Walking in the shadow of Wordsworth

Here we share withyou the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty's Wordsworth Walk

Circular walk around Llandogo - two hours, three miles, with steep sections to viewpoint.

1 - Start at the former Brown’s Village Stores - Generations of the Brown family have been associated with the river as watermen, mariners and shipwrights. William Brown was the last ferryman at Prospect House, where a private ferry provided access to the English bank. Next to Brown’s (which found fame in the TV programme Sex Education) is the village’s former Baptist Chapel dating from 1882.

Cross the road and bear right, passing the old village school which opened in 1872.

Turn left passing the church on the left.

2 - St Oudoceus Churchyard - Look out for graves of the Madley family and other mariners, who are buried in the churchyard. The Madley, Morgan, Luff, Miller, Reynolds and Brown families all have long associations with the river and its industries.

3 - St Oudoceus Church - This church takes its name from Oudoceus, the sixth century Bishop of Llandaff who lived here. The church was rebuilt in 1860, although the registers date back to 1694.

The bell of the last Llandogo trow, the William and Sarah, hangs in the church.

After visiting the church turn left and just after The Sloop take the path on the left beside the stream and go through two gates. This is a level, barrier free route to the river side.

4 - Route of Wye Valley Railway - This is the old railway line. The arrival of the railway in 1876 killed the river trade - and with it a way of life. Llandogo Halt, to your left, the smallest station on the Wye Valley line was only for foot passengers and light baggage. Goods and parcels went through Bigsweir Halt. Village children travelled to school on the train while hordes of holidaymakers arrived here for the Holiday Fellowship hotel at The Priory (19). A corrugated tin hut served as a waiting room.

5 - Boat building beside the river - Before the railway this riverside area was the focus of village activity. Between the 1780s and the 1860s villagers owned 28 ships, trows and barges. At least four trows were built on the riverbank, where repairs and maintenance work was also carried out.

6 - Bark stacks built here - Oak bark was a valuable local product. It was harvested between April and June and stored in massive bark ricks before loading onto trows bound for Irish tanneries where it was used to process leather.

It was such an important local industry that in the 18th and early 19th centuries Chepstow regulated the price of oak bark for the whole UK.

Cleaners, mostly women, worked beside the river, removing moss and lichen from the bark, often singing whilst they worked. The men who moved the bark were called bark carriers and wore on their head ‘a cross between a life buoy and a horse-collar’.

Sunrays in Llandogo. Picture: Michelle Webb, South Wales Argus Camera Club

7 - Route of horse towing path - Stretches of shallow water above Llandogo made it difficult to sail upstream, so gangs of men called ‘bow hauliers’, wearing a type of wooden harness, dragged the boats through the shallows. The calls of the watermen – ‘ Yo ho’ – as they hauled the boats along would have rung out across the Valley.

Well into the 19th century men were still being used as ‘horses’, even after a towpath had been constructed along the riverbank in 1811. The Towpath company charged a toll (6d) per mile per horse to use their path, so it may have been cheaper to use men.

"Hauling a loaded barge upstream was no light task and at a rapid it was desperate work, the advance being only foot by foot. The men bent forward and sometimes, if the barge happened to sheer in a stream, they almost lay upon the ground and waited until she could recover herself," wrote the Rev. Keene Mottram Pit recalling his childhood in the 1860s.

8 - Windlass Windlasses were also used to drag the boats up river. There was one on the riverbank here, as well as mooring posts.

Cross the foot bridge keeping on the path and go through a gate on the right.

9 - Wharf - The wharf is further along the river bank after all the houses. It was one of several wharves serving the village where cargoes were loaded and unloaded.

After a very short distance go through the footpath gate on the right, which leads up between the houses, passing the former Ship Inn, now a cottage, on your left.

10 - The Ship Inn - Along the Wye riverside taverns served the watermen, merchants, bow hauliers and travellers using the river. They were the motorway service stations of the day.

When river levels were low the boatmen were often stuck for days on end and with little room for stocks of food on board the trows the waterside pubs had a captive audience.

The Ship was the watermen’s favourite watering hole.

Although life on the river might seem romantic today, it was a rough life and until the mid 19th century watermen had a very bad reputation. This was mostly due to the bow hauliers who worked in gangs of men, usually eight, but sometimes as many as 10 needed for the biggest and most heavily laden trows.

The Ship was the first port of call for returning watermen and mariners.

Keep on the path between the houses until you meet the main road. Turn right along the road and walk for about 20 m until reaching Rosebank on your right.

Llandogo towards Cleddon. Picture: Simon James Bedford, South Wales Argus Camera Club

11 - Rosebank Master Mariner - William Williams (1850-1926) lived here with his wife Anne (nee Miller). The Miller family moved to Llandogo from Scotland in the mid 19th century. They ran a very successful fish business, stocking the Wye and supplying salmon to the top hotels and restaurants in London and to Billingsgate Fish Market.

