When we went to Gwent (and Cardiff)

Once again, it was the time of year when the Severn tunnel is closed for maintenance - very important - and whoever it is who runs the railways these days fails to put on an even half-decent replacement coach service between Cardiff and Bristol. Not wanting the Northerner to have to return home via Gloucester and, per chance, Swindon, I drove him to and from work on the days it was possible for me to do it - four in all.

Although eight hours is a long day out, I wanted to stay in Wales if I could, to reduce costs and my carbon footprint, but one day was forecast to be full of heavy rain and thunderstorms, and another over 30°C, so on those days I made the two round trips, regretting my decision the second day when it took me two and a half hours to cover the 36 miles from home to his workplace on Newport Road in extreme heat. 

The other two days were hot but not oppressively so, so Cwtch and I pored over walk books and websites and found two places in nearby Gwent for us to visit.

First stop, the Sirhowy valley, in the next valley from where Son the Younger used to live, so full of familiar skylines. The outward leg of our circular walk started just south-west of Crosskeys and took us along a disused railtrack, the former signal box now seeing service as a toilet. 

high above the River Sirhowy

sycamore and whitethorn

foxglove

It's an easy walk through the woods, though given the number of little streams crossing the path, I imagine it must be muddy in places when it's not summer.

There were some quite steep steps to climb at the point where our route turned back on itself, which caused my knees to grumble a bit, but we made it. 

Cwmfelinfach

Returning along a higher path, there were some lovely views along the valley to where the Sirhowy meets the River Ebbw. I was thrilled to hear both a cuckoo and a curlew.

non-native fiddleneck

enough hemlock water dropwort to poison the entire population of the British Isles

one of many self-seeded alders lining the path

broad-leaved marsh orchid

marsh valerian

The worst bit of the walk was right at the end when our route took us down an extremely steep, stony path to our starting point, but again I managed to negotiate it without doing myself any damage. I think I might try the longer walk through Sirhowy Country Park next time, as it's definitely worth a revisit.

Our second destination in Gwent was Wentwood , formerly ancient woodland that was part of Chepstow Castle's hunting grounds and is now mostly conifer plantation (though the long and laborious job of replanting native species has started). I was following a walk I'd found online that would take me to the Curley Oak, reputed to be between five hundred and a thousand years old.

                                                   

distant view of England adrift across the Severn

Our route took us past not one but two Bronze Age round barrows in a truly lovely spot.

Fallow deer slots

The track through the woods was still quite muddy in places, despite the warm and (mainly) dry summer weather we've been having.

heath-spotted orchid

honeysuckle

yellow pimpernel

Our route to the oak relied heavily on waymark posts, rather than giving estimated distances between instructions, which was a shame as many of them were no longer in place. Much of the time I had to guess whether a path was the right one, and we did get a bit lost, but not in that trackless-middle-of-the-wildwood way; it was more 'well, I'm pretty sure the car park is back in that direction so I'll take this path for now and head left when I get a chance'. I made a few of my own waymarks for the return leg. 

Eventually - having been distracted by its fence and missed it altogether - we looped back around and reached the Curley Oak. I have to say, it looks rather older than five hundred years to me.

As is the custom with ancient trees, people had left little gifts for it, the most striking of which were limpet shells. I'd picked up a bit of blue pottery earlier on our route, so I left that.

I felt a bit of a pang standing there, as Curly was my father's old nickname and the name his grandchildren called him. I'd have liked to have learnt about this tree thirty years ago, when he was still strong and I could have walked to see it with him. But in any event, it was a stunning high point for a walk.

Since I was in the area with time to spare, I did stop off in Cardiff to visit another memorable tree, this one a London Plane near Roath Park that's in the process of eating a Victorian pillar box. 

And I also got to while away a couple of hours in a favourite spot in Llandaff, namely the wild bit of the graveyard in the Cathedral precinct. Even under the trees it was hot, though, so Cwtch and I headed down to the River Taff where there was a bit of a breeze.

Cwtch is still too scared of water to chase the ducks, thankfully.

It must have been during the 1980s that I last stood in this spot. Much water over the weir since then. 

Brisworthy Stone Circle and Legis Tor

Everything went wrong at the start of this walk. For a start, we arrived in Shaugh Prior, close to our starting point, without the book of walks (although I had managed to remember the map, always the more important of the two).  Plus, the only vegetarian option the village pub had available - vegetable lasagne - had the texture of cardboard that had been boiled and then staked out in the desert for a fortnight. Plus, when I got into the church, there was absolutely no mention of illustrious poet and former vicar (twice), Robert Herrick - although this, it turned out, was on account of my having misremembered Shaugh Prior for Dean Prior, a few miles up the A38 (though I can't quite believe I did, since I actually went to primary school with a lad called Dean Prior and you'd have thought that might have acted an an aide-memoire). Plus, Ted rolled in something very stinky in the churchyard.

There was this wondrous 15th century font cover, however.

And we weren't entirely deprived of poetry, either, as there was a memorial to 'the poet of Dartmoor', Noel Carrington, who died in 1830, on the wall of the nave. According to the Church guide book, no one really knows why it's there since he was born in Plymouth and died in Bath, but it is said that he was fond of the area.





Let's have a shufti at his most famous poem, shall we?


'Dartmoor! thou wert to me, in childhood's hour, 
A wild and wondrous region. Day by day 
Arose upon my youthful eye thy belt 
Of hills mysterious, shadowy, clasping all 
The green and cheerful landscape sweetly spread 
Around my home; and with a stern delight 
I gazed upon thee. How often on the speech 
Of the half-savage peasant have I hung, 
To hear of rock-crowned heights – '

OK, this half-savage peasant has had enough. Ugh. 

We drove to a very busy Cadover Bridge with the windows down and Ted was marched into the Plym to wash away at least some of the stench.  We then proceeded to Brisworthy Plantation where we parked and set out. 

Even the easiest of walks become harder when you've forgotten the book. My partner in poetry was loath to pick his way through tufty grass in the hope of coming across half-hidden vestiges of antiquity, so we made for what we could see straight away - the stone circle, also called Brisworthy, some way lower down on Ringmoor Down. 

First, though, we passed a group of bronze age hut circles in amongst thickets of spring-flowering gorse.

By 1909, only four of the stones were still standing, and those that were still in situ - about half of the original number, it is estimated, were re-erected.  

We sat for a while and listened. The soundtrack was the same as two days earlier on Yellowmead Down - the white noise of larks, against which we could hear much cuckooing, jackdaws and the cronk of ravens. 

On the skyline, Peak Hill, Ladder Tor and the top of Sheepstor. Hard to imagine that there is a village, not to mention a large reservoir, in the fold of these hills.

Having crossed the stream at the foot of the hill, we climbed up Legis Tor, which offered varied cloud-and-shadow-strewn views, my favourite sort. Here looking over to Great Trowlesworthy Tor and Warren ...

... Hen Tor ... 

... and  up to Ditsworthy Warren House, where the bulk of the Dartmoor-set scenes in War Horse were filmed.

Looked like a few contemporary soldiers had passed this way also.

Back over the stream - a third splashing for Ted, now decidedly less pungent - and we made our way back to the car.  Short but sweet for now while my leg strengthens.  I will be back - next time with my book of walks.