TADS #37:Chepstow to Monmouth (or Abaty Tyndyrn Ac O Gwmpas).

"How oft in spirit, have I turned to thee
O sylvan Wye! Thou wander thru' the woods
How often has my spirit turned to thee"

- Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth (1798)

The Bank Holiday weekend just gone saw the return of TADS following a 175 day hiatus (the longest in the group's history and for reasons we're all painfully familiar with by now) and it was, as you might have expected, an emotional return. It was good to see faces I'd not seen in weeks, months, and years and, in one case, more than a decade.

The last time I saw Ben was at my 40th birthday party. He's got married and had a child since then which means he'd had a more productive decade than me. With Michelle also joining TADS for the first time it felt good to blood two new converts and I seriously hope we'll be seeing them again.

Abaty Tyndyrn Ac O Gwmpas had always been planned as a larger event than normal and as TADS first trip outside England, to Wales and the Wye Valley, it was guaranteed a place in TADS folklore but in the months running up to it, and with another Welsh trip - to Abersoch - postponed due to Covid-19, it was uncertain if it would even take place. In the weeks running up to it I regularly checked in with both walking regulars and debutantes to see how they felt about it all and as the time got closer it seemed more and more likely that it would finally take place.

I'm so glad it did because it was a beautiful weekend full of laughter, friendships (new and old), love of nature, love of music, and just a real love for this life and planet we all share and now, more than ever, appreciate the fragility of. In a world gradually being submerged in the poison, untruths, and hatred of the likes of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson it felt nice to be able to do something that brought people together rather than tore them further apart.

So it came to pass that on Friday afternoon I met Pam, rocking a natty audio cassette face mask, in Clapham Junction, and we took the train to Basingstoke where we met for drinks and food in The Cosy Club with a small but much loved selection of friends. My halloumi burger was delicious and when they found out it was my birthday they gave this sailor a free glass of champagne. I can recommend The Cosy Club should you, unlikely I'll grant you, be looking to dine in Basingstoke.

I kipped on Shep's and, after he'd made me a cuppa and a veggie breakfast, we picked Pam up from Neil and Tina's, picked up Adam and Teresa and hit the road to Wales. Apart from a brief ride through Tadley (an exciting first time for Pam but even more exciting for me and Adam as we shouted over each other to regale her with interesting (for us) Tadley tales that road was pretty much the M4.

Leigh Delamere services saw me load up on Discos, water, and The Guardian and soon we were crossing the Severn into the fatherland. Chepstow's pretty much the very first place you come to which made it a logistically viable trip for TADS but, having been there twice before, I knew it was an interesting enough town and that the Wye and its valley were beautiful.

Or at least that's how I remembered it. I was anxious and apprehensive my mind may have exaggerated the region's beauty. I was even more anxious that everyone get on, everyone have a good time, and nobody struggle too badly with the walk (including me - the gout had not gone completely and I was, for reasons too boring to list, attempting the walk in Converse). On top of that I'd booked all the taxis and all the eateries and there's still this coronavirus thing about which we/I needed to be mindful of.

It's hugely flattering that so many people trusted me to in some way curate their Bank Holiday weekend and, in some cases, their only holiday of the year. But it's also something that plays on the mind. With great power comes great responsibility!

We parked up in the castle car park, the toilets of which had the SHEEP SHAGGING CUNTS graffiti in - and a lot worse too, and, after veggie sausage sandwiches in the Orange Crate cafe we met up with Michelle who'd driven down from north Wales. Neil, Belinda, Catherine, and Kathy having already joined us. Quorate, and in double figures, it was time to set off.

If only everyone could just assemble in one place. The joke that it was like herding cats wasn't far off as people kept dipping off to the shop, the toilet, their cars etc; It proved a blessing in disguise though as it gave me time to consider that the lengthy route I'd planned was probably going to be too much. It looks easy on a map but when you get there and you see the hills it focuses the mind a little.

I cut out a loop that was due to take us through Piercefield Park, The Grotto, The Giant's Cave, and the views over the valley and down to the Severn from The Eagle's Nest. There was also a pub stop in St Arvan's (at The Piercefield, where I'd planned to regale the walkers with tales of St Arvan, the 19c hermit who drowned when the coracle he used for salmon fishing capsized, and Nathaniel Wells, a local property owner who was born in St Kitts in 1779 the son of a Welsh merchant and a black slave, inherited his father's plantation, and became Britain's first black sheriff and the second black person in the British Armed Forces before dying in Bath in 1852) that had to be missed out. It meant we'd not get a pub stop until the end but that, too, proved advantageous.

