Let's go for a walk: The Angidy Trail, Monmouthshire

Start at Lower Wireworks car park and follow the Angidy Trail way markers. (Numbers in the text also appear on the map.)

1: The Lower Wireworks. The wall running the length of this car park is all that remains of one of the most important industrial sites in the Wye Valley. It’s likely that when The Company of Mineral and Battery Works established wireworks at Tintern in 1566 they chose this site. Records show that a large building, 50ft long and 30ft wide with four water wheels and four hammers, two annealing furnaces and two forges were soon constructed.

Wire from the Angidy was of the highest quality and was much sought after. Large quantities were sent to workers in Bristol who made knitting needles, fishing hooks, bird cages, buckles, priming wire for guns, pins and numerous other useful items! Wire was also used in fashionable Elizabethan clothing. The wire industry continued until the 19th century and local tradition has it that Angidy wire was used in the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

In 1878 a new company leased the site to manufacture tinplate. In the 20th century the site became a saw mill for stone and later timber.

From the main entrance to the car park turn right.

2: Pond, Block and Hammer House.

Above the road on the left was a large holding pond, which supplied water to the waterwheels on the Lower Wireworks site. The leat that carried water here is now lost beneath the pavement. Also lost are two other buildings which stood in this area, the Block House and the Hammer House. At the Hammer House the iron was struck by giant hammers, making it denser. This was also called the Jigging Mill.

Take the first road on the left and walk uphill passing an elegant house on the right, which was probably an ironworks manager’s home. After the house are some steps on the right and then straight ahead a footpath which carries on in front of you (leaving the road which bears left up hill). Take this path which runs between the houses and keep straight on.

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3: Route of old leat.

You are now walking along the route of a long leat which took water to the Block House, Hammer House and the Lower Wireworks site. On the right you pass the old Bible Christians Chapel, established to serve the expanding non-conformist community of Chapel Hill. The next building, the imposing Valley House, appears on a survey of 1764 and was home to one of the ironmasters. A little further along stood The Globe, a pub and cider house used by the wireworkers to quench their thirst after work.

Walk in front of the new houses (which replaced The Globe) along the gravel path and keep straight on with the stream now on your right. As the stream bears away from the path to the right pass Primrose Cottage on the right, which is built right over the Angidy river.

4: Middle Wire Works.

This area was the site of the Middle Wire Works, which extended up the valley to where Crown Cottages (built 1904) now stand. Keep straight on passing in front of Crown Cottages and then walking between the houses until you emerge at the road in front of Chapel Cottage. Turn left onto the road and then immediately right along a footpath behind the cottages.

5: Chapel Wire Mill (Oyl Mill).

This was probably the location for the Chapel Wireworks (also called Oyl Mill). After a very short distance along this footpath there are two steep drops off to the right. These are probably where water was carried in a leat to the two waterwheels at Chapel Mill below you.

6: Leat.

The path now follows the route of a wide and well-constructed leat, which carried water for over half a mile from a storage pond to the waterwheels at the Chapel and Middle Wireworks.

Keep on this path, ignoring the first track off to the right, but when the track next forks bear right down to the river bank.

7: Tilting Mill or Tilt Hammer Mill.

Look out for some dressed stonework beside the stream. This was the site of the Tilting Mill or Tilt Hammer Mill, where the iron bars were cut into long rods and gradually lengthend into a course rough sort of wire.

8: Pond.

A constant supply of water was vital for the iron and wireworks, so a series of dams and storage ponds were built. This pond supplied power for the Tilting Mill below the dam.

Walk on past the dam, keeping the pond on your right and cross over a footbridge. This area is littered with waste from the furnace. The path emerges on the lane below Abbey Tintern Furnace. Turn left and walk into the furnace site on the right.

9: Abbey Tintern Furnace.

Take some time to explore the ruins of this excavated and partly conserved 17th century ironworks. Thomas Foley built it in 1672-3 to produce the special osmond iron needed to make wire.

10: Furnace Cottages.

Furnace workers and their families would have lived in the Furnace Cottages which overlook the site, classic two up, two down cottages built into the hillside.

Leave the furnace site at the top right hand corner, near the charcoal house.

11: Leat.

