes. The spring tides on the Severn always occur early in the morning or in the evening, in the dark. Not as convenient, then, as tidal gorping closer to home. Not ideal either for anyone like us with journeys upwards of 100 miles / two hours travelling to do as a day trip. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of overnight accommodation within easy walking distance of the river.

For some reason, the tides during 2013 have been more modest than other years. There was a four star bore predicted on the night of 22^nd August. Otherwise there’s been nothing above three star.

These predictions are astronomical, taking into account the relative positions of the Moon and the Sun, which would affect the size of the tidal bulge due to their combined gravitational pulls on the Earth. The predictions don’t take any account of the weather and the amount of freshwater coming down the River Severn. When there’s high pressure over the north Atlantic off the western coasts of the British Isles, the bore / tide height will be lower; higher if a low pressure system over the same area. I’d have thought, after the end of a fairly dry spring and summer, the freshwater of the Severn would be fairly low.

It runs faster (10-13 miles per hour / 16 – 21 km/h in the narrower river between Gloucester and Minsterworth than in the wider sandy estuary around Newnham - 8-13 km/h (5 – 8 miles per hour).

References and Links

Open University Geological Society homepage

http://ougs.org/index.php?branchcode=ouc

Wessex branch

http://ougs.org/index.php?branchcode=wsx

1.Alan Holiday, The Severn Bore, Soudley, Beachley Point and Sedbury Cliff, Open University Geological Society Wessex Branch field trip handout (2013).

Severn Bore timetable 2013

http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/2013%20times.html

Wikipedia – Severn Bore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_bore

Severn Bore Facts

http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/facts.html

Macho Bore website for surfing dudes

http://www.thesevernbore.co.uk/home/4579550154

Chepstow Castle and the River Wye

Castle wall shadow on the River Wye

We left Solva on Friday 20th September. A dull journey along the M4 etc eastwards during the morning – the traffic, especially lorries, unrelenting. Then took the M48 to Chepstow, the route of the M4 pre- 2nd Severn Crossing. After a bit of car / parking flappery in Chepstow we headed to the River Wye near the town bridge.

Town bridge

Had our lunches on the high tidal mud bank, raised further during the 2000s for extra flood defence. The Chief Chartered Engineer noticed the kink in the metalwork of the bridge. Built in 1816, it used to carry all the traffic across the Wye at Chepstow. Since the late 1980s, all the traffic on the A48 crosses the much more substantial bypass bridge. The old bridge is still open to traffic, albeit single track, with traffic lights either side, though we saw one impatient, oafish van driver mount the kerb mid-way across the bridge on the north side, as oncoming traffic approached.

Welsh Coast Path / Offa's Dyke map

I then showed the CC. Eng the monument marking the start of the Welsh Coast Path and Offa's Dyke. Strictly, the latter starts at Sedbury Cliff, across the Beachley peninsula on the Severn. A circular mosiac of tiles showed a map of Wales, indicating the routes of the paths. Among the Welsh county bird symbols around the map, I noted particularly the razorbill for Pembrokeshire. Around the map were standing stones, one with a polished circle bringing out graptolite fossils.

Chepstow Castle from the English side of the bridge

We crossed the bridge to view the Castle from the English side, along with the strong currents of the ebbing tide. The Wye as ever here, didn't look the most friendly rivers. As well as the strong current - which when I first looked didn't seem any worse than what I’d seen recently on the lower Arun, but looked at least as strong when I looked again - there was all the mud - Severn Mud as in the main Severn estuary, staining the water brown. Then, there was the high tidal rise and fall, of as much as 14m (46 feet) on the highest spring tides.

Doorway at Chepstow Castle

During the afternoon, the murk which had been with us during our journey from Pembrokeshire cleared, letting the sun through. Even if that didn't banish the tidal mud or ease the current, it helped me see the Wye in a more positive light, hopefully exercising the ghosts of last year's soggy solstice.

