More on Offa

Blogging about Offa’s Dyke path has brought home an obvious truth: long distance foot paths are, well, long. Last week, we covered less than half of the Way from Chepstow to Prestatyn. In Terroir’s terms, this is about a year and a half’s worth of section walking. This week, we return - it’s now 2017 - to pick up the baton at the foot of the Black Mountains, moving from Monmouthshire to Powys with some forays in and out of Herefordshire and Shropshire.

I realise that these blog accounts bear no resemblence to a traditional guide book, and are distinctly lacking in wayside commentary or historic detail. But that is rather point. I have read detailed and wordy blogs on long distance footpaths and, as with the guide book, they have little to say that is memorable if you are not walking the Way as you read them. All Terroir is attempting is to sum up the essence of the trail in a few pictures and fewer words. Inspiring? Good. Boring? Go buy a Guide Book!

Hay on Wye to Knighton - sliding down into Hay from the Black Mountains, we promptly took a day off to explore the town and, of course the book shops. Hay doesn’t grip us. Maybe it needs a festival… But what happens next more than compensates. Next is forgotten Radnorshire, a tapestry of exceptional countryside, with extraordinary towns. Our ancient guide book (John Jones’s ‘Offa’s Dyke Path’, HMSO for the Countryside Commission [remember them?], 1976) speaks of ‘broken hill country’ and ‘the most strenous walking on the Offa’s Dyke Path’. Don’t believe it - the seamless weave of hills and valleys urges you on, begging you to walk to the crest, rewarding you with bizarre surprises, textured and tempting views, and a way down again which enticies with promises of further delights. The diary of the Rev Francis Kilvert, whose ‘country’ this is, also beckons, with lyrical and accessible prose and a historical perspective which makes one weep for lost diversity: ‘Went to Bronith [Bronydd]. People at work in the orchard gathering up the windfall apples for early cider. The smell of the apples very strong. Beyond the orchard the lone aspen was rustling loud and mournfully a lament for the departure of summer’ (Kilvert’s Diary 1870 - 1879, Penguin Books 1987).

We stray off piste, of course. Hergest Croft garden on the way down the long grassy slope from Hergest Ridge is a must (see below). Kington, the sort of a town which supports two butchers where others have none, is described in our guide as ‘not the pleasantest town on the long-distance path’. I hope it gets a better press in the more up to date editions; entering Kington is like walking back into the 1950s and an experience not to be missed. Knighton seemed much more up to date and very much aware of its responsibilities as the ‘capital’ of the Dyke, providing all sorts of useful services to walkers and interested visitors alike.

The Clun Hills - we are in England, perhaps due to aspirational Marcher Lords attempting to push the boundaries forever westwards. The river Clun is the theme, prompting the latter day Marches’ enthusiast, A E Housman, to pen the following: ”

“Clunton and Clunbury,
Clungunford and Clun,
Are the quietest places
Under the sun.

In valleys of springs of rivers,
By Ony and Teme and Clun,
The country for easy livers,
The quietest under the sun,

We still had sorrows to lighten,
One could not be always glad,
And lads knew trouble at Knighton
When I was a Knighton lad.”

It goes on for another four verses but the depression which reading Houseman always induces in me is beginning to become unbearable. Look it up if you want more! The Clun Hills are subtly different from the Radnorshire variety. Here, old Red Sandstone and Dolerite give a rougher, more irregular feel; there is more woodland, scrub and hedge, pasture rather than meadow. It is exhilirating, spooky, varied - and you get to Dyke’s half way point.

Back to the Severn and the Vale of Montgomery - we are coming down off the hills, through woodland and onto the Severn plain, another almost violent change in landscape. There will be hills and views later but the immediate contrast is, literally, a bit of a let down. The Wye is sluggish, recovering from a spate of flooding; silty hedgerows bear witness to recent high water levels. The ground is damp, stolid, riparian, but an unexpected garden bordering the dyke provides domesticity, diversity, delight - and cake. A section of road walking contibutes another downer but suddenly the contours begind to wriggle and twitch and we find ourselves creeping up the ‘foothills’ of the Long Mountain, past the heroic remnants of an an abandoned quarry. Here on the Long Mounain lies ‘Leighton’, originally part of the estate of the same name but donated to the Royal Forestry Soceity (RFS) in 1957. Leighton has many claims to fame, particularly an old grove of Coastal Redwoods, planted in 1857, very shortly after the first specimens were intrduced into Brtiain. They remain unthinned, as requested in the gift, but a 1934 planting is managed by the RFS for timber and for an element of biodivesrity, to support the ‘wide range of plant species and associated insect life [which] … flourish’ in the estate. https://www.rfs.org.uk/media/28903/leighton-info-for-visitors.pdf The Way curves around elaborate dams and ponds (old water management features) and through shade cast by the most ecletic mix of native and exotic species I have seen in some time.

And now the confession. Our pictures of Leighton vanished in a mysterious digital crash, no doubt engineered by the sprites of the Long Mountain, and the heavy shade cast in many areas. So yet another reason for a visit to Offas’s Dyke.

So, as the Long Mountain fairies wreck our sign off at Leighton and the neighburing hill, The Breidden, we will leave you to seek accommodation in Welshpool or Oswestry, or perhaps take a turn in the neighbouring shooting estate, before continuing this journey to Llanymynech, Llandegla and the Vale of Llangollen.

Breaking News

Remember the hedgerow which failed to thrill me in Blog 1? Three cheers for the Surrey Wildlife Trust ( https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/ ) who have transformed part of the hedge into a heritage and wildlife beauty.