The footpath follows the route of another leat which supplied water from a pond further up the valley.

Continue until you reach a dam and take the steps up to the bridge to view the forge pond.

12: Pond at Pont-y-Saeson.

This hamlet known as Pont-y-saeson or Tintern Cross marks the highest of the industrial sites along the Angidy, some two miles above the tidal dock at Abbey Mill. In this little hamlet two rows of cottages remain; they were once homes for the workers at the wireworks.

13: Pont-y-Saeson Forge.

Records show that in 1672-3 a new forge site was working here on the area behind the pond.

14: New Tongs Mill (Upper Wireworks).

The Upper Wireworks or New Tongs Mill, built around 1803 by ironmaster Robert Thompson, was located on the hillside to your left. (Note this site is privately owned.)

Retrace your route back along the leat to the Furnace. At the car park turn left onto the road and straight away turn right just beyond Furnace Cottages (10) along the footpath.

At the end of the dam take the path to the right, shortly crossing over a track and follow the path uphill through the woods. At the road turn left and immediately right, crossing straight over and onto another path, which soon descends onto a wide gravel track.

Turn right onto the track and keep straight on until reaching a picnic table on the left, from where a gap in the trees allows a glimpse of the river. Take the left hand fork from the main track, which eventually becomes a narrow footpath which turns sharp left down steps under a bridge.

From here you can take a short cut to return on the path straight ahead which descends to join the road just below the Lower Wireworks car park.

To continue on the Angidy Trail turn right immediately below the cottage and follow the footpath to Chapel Hill.

At the end of this path turn left to pass the ruins of St.Mary’s Church on your right.

15: St Mary’s Church.

Picture: Andrew George, South Wales Argus Camera Club

Many wireworkers and furnace men are buried in this graveyard, which also contains some impressive tombstones of the ironmasters.

Continue downhill past the church and keep right down the steps with railings. At the road turn right. If you would like to visit the limekilns then bear right immediately where the road forks and follow the Wye Valley Walk behind the Abbey Hotel and over a grid. Turn left here along the Wye Valley Walk. After a short distance you will see the conserved limekilns on the right.

16: Limekilns.

Many villages along the Wye had limekilns, exploiting local limestone which had many industrial and agricultural uses.

Retrace your route back past the Abbey Hotel. The route now turns downhill to the main road. Cross and walk down towards the Abbey.

17: Metal making at Tintern Abbey.

In the Middle Ages, part of the Abbey grounds to your left, were used for industrial metal making. In 1568 the first brass to be made in Britain was manufactured here.

Walk on until you reach the river bank. Turn left and follow the path along the river side.

18: Quayside.

This river bank was once one of the busiest places in Tintern. The Wye was a shipping highway bringing raw materials in and taking finished industrial goods out.

The quayside stretched along the river bank, past the Quay Master’s House, towards the tidal dock at Abbey Mill.

Continue along the riverbank passing Wye Barn on the left.

19: Bark Store.

Wye Barn was once a bark store. Oak bark was one of the main cargoes carried by the trows down river to Chepstow, where the price of bark for the whole of Britain was set. It was then shipped to Ireland to be used in the leather tanning industry.

Follow the lane between the houses until reaching the main road in front of the Royal George Hotel. From here you can walk to your right to visit Abbey Mill.

20: Abbey Mill.

There has been a mill on this site for hundreds of years so at different times this mill has milled corn, forged iron, made wire, and most recently sawn timber. Today the restored waterwheel at Abbey Mill is the only one to survive in a village which once boasted at least 20 waterwheels.

21: Wireworks Bridge.

Adjacent to Abbey Mill stands the Wireworks Bridge, which was built in 1876 to provide a rail link to the Lower Wireworks site. A weigh house stood on the corner of the road before the bridge. Ironically, this bridge is probably the most visible reminder of Tintern's industrial past, although it was never really used.

Retrace your route back towards the Royal George Hotel.

Turn right immediately after the Hotel and walk up the Angidy Valley. Look out for the former works house dated EF 1699, which stands on the left above the wireworks site.

Just before this house is the pedestrian entrance to the Lower Wireworks car park.

• This walk was produced by the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) unit as part of the Overlooking the Wye scheme.