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.