We'd not been in Wales long before we crossed the Wye into England, Tutshill in Gloucestershire via the Old Wye Bridge AKA Town Bridge AKA Chepstow Bridge. A bridge with a handsome look, it was built by John Rastrick in 1816 who modified earlier plans by John Rennie, the architect of London's Waterloo Bridge. Rastrick, who usually designed steam engines, was also inspired by the work of Thomas Telford (Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, Menai Suspension Bridge, and Ellemsere Canal).

It's quite high above the water and that's partly because the Wye has one of the highest tidal ranges of any river in the world. It's the fifth longest river in the UK (after the Severn, Thames, Trent, and Great Ouse) and runs for 134 miles from its source at Plynlimon to Chepstow via Rhayader, Bulith Wells, Hay-on-Wye, Hereford, Ross-on-Wye, and Monmouth which was as far as we'd go this weekend.

Its Welsh name is Gwy and for much of its length it marks the border of England and Wales. Until recent years it has been a largely unpolluted river known for its good salmon fishing but of late it's seen an astonishing rise in the level of pollution and there are fears that the salmon may soon disappear and with them the otters, herons, eels, and kingfishers that come to eat them.

The main reason for the pollution is manure from both free range egg farms and intensive poultry units (making yet another good reason to go vegan). The Wye Valley witnessed the birth of British tourism in the 18c and the philanthropist John Kyrle and the poet Alexander Pope were early enthusiasts. The artist John Gilpin's Observation on the River Wye (1782) was Britain's first illustrated tour guide and soon Turner, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Thackeray were also captivated.

In 1802 Nelson journeyed down the Wye with Lady Hamilton and her husband William and the Monmouthshire Militia played See, the Conquering Hero Comes by Handel to celebrate him. An event that Nelson registered with surprise. He didn't expect to be known at "such a little gut of a river as the Wye". Three years later Nelson was dead. His withering dismissal of the Wye is not believed to be a factor.

As we climbed we looked back over Chepstow/Cas-gwent and its castle, the oldest surviving Roman stone fortification in Britain. Its construction began in 1067 under the Norman Lord William FitzOsbern and it's the southernmost in a chain of castles in the Welsh Marches (borders). In the 12c the castle was used when Gwent became the first Welsh kingdom to be taken by the Normans and held by two powerful Anglo-Norman magnates:- William Marshall (who died in Caversham in 1219) and Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke who was known as Strongbow and not, sadly, for his love of cider.

By the 16c the castle had fallen into decline and though it was briefly garrisoned during the English Civil War its main use for the last few hundred years has been as a tourist attraction. Though the current Welsh name for Chepstow is Cas-gwent that has not always been the case. The older name, Ystraigyl, means a bend in a river. The English name is believed to indicate Chepstow's use as a market place and trading centre. The Normans having made a small backwater a key location as the lowest bridging point of the Wye before it reaches the Severn channel.

When Monmouthshire was formed, Chepstow became part of it and changed hands several times during the English Civil War. In the late 18c it flourished as a port (lots of wine passed through here) and saw a greater tonnage of goods than Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea combined. Larger boats would unload into trows that would sail up river to Hereford and in 1840 a Chartist insurrection in Newport saw those responsible shipped from Chepstow to Van Diemen's Land, now Tasmania, as punishment. By the late 19c and a boom in shipbuilding the larger cities mentioned wrested control of much of the port industry and Chepstow relaxed into the gentler paced location it remains to this day

Back on the English side, the ten of us were climbing steeply around the outskirts of the village of Tutshill where J.K.Rowling once lived. We joked that she probably lived in the house pictured below but it's quite possible she actually did. It's not a bad place.

Open fields soon gave way to a narrower path that descended with a fairly steep drop over one side. Suddenly those at the front of the walking group stopped. A woman had fallen. Not one of our party but a 28 year old named Becky who appeared to be in some pain and whose friend seemed to be in a panic about what to do. We helped them contact an ambulance and stayed until we were sure that they had done so (they were very anxious and confused) before having to turn back. My suspicion is that Becky had twisted, or broke, her ankle which is absolutely horrid but not life threatening.

