Just had a long weekend away in Herefordshire staying just north of Ross-on-Wye and exploring this part of the country. I get excited just crossing the bridge!
Of course, a visit to Herefordshire includes an essential trip to Hereford Cathedral, which is the first thing we did on the Saturday.
For cartophiles this holds one of the most wondrous maps ever, the Mappa Mundi. It is the largest known T in O map dating back to the 12th Century: the rivers Don and Nile are the top of the T, and the Mediterranean is the stem, East is 'up' and the O holds the heavens. This is the third time I've visited it and each time I am awestruck by its size and magnificence.
The chained library is also fascinating to visit and holds books dating back to 800 AD and is the oldest known surviving chained library in the world. Hereford Cathedral rocks.
On Sunday we did a circular walk starting at Kilpeck. Kilpeck Church is renowned as being one of the most perfect examples of a Norman Church. It was built around 1140 and boasts some magnificent stone work.
The views were wonderful as we climbed up onto a ridge and had far reaching views to the Brecons and the Malverns.
The local name for a small hill is a Tump and we found a little Ruth treat on top of Coles Tump.
Late afternoon we popped down to Monmouth for supper. I remember first seeing the Monnow Bridge when walking Offa's Dyke. Nice to see it again.
It was grey and damp on Monday morning, so we decided to visit some of the Black and White villages of Herefordshire. First off was Weobly which had a sign posted trail around the village highlighting its key buildings, the first of which wasn't even black and white!
The richer you were the closer you could afford your wood beams to be, so you'd see houses with closely spaced beams at the front, where they would be seen, and more widely spaced ones further back from the public eye.
Loads and loads of black and white houses, of various states of verticality! The building below on the right was the old school.
It had started raining so we drove off to Eardisland. As I had an Ordnance Survey map in my hands I got distracted by a trig on the way, so we stopped, hopped over a fence into a muddy field, and bagged this one.
Back to the villages...Eardisland is the 'jewel' of the Black and White village trail, and I can see why. It is very picturesque even in the drizzle. It also regularly floods which is, sadly, unsurprisingly as it sits on a river which has been split to feed a water mill.
The last village was Pemberton which had an interesting bell tower set apart from the church.
And more photo opportunities.
On Tuesday, on our way back south, we stopped at Tintagel and walked the Angidy Trail which follows the wire work industry which date back to the 16th century. You start by walking up old leats amongst worker cottages, discovering dams designed to generate a head of water to drive the water mills.
Although the guide book talked of furnaces, kilns etc, on the whole there was little evidence except for overgrown walls and the dams. The only surviving feature is the depilated furnace buildings, with placards telling you that, once the furnace started, it would be kept going for months at a time.
The walk back down to Tintern was through a pleasant wood and the fungi reminded me of Luxembourg over the New Year.
St Mary's Church was an interesting fine. The stile to keep animals in/out was made from a re-used grave headstone.
The church was destroyed in a fire in 1977.
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