Marcher Land Adventures 1

My Autumn holiday this year took me to Herefordshire - but only a mile from the border of Wales on the one hand and Gloucestershire on the other. My location was here, Rose Cottage, along the kind of lane which has grass growing along the middle.

What I think I may do, rather than breaking the holiday down by topics, is just to describe where my travels took me each day. So we begin by entering the Principality by the Severn Bridge (just as well I wasn't planning to return that way, because you can't presently). I realised I was just yards from St Twrog's Chapel at Beachley Head, whose ruins sit on a tiny seaweed-covered rock just ten metres above the tide, for now at least. I slipped and slid across the rocks to have a look, not entirely sure I was meant to be there as most of the headland is military-owned. There's no sign of St Twrog's Well, which used to be there.

That was the first half-day - Sunday evening. On Monday I went to Monmouth, a pleasant town which seems to be fairly prosperous. There's a long, wide main street which leads up to the Shire Hall and main square with the Priory Church (shut) beyond. St Thomas Overmonnow is a charming small church beyond the Monnow Bridge - the only one in Britain which retains its medieval town gate - and as it has no central aisle it must have acquired its Catholic tradition after it was felt necessary to cleanse a church of such outrages. The Museum is in the process of moving to the Shire Hall, and in terms of objects only has a few broken bits of ceramic on display, but in its new site it will benefit from sharing the building with the old Courtroom, a profoundly terrifying space together with the miserable holding cells in the cellar (see St Albans for a parallel example). 

Previous holidays in Wales have demonstrated how there are castles around virtually every corner. My next stop on Monday brought me to the first of the so-called Three Castles, all commanded in the 13th century by the Marcher Lord Hugh de Burgh. This was Skenfrith. I had hoped there might be a café there, but sadly not, and after much delay I finally bought a sandwich from a filling station shop. Skenfrith Church is excitingly plain, though it contains the Skenfrith Cope, a medieval vestment in sadly deteriorated condition. I'd wondered if St Catherine might be depicted on it, but she only cropped up later in the itinerary. 

The second of the Three Castles (we have to wait for another day for the third) was at Grosmont: it, too, didn't delay me long and I was grateful that it was free to go in. At Grosmont, again, it was the church that provided the bigger surprise. The congregation has retreated behind a glazed chancel screen to the east end, leaving the nave as a dark, bare, barn-like space with monuments lurking in umbrageous corners: it was utterly unexpected. On the road onwards, I spotted a little folly-lodge, marking the driveway to Kentchurch Court.

By now the rain was falling as I made my way to mighty Llanthony Priory, away up a valley north of Abergavenny. I was grateful for my filling-station sandwich as there were no facilities there, either.

Could I make it, I wondered, to Newport? I zoomed down the rainy road to that coastal city, which, I discovered, is trying its best to look cheerful but really needs bright sunlight to manage even a half-smile. It doesn't help that greeting you along the main road to the car parks is a gigantic Debenhams resplendent in lime green, and empty. The Museum closes one day a week: it was Monday. The Castle by the River Usk is inaccessible. The Cathedral lies a panting walk up a steep hill some distance out of the town centre. The site is very old, but the building only became a Bishop's seat in 1949; entering from the west, you pass through the Romanesque porch through to the east end, which is a 20th-century extension. It's nice, though very obviously an overgrown parish church.

Tomorrow - a walk!