Chepstow Castle

From here we headed to Chepstow Castle, the Bishop's Palace at St. David's having whetted my appetite for ruined buildings. This one being near a large, ominous looking river interested me all the more.  The Castle is built on one of the cliffs of Carboniferous Limestone in the Wye gorge. Presumably, the building stone was local limestone and sandstone of Devonian and Carboniferous age, sourced from the Wye valley area. Some recycled Roman tiles in the Great Hall. An interesting stone carved arched doorway here. The cellars and kitchen near the entrance to the Castle (admission now £4.50), along with the lats. Using the latrines, meant sitting on a couple of bars placed over a hole, plunging steeply down the cliff to the river. Apart from polluting the still turbid but now relatively clean River Wye, the lat-goers must have got very chilly bottoms during the winter. Prolonged business discussions like those I envisaged happening around communal Roman facilities, such as those at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall were probably unlikely at these more basic facilities.

Bend in the Wye opposite the Castle

The bridge from Chepstow Castle

At the upper end of the Castle, the sally port gateway. There were a number archways and windows with views over the river, along the eastern wall.   I liked the shadows of on the river, formed by the wall, in the afternoon sun.

We didn't spend that long looking round the town. C C.Eng went in to the Chepstow Bookshop further down the hill, though sorry to see the 2nd hand bookshop, built on the corner of the road, had closed. Had a coffee and cake in the Costa, where the girls there took sympathy with me, when I came in drenched on that soggy June day last year.

Low water in the Wye

During the afternoon, the tide on the River Wye dropped dramatically, revealing rivulets and ripples in the mud banks, particularly on the inner bend of the meander, opposite the Castle. By the time I went back down the bridge after our coffee, from about 4pm, the bases of the bridge pillars were exposed, along with a platform looking like the floor of a ruined building, under the near side of the bridge. Beneath the cliff with the square cave and fading painted Union Jack, the width of the river was less than half what had been earlier in the afternoon, with a bank of bedload boulders on the near side. I hadn't seen the water as low here before. I don't know what time low tide here was today, but the current was still flowing outwards. I wasn't surprised, given that it was an equinoctial spring tide, during which we hoped to see the Severn Bore.

 

Low water on the Wye

Leaving Chepstow around half-four, we headed towards the Forest of Dean, crossing the town bridge, the late afternoon sun, now on the river near the Castle, casting a silvery, sparkling light.

Pembrokeshire - Solva and around

Sketches Water & Art - Sketches from north Pembrokeshire

http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

Solva Harbour

We arrived in Solva on Friday afternoon, staying at one of the many holiday cottages in the village. The little River Solva ran at the bottom of the garden. On Saturday morning (14th September), pleased that the rain we'd had on our journey from Hampshire had now cleared -  we headed out on the first of walks along the north Pembrokeshire coast. We began by following the lane parallel to the Solva, to the main road through the lower part of the village, past the shops and a galley to the main car park,  where the Solva flowed into the  sheltered natural harbour. Here, we crossed the footbridge to the east side of the harbour, turning left to join the coast path up onto the hill above the harbour called The Gribin. We took the lower of the two paths which took us onto the top of the limekilns. 

Solva lime kilns

The geology here is Cambrian sandstones (Solva Group), deposited in a marine environment. Presumably, they are calcareous, containing calcium carbonate for limestone. Continuing up the hill, through trees, views down to the harbour, with canoeists heading out of harbour. At Penrhyn headland, the path opened out to follow the cliffs. This was the promontory between the mouth of Solva Harbour and the smaller valley near St. Elvis’s Farm. Three were views up both valleys, and back to Solva village – Lower Solva around the harbour, Upper Solva on hill top.  Saw  our first cave in the cliffs along the coast here, formed by erosion of the steeply dipping beds, here 45 degrees. The hard rocks and small streams, made for very undulating coastal topography. It was good then to have cooler, fresher weather for walking.