12 - The Myrtles - Another Mariner, George Williams lived here. When he died in 1883 he owned four trows: the Good Hope, the Hannah Louisa, the Eagle and the George and Mary.

Cross the road and walk up the steps straight in front of you. Keep climbing on this path following the fingerpost signs for 'Cleddon', crossing a cul de sac, and up more steps until reaching the Trellech road.

13 - Former Lion Inn - This was a popular pub with locals and tourists, owned by the Cheltenham and Hereford Brewery. The Sloop was owned by the Stroud Brewery and when the two breweries amalgamated the Lion closed. It was policy to have only one pub in each village. At midnight on the last night many people sang Auld Lang Syne outside – and cried!

14 - Laurel Bush - Alfred Fryer Washbourn Williams (known as Fryer) was born in The Sloop in 1877. Fryer followed the family tradition of sea faring and was the last Sea Captain of trows out of Llandogo. He lived alone at Laurel Bush in later years until his death in 1953, when he was buried at St Oudoceus. His collection of many chains and anchors from the old boats was found in an outhouse and sold for scrap.

Go straight across the road, taking the footpath to the left of Laurel Bush signed for Cleddon.

15 - Great Hill - Called ‘Great Hill’ in the 19th century census returns, spare a thought for the donkeys who delivered coal up these steps to Mouse’s Castle and other homes high on the hillside. Donkeys were also used by the village baker to deliver bread as far away as Pen-y-fan. When they were not working the donkeys were pastured in Freedom Meadow, part of the Gough family estate.

Continue up the steep steps until reaching a tarmac lane. Turn right, walking past Rosehill Cottage on your left. (To avoid the steepest section you can follow the short cut from this point back down into the village.)

To continue uphill immediately after the next house ‘Misty Cottage’ turn left at a fingerpost signed for ‘Top of Cleddon Falls’. This is the steepest stretch which will get your heart racing but is worth it for the view. Keep on this path until reaching two large boulders – the Bread and Cheese stones.

16 - Bread and Cheese stones and viewpoint - One famous visitor to Llandogo, William Wordsworth, wrote about the cottages on the hills and the wreaths of smoke sent up in silence, from among the trees.

It is thought the village inspired his famous Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey. He may even have sat on these stones!

This was traditionally a lookout for Cleddon residents, who could spot the trows coming up the river from Brockweir, and race down to the quay to get work unloading their cargoes.

17 - Mouse’s Castle - The ruins of an old house known as Mouse's Castle litter the hillside here. After the stones, continue uphill and turn right along the path.

Turn right at the next fingerpost down a bridleway. Follow this track as far as Cleddon Falls. Cross the Falls and turn right immediately before the car parking area, going down the steps beside the waterfall.

18 - Cleddon Falls - A favourite with visitors for hundreds of years, in the 1840s there was a pub here called The Three Pots.

Cleddon Shoots is now a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest), and this ancient woodland is important for liverworts, mosses and plants that enjoy the damp conditions beside the waterfall.

Continue on this path, and soon turn right when it rejoins the main track. The path now crosses sections of boardwalk and zig-zags down hill. Keep going down, passing a lookout point over Llandogo (keep right here on main track).

Very soon the path arrives at a junction of paths on the edge of the ravine. Turn left here down a steep section of steps. Follow the path round as it bears right to cross the wooden footbridge.

Keep on the path across a second footbridge, passing a bench on the left. Continue straight on downhill with the stream on your right until reaching the road.

19 - The Priory - The Priory was built by the Gough family who owned and operated many sloops and trows.

Several of the boat-owning families who made their money from the river trade invested in properties like The Priory, a substantial gabled and barge boarded villa built in 1838 by the architects Wyatt and Brandon, who were probably influenced by the Picturesque movement.

When the railway arrived river traffic declined. Some anticipated the change and sold their trows. Others hung on, a few managing to scrape a living from the water into the 20th century.

The sound of axes hitting timber once echoed all around these woods. The largest timber was exported by boat for the building trade and ship building industry.

Bark was exported to Ireland, whilst the smallest parts of the trees were processed in the village at the Lion saw mill into chair legs, broom handles and staves for coopering.

Take the second road on the left and head downhill to meet the main road in Llandogo. Turn left to enjoy a wellearned ice cream from Brown’s store, or turn right to quench your thirst with a drink at The Sloop Inn.

20 - The Sloop Inn - Named after a type of boat, The Sloop originally faced the river, from where its customers arrived. Can you spot the date of 1707 on the wall? In 1881 The Sloop was run by Alfred Williams ‘Captain of Barques and Waterman’ who also owned the George & Mary.

• Walk produced by The Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership and originally produced as part of the Overlooking the Wye scheme with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)

Part of Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798, By William Wordsworth

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.