It made us a little more cautious with our footing for the rest of the day which was just as well as soon we were ascending quite steeply again. To the awesome views of the Wye's meander from Wintour's Leap. I didn't want to stand too close to the edge and the sight of a couple of climbers who'd come up from the river and were planning to go back down gave me the heebiejeebies.

The beauty of the view, however, was undeniable. Everyone was impressed. They were, perhaps, a little less impressed with me taking them on a particularly hilly diversion to visit the deserted village of Lancaut. Lancaut is an Anglicisation of the Welsh Llan Cewydd (church of St Cewydd, an obscure 6c Welsh saint) and in 1306 there were ten houses there, in 1750 just two, and now just an abandoned church. Nobody was that taken with it and I wasn't saved by any of the potentially helpful and distracting otters, herons, goosanders, and porpoises that have been seen on the Wye near here.

A porpoise would have made the diversion worthwhile. The abandoned church, sadly, did not and there were some seriously red faces once we'd climbed back up to the B4228. Red through exhaustion rather than anger I hasten to add.

A long and slightly uneventful stretch along a road was livened up by the occasional glimpse of the broad sweep of the Severn and Shep posing in a bus shelter provided a brief distraction too but when we finally came off the road on to a footpath things got better again. We wondered if we'd passed a badger's sett and we came across several felled trees which gave us a chance to play a little game of 'under or over'. Oh, we know how to have fun.

Eventually the path brought us to The Devil's Pulpit and its views of Tintern Abbey, our final destination and one I thought that would lift people's spirits. If you can see your final destination you know you're on the home straight being my theory. One which was soon disproved by Adam pointing out that we can see the moon but we wouldn't want to walk there.

The Devil's Pulpit, and Satan has many pulpits, is where, legend has it, Diablo would preach to the monks of Tintern Abbey. It's not recorded what his conversation rate was.

We began our descent to Tintern, the Wye, and Wales again. Many families, presumably on day trips to Tintern, were coming the other way and the kids seemed to be managing the climb better than some of us were the descent. It was a little slippy, a little steep but with careful footing and the occasional break we all made it down safely and over the Wye into Tintern via a bridge seemingly constructed of railway sleepers.

A ford across the Wye at Tintern had been used since Roman times and when the Romans withdrew from Wales the Kingdom of Gwent emerged but not until King Twedrig had emerged from his hermit's retirement to defeat the invading Saxons. A victory he was mortally wounded during.

Tintern Abbey itself was founded on the 9th May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It's the first Cistercian abbey in Wales and the second in Britain (after Waverley, near Farnham) but after the 16c Dissolution of the Monasteries carried out by Henry VIII it fell into ruin. Becoming something of a poster boy for ruin porn long before the term had been coined it soon started appearing in paintings and poetry and, in 1984, Cadw (the Welsh equivalent of English Heritage) took over the running of it.

Some of us took a longer look than others but all of us soon found ourselves, after a brief forehead zap, in the spacious beer garden of The Royal George (Wifi password:tinternet) where I enjoyed a pint or three of Kingstone Gold from a local brewery. In the hours we spent in that garden it went from glorious sunshine to so chilly we wrapped ourselves in blankets handily provided by the pub.

It was a pleasant, and convivial spot, but it was not to be our last of the day. Jay's Taxis sent Jay himself and Paul to pick us up. I went in Paul's van and Paul, something of a character, treated us to some of his more erratic political views. Not the most outlandish ever proffered unsolicited by a cabbie but not the most enlightened either. When we reached Chepstow he made sure that no woman tried to open the taxi door as that was a job that required 'manstrength'.

We quickly checked in to The Coach and Horses (Shep checking if they had a sink and not so he could wash his face in it) and all met up again in Sitar Balti for chat, loud chat according to another table of diners, about rulers, Are You Being Served, and the day we'd just spent together. I had tarka dall, a slightly cold chapati, and pulao rice. It was pleasant rather than exceptional but the Cobras flowed as easily as the conversation and, once done, it was straight back to the hotel for a night of very vivid dreaming.

The rooms seemed to be named for horses and Shep got the pick of the bunch in Master Oats! Breakfast was good. I wasn't overly keen on the veggie sausages chosen but the mushrooms were delicious, the fried eggs and beans good, and the toast was, er, toast. It's hard to go wrong with toast!