 

Near St. Elvis's Farm

Coming down the other side of this headland to the smaller valley, I did my first pencil sketch, looking out of the cove to the islets. Back on the cliff tops to the east, we enjoyed views south across St. Bride’s Bay towards Skomer Island and the St. Bride’s peninsula silhouetted against the sun. Calm water in the bay, sun on water, through broken clouds. It all looked very peaceful, spoilt only by the Fawley like chimneys on skyline to the southeast. These were part of the part of the Milford Haven oil terminals / refinery. To be visible from here, they must be pretty tall, being built well away from the coast of St. Bride’s Bay.

St. Bride's Bay

We then walked along steep, steeply dipping cliffs. Despite this being tough, old (up to about 550 million years), there was quite a bit of coastal erosion. In places, the path ran rather close to edge. Some ominous signs at some of the gates. Hoped the cows had a sense of gravity, we thought as we walked through the nearby field of grazing cattle.

We came to Dinas Fawr , a narrow, steep headland. The narrow, prickly path put me off, but Munros Man went to end of it, leaving me to do another sketch. We then had our packed lunches, overlooking St. Bride’s Bay. Beneath the cliffs were ripples from water refracted by the rocks. Some black, crow-like birds – they looked like crows but sounded different; less shrill.

After lunch, we continued on towards the steeper, inaccessible Dinas Fach headland, the far end being an islet. Here we turned round headed back to Solva, now enjoying the views west along the cliffs, towards St. David’s Head and Ramsey Island.

For the last bit, we took the very steep path up from the cove near St. Elvis's onto The Gribin (this is formed of one a number of igneous intrusions along the Pembrokeshire coast). We then followed the path along headland, passing an artist standing at his easel doing an oil painting, overlooking the view along the valley to the cove and islets. The sky looked good. We took him to be local artist David Harvey. Looking round Solva after our walk, we had a quick look in his gallery. All oils on canvas, various sizes, though I preferred the looser, smaller paintings.  He had a small studio on left of entrance, with work in progress at easel and  a table with large tubes of oil paint. More canvases if various sizes stacked against the wall.

Arriving back in Solva, we crossed back over footbridge and walked along the west side of the harbour to the quay and old lifeboat station. We had a cuppa and cookies on balcony of cafe, overlooking the harbour and the boats in the afternoon sunshine, though but pity they'd run out of scones before peak teatime. 

Leaving the cafe, we followed paths up the cliff to Upper Solva, largely avoiding the main road. Good views over harbour and out to the islets from top. The holiday cottages here must be particularly sought after. To get to any premises which didn’t look like a holiday cottage, second home, or anywhere functional, we had to go well up the hill to the outskirts of Upper Solva. Here we found the village store – Solva Megastore – Tesco be Afraid - Very Afraid.

Tea in late afternoon sunshine on balcony above garden, of one of the many holiday cottages.

Pembrokeshire - St.David's City

Sketches at Water & Art

http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

St.David's Cathedral

We made two visits to St. David's during our week in north Pembrokeshire. On Sunday 15th September, we looked round the Oriel y Parc visitor centre cum art gallery, shop and café. There, I bought the local geology map (BGS 1:50000, St. David’s Head) and looked round the exhibition of twentieth century artist Graham Sutherland's Beast lithographs. This is now the centre for Graham Sutherland's Pembrokeshire collection of artwork. There was also work at the centre by artists currently working in Pembrokeshire. In the gallery, too, some stuffed animals including grey wolf, otter, gannet, oyster catcher and various birds.In the city centre, we strolled round outside the Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace. We returned to both on Tuesday, looking round the Cathedral during a wet morning. When the weather cleared in the afternoon, we visited the ruins of the Bishop's Palace. We’d highly recommend the Italian ice cream place, on the main road (towards Oriel y Parc and Solva).

