Saturday 29th August 2020 - Newland Village, Nr Coleford.
A better day today.
Here’s a picture of our site. We are the only people here....it’s good for social distancing.
We were keen to get our walking boots on and decided to head to Monmouth. We packed a lunch and walked over Offa’s Dyke.....well it was probably there once upon a time but we didn’t see any evidence of it. I had the impression that Offa was a Welsh King who was keeping out the English but it turns out that he was the King of Mercia, trying to keep out the Welsh during the mid 700’s AD. We carried on down to the Wye River and back into Wales and up to Monmouth.
We crossed the River Wye by the old rail bridge onto the Welsh side of the river and walked into the town. We arrived in the town for lunchtime.
The only Medieval Gatehouse Bridge still intact in Britain. The river here is the Monnow.....I thought that if there had been two bridges they would be ‘stereo’!! Sorry.
The Shire Hall with a statue of King Henry V who was born in the Castle below.
There was not much left of the castle. Overall it was a lovely town with a good mix of shops. There is some good history connected to the town in addition to King Henry who memorably is remembered for his pre Battle of Agincourt speech where he seemed to want to swap his Kingdom for a horse? I also recall a story of the Duke of Monmouth - he was the illegitimate son of Charles II and was given the title by his father. He didn’t come from Monmouth and neither did he live here. He started a Protestant rebellion in an effort to surplant the legitimate heir, James II, as the King of Britain. He failed and lost his head in the process.
Sunday 30th August 2020.
Today was another bright pleasant day. I started with a cycle ride into Coleford to get the Sunday Newspaper. I subscribe to get vouchers and I don’t want to waste them! Later in the morning I did a small repair job on the van......to glue a knob onto the drivers window to secure it. I can’t be too specific about how it fell off in the first place as someone could be incriminated......needless to say, it wasn’t me!
We went out for a Sunday lunch treat at the Ostrich Arms in Newland. It was a nice old pub and the food was really good. It’s only the second time we’ve eaten out since the Covid outbreak. Janice had the rack of Welsh Lamb and I had the Beef Wellington......no it wasn’t rubbery, before you ask.
We had another good walk to burn up some calories around the village of Clearwell and into Coleford and back. Clearwell was a small village but had a Castle, Caves, an Old Iron Ore Mine and a Secret Garden but all were closed or very quiet. There’s no crush of staycation tourists here. Coleford is twinned with St Hilaire de Riez, in Vendee, France which is near to where my elder brother lives. He tells me that the relations between the towns were good until on a recent twinning visit when the Coleford contingent had the temerity to win the boules match amidst French claims of cheating! Entente cordiale!
Moving on again tomorrow. We have somewhere booked but we need to decide our route and where we could visit enroute, as we go into Wales proper. I am starting to feel more Welsh already.....I can feel a chorus of ‘Bread of Heaven’ welling up inside me!
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