Meeting up again in the castle car park we were soon back with Jay and Paul and on our way back to Tintern, stopping to pick Ben up en route. Kathy was heading back and this felt like something of a half time substitution.

Tintern, and its Abbey, hadn't got any less photogenic over night but this time we could only look longingly at the Royal George's beer garden as we filed out of Tintern on the A466, stopping occasionally to photograph the majestic sweep of the Wye.

Tea and cake, and in my case ice cream, would be the first pit stop of the day at the delightful former Tintern station. Axed by Beeching but reborn as a family friendly location for walkers and sightseers to enjoy lemon drizzle cakes and fizzy drinks. An absolute treasure of a place and one you could happily waste more time in. We had places to go though so we set off on the grassy banks of the Wye towards Brockweir. Adjusting our dresses before leaving.

Once we'd crossed into Brockweir it was time for us to, quite literally, think on our feet. I considered the hilly route I'd planned may be something of a challenge and maybe a little much for some - including me - and, with the sun shining and a gentle breeze cooling us, the verdant banks of the Wye looked so inviting we instead walked along them.

It was, I think, a good call and the gentle murmur of conversation interjected with laughter and the odd gasp at the sheer wonderfulness of the valley seemed to prove my thoughts correct. I'd considered we could have a pub stop in Brockweir but it seemed too early and Llandogo, and its Sloop Inn, were on the other side of the river so we continued along through fields of sheep and round multiple meanders.

Cows too, and even a couple of chaps swimming in the river. After a brief section away from the water's edge we stopped for a break on the Wye's green banks and Teresa remarked that it looked like a screensaver! Another couple of kilometres brought us to Redbrook and Penallt and the delightful Boat Inn.

I fell into a round with Shep and Adam and necked a couple of delightful Butty Bach beers as we stared out at the rusty bridge back across the Wye and Adam bizarrely speculated on Catherine's non-existent penchant for bestiality. I guess you had to be there. I was in body but my mind was transfixed on the view.

It was hard to drag ourselves out of the Boat and over the bridge but we were nearly done now. A few more fields and multiple sheep (including a defecating one, obvioulsy) and the Wye Valley Treasure Tree and we were on the outskirts of Monmouth, near the confluence of the Wye with the Monmow river that's come forty-two miles down from the Black Mountains and was once famed for its brown trout.

We crossed another old bridge, a couple of lads were enjoying some cans of Kopparberg, and walked through one last field before entering Monmouth through its picturesque bridge. The Monmow Bridge, a Grade I listed building, is the only remaining fortified river bridge in Britain and when Monmouth was the site of the fort of Blestium this area was a significant strategic river crossing.

Turner, Gilpin, and John Sell Cotman all sketched it and almost everyone (from Black Sabbath to The Beta Band, Conflict to The Coral, and Hawkwind to The Wedding Present) have recorded in the nearby Rockfield Studios. I wondered if any of them struggled to find a pub open like we did.

Most were closed, fully booked, or given over to diners only and it looked briefly like we'd need to use the local Wetherspoons. After Tim Martin's appalling behaviour relating to Covid-19 I'd vowed not to do so but to keep nine other people away from a drink seemed a bit selfish. I was torn but I was determined to find another option and that came in the form of a five minute walk to The Old Nags Head which was friendly and fun as long as we didn't sit in the corner which was reserved for a regular with a zimmer frame who soon enough  made his entrance. Sadly not singing "zim zimma, who got the keys to me Bimma".

I'd intended to regale the walkers with tales of Monmouth's Savoy Theatre (built in 1920 and the oldest in Wales), how Monmouthpedia is a successful local version of Wikipedia, and how Henry V of England (reign:1413-1422) was born in Monmouth Castle but everyone was chatting away quite contentedly, and loudly again, anyway. They were having fun. I left them to it.

We all headed to Pizza Express for overpriced beers, pizzas (margarita with extra jalapenos for me) and even louder chat. Which is just what you'd expect when ten people are on holiday together at the end of a lockdown period.

Jay and Paul took us back into Chepstow and half of us went to the Mythos Greek bar for a couple more beers to round a lovely weekend off. Thanks to all ten of you who joined me for this walk (and especially to Pam and Bee whose photos I have mined for this blog). You made an old man very happy and, hopefully, in some small way, he made you happy too. Next week we're back in Salisbury and plans for next year's two dayer are already being discussed. Iechyd da!