The Cathedral

With the sound of the choir emanating from within during the Sunday service, we had look round the outside, where there were stone carvings around the doorways and windows, along with some unusual building stones. The stone was mainly local purple-grey Cambrian sandstone.  Later in the week, we saw an outcrop of this near St. Justinian.  We looked round cloister area where there was a small garden. The cloister wall looked as if it had been restored fairly recently, with stone wall covered with mortar containing small sea shells. From here, we made the first of our two visits to the café in the refectory upstairs. This was on two levels. We sat on the upper one, overlooking the photography in the gallery below. We got there just ahead of the Sunday lunch rush.

On the wet Tuesday morning, we spent quite a bit of time in the cathedral sheltering from the rain which was heaviest during the middle of the day – vague recollections of sheltering here one afternoon with Mum, during another soggy summer camping holiday in the mid-1970s (see later section). Entry was a £3 donation – very reasonable considering some of the (compulsory) admission charges into many of the English Cathedrals (note 1).

Ceiling of bell tower (CAL)

The Chief Chartered Engineer bought a photography permit (£2). I did some quick sketches, though better earlier in the day, before we took a break for a cuppa in the Refectory, when it was less busy.

You didn’t have to be an engineer to notice the Nave was leaning, particularly evident looking along the Nave towards the Quire. Beyond the Quire and around the walls, were tombs of bishops and priests. There were several chapels off the Nave, the Lady Chapel the back. Along the Nave, stone carved arches. There was the Shrine of St.David, built 1275, restored from 2010, dedicated in 2012. On the other side of the Quire, the organ, with big base pipes. I was very taken with the floor tiles and their patterns.  I tried sketching a few, along with the rose window, with stained glass on the west side. Quite a bit of stained glass, including a rose window. Behind the Quire, a ceiling with stone flute carvings and wooden painted ceilings under the bell tower and above the main altar area.

Cathedral tiles (CAL)

In the Treasury, there was a small display of stone carvings, goblets, along with a timeline giving a potted history of St. David’s along the top of the walls. The Cathedral is a Anglican, or strictly speaking, Episcopal. There’s a bishop, hence Bishop’s Palace and the name of the pub up just outside the gateway to the cathedral area from the high street. It all started when St. Davis founded a monastery during the late sixth century AD. The cathedral dates from the late twelfth century. There was also mention of a bishop being killed by Vikings at the turn of the 2nd millennium, 999AD, then key events in English / Welsh history, including William the Conqueror, Edward I conquering Wales in the thirteenth century. Towards the end, Queen Elizabeth II granting St. David’s city status in 1995 news to me, see later section.

Note 1 – cathedral admission charges – tricky one. These old buildings, many still badly in need of costly maintenance don’t pay for themselves.  Some, like St. David’s trust people to make a donation as they go in (but does everyone?). Increasingly, since about the late 1980s, there’s an obligatory admission charge. I heard St. Paul’s in London was £15 (that was about 2 years ago, so probably gone up now). Winchester Cathedral is currently half that, for adults. Nonetheless, multiplied by two and two more child entries, was enough to put off my folk when they were there last month. They argued that their children are miss out on things we had free when we were kids, including something of potential educational value. They were regularly a part of day out, to places like Winchester, Chichester and Salisbury. Dad took us to St. Paul’s, too. Largely because of these admission charges, today was the first time I’d been into a cathedral for more than ten years.

Bishop’s Palace

Rose window, Bishop's Palace

The ruins of the once grand Bishop’s Palace were across the little river Alun (Alin) from the Cathedral.

Cathedral form the Bishop's Palace

Shadows of the Bishop's Palace wall in the late afternoon sun

By the time we got to the Bishop's Palace on the Tuesday afternoon, the sun was out.  We paid to go in (£4.50 each) and had a good look round. Taken by the shapes and textures formed by the building stones, windows and arches, did quite a few sketches. Views from the Bishop's Hall out to the Cathedral.

Building stones

Among the building stones here, some pebbly /gravelly blocks of conglomerate, in the purple-grey of the cathedral and a green.

Around Britain’s Smallest City

City Noticeboard

Downtown St.David's

I say city – it had more the feel of a village with a cathedral attached. The main street had about as many shops as the villages around our way. There were a couple of banks – rural / small-town size branches. City Hall was about the size of a typical village hall. Near the cathedral gate, where we stood sheltering from the rain eating our packed lunches and I sketched the view up the high street, was a small bookshop. Opening times seemingly very laid-back. On the Tuesday it was very busy everywhere, with coach parties (just as there are in London, Winchester, Bath etc), and people like us drawn to as somewhere to go during the wet weather. Nonetheless, we wondered if some of the traffic trundling round was there just to give it the feel of We’re a city, honest.  The lady at the tourist information centre at Oriel y Parc seemed to be overstating it somewhat when she told her caller to “go into the city…”.

What I’ve said here, reflects our personal impressions and is not meant out of criticism.  For its size, it was  certainly well served with galleries. As well as Oriel  Parc, we looked round a glass studio (Steve Robinson) and a smaller gallery near the cathedral gate. Before the last of the rain cleared on Tuesday, we had a cuppa in the Sound Cafe in the main street. Presumably it was named after Ramsey Sound rather than reassurance over structural issues. There was a seemingly unusual childcare policy: a notice just behind me – Unsupervised Children Will be Given a Double Espresso and a Free Kitten.

St. David’s is officially the smallest city in the UK, though this didn’t become official until the mid-1990s. Before then, I thought it vied with Wells, Somerset. Turned out, though, that during my childhood holidays to Pembrokeshire, it was another of those places like Guildford, which many people take to be a city because it has a cathedral but isn’t. Because of St.David being the Patron Saint of Wales and the cathedral being much older than that in Guildford, I’d assumed that, unlike Guildford, it had been given royal charter granting it city status centuries ago. Apparently, until the late nineteenth century, it used to be the case that an Anglican cathedral with bishop was enough, but then they changed the rules. Wells is still the smallest city in England, but when we last looked round there during the mid-2000s it looked a good deal bigger than St. David's. The population is now around 1800. What makes city status official in the UK? Reading the relevant Wikipedia article, it’s more complicated than I thought, though it still involves the monarch granting city status. There are pretenders, among them Guildford (or the football club there, anyway) and Reading. Then there are places which used to have city status but lost it and / or didn’t bother to reapply, most notably Elgin (recall signs to the City Centre while there in May) and Rochester (very recent, 1998). It’s good it needs to be official, rather than simply – We’ve grown encompass the Thames, now sprawl out the M4, with regular traffic jams at J11, or This is nice place to live and shop, with good links to London.

Wikipedia - City status in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_status_in_the_United_Kingdom 
Accessed 30/09/13

Soggy Childhood Camping Memories

The campsite was somewhere near St. David's, near enough to walk there. Not for the first time on these holidays, we were on a cliff top. The warden had a black cat called James. I recall my brother seeing snake – he said it was an adder as it had V’s on it – and being terrified (something passed on down my father’s line, perhaps). We must have had some good weather as there is a photo of my brother and me standing outside the front of the tent, with the sun shining. For much of the rest of the time, though, we were in about the one only part of Britain where it was raining. After about a week, my parents were fed up with hearing on the radio about the Lovely summer we were having – who asked us?

The things I remember (then, age 7) aside from the weather were two cafés in St. David’s (not there now it seemed) – one good – they gave us lollipops, the other (the day we – or rather my parents - packed up the tent early and left) not being much cop – no fish fingers, no ice cream! Then there was the overnight stopover at a B&B on the way back – me sleeping in one end of the single bed, my brother in the other, it didn’t work. My parents (in the double) got no sleep either. The scenery didn’t have much impact – just crossing the Cleddau Toll Bridge (think the sun was shining then, as remember looking down to the Cleddau estuary above Milford Haven; and a couple of castles – Pembroke and Carew - Hurrah for Carew! [my Dad recalling a boyhood chant].