Picturesque Piercefield 5 HOUR, 6 MILE WALK NEAR CHEPSTOW
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View po in t s Hill Fo rt Picturesque s Piercefield Walks through Piercefield Park 5 HOUR, 6 MILE WALK NEAR CHEPSTOW Follow in the footsteps of the Wye Tourists and discover the picturesque viewpoints of Piercefield Park. t s d u s t r y Discover the heritage of the Wye Valley through our four themes Hill Rive Fo Hillforts r C rt o s n The brooding presencen of e c t massive hillfortsi built by Iron o n Age tribes, commandings wide vistas high above the Wye, reinforces the feeling that this area has been border country for millennia. Conserving Piercefield Hid View de Hidden industry po n As important as Downton in i I n n t s d With fiery furnaces belching out England and Hafod in Wales, u s t fumes and smoke the Wye Valley Piercefield is one of the most H r id y View de po n was one of the earliest places in outstanding examples of 18th i I n n t s d the UK to industrialise. Today century picturesque and sublime u s t the woodland and water which landscapes in Britain. It is a Grade r 1 Registered Historic Park and y powered this industry provide a Garden. Four of the viewpoints picturesque backdrop for this are scheduled monuments and Hill Rive hidden industrial heritage. Fo r C rt o Piercefield House is a listed s n n e building. Over the years many c t i Hil Riv o features had fallen into a serious l F er n o Cs River connections rt o state of disrepair and were unsafe. s n n e Some of these structures and c Think of the Wye as a watery t i o viewpoints were conserved in n highway linking the riverside 2010 as part of a Heritage Lottery s villages with the wider world Fund Landscape Partnership and you’ll begin to understand Scheme called Overlooking The Wye. its importance in earlier times when boatmen navigated trows Conservation work on these viewpoints, perched laden with cargo between the precariously on the Piercefield cliffs, was a highly Wyeside wharves. specialised task. The unique skills of a rope access team were essential. At Eagles Nest, the viewing point was about to fall off the cliff, so the team had to abseil off Hid View Viewpointsde po n with buckets of mortar and tools! These conservation i I n n t s Tourists discoveredd the beauty works, completed with considerable difficulty today, u s t illustrate the complex issues which would have been of the Wye in ther 18th century overcome during their original construction some 250 when it becamey fashionable to years ago. So when you stand and stare, spare a take the Wye Tour and find thought for those who made it possible! inspiration in the picturesque viewpoints. The views have changed as woods and farmland n Historic graffiti alongside modern conservation Hill are managedRive differently today, but Fo r C rt you'll still find oinspiration here! techniques. s n n e j (© Thousandwordmedia.com) c t i o n s Valentine’s Views These walks take you across the Piercefield Estate, retracing the paths laid out in the 1750s by Valentine Chepstow, passing the romantically named viewpoints Morris, the owner of Piercefield. such as the Lover’s Leap and the Grotto. Other tourists stayed in their boats all the way to Chepstow The Wye Tour, a two day boat trip from Ross to and then walked back to the Wyndcliff, as did the Chepstow became the height of fashion in the later increasing number of visitors from Bristol and Bath 18th century. Piercefield, where the Wye makes two who arrived in the town on the ferry. enormous bends, became an unmissable attraction on the Tour. One of the first tourist guidebooks - Some of the vistas which surprised and charmed Observations on the River Wye, written by William earlier visitors have been lost, but enough of Valentine’s Gilpin and published in 1782, added to the appeal of viewpoints remain to take your breath away today. Piercefield. His book promoted the fashion for picturesque tourism, travel which focused on an ‘Let the reader imagine a continuous ‘range’ of appreciation of scenery rather than just history or walks, of more than three miles in extent, laid out architecture. Gilpin was looking for the with consummate skill, with breaks at convenient ‘Picturesque….that kind of beauty which would look and judiciously planned openings among dense well in a picture’. The glimpses and splendid, vast foliage, here and there carefully trimmed and highly vistas on Valentine’s walks were famed far and wide. cultivated, where Art has been studious, wise, and successful…. And he will have some, It is thought that originally the route ran north to south. though limited, idea of the natural or Some tourists, like Gilpin, alighted from their boats trained diversity of this beautiful below the Wyndcliff and then walked the three miles to demesne.…’ (Hall, 1861) n View of Chepstow from Piercefield c. 1849. n View from the Wyndcliff. G. E. Madeley. (© Chepstow Museum) (© Chepstow Museum) z Front cover: Detail from Piercefield Mansion and Park, c. 1840, G. Eyre Brooks. (© Chepstow Museum) Picture this…. Originally the term ‘Picturesque’ meant, literally, a Wye’, he didn’t feel that the views were Picturesque: scene which would make a painting. Over time it ‘They are either presented from too high a point, came to be used outside the context of art, or ... they do not fall into such composition as influencing garden design, landscape fashions and would appear on canvas. But they are extremely ornamental walks. Designers were encouraged to romantic, and give a loose to the most pleasing think like artists when planning enhancements on riot of imagination’. country estates such as Piercefield. In time this led to Gilpin advocated the use of a Claude glass. This was the modern concepts of conservation and landscape a small black convex mirror that miniaturised the management. reflected scenery. Many artists and tourists used the Rules for the Picturesque: glasses to manipulate their view of the landscape. This meant they had to stand with their back to the William Gilpin pioneered a set of rules defining the view, looking at it in the mirror! As Gilpin wrote, Picturesque. His ideas had a lasting effect on the way Picturesque practice always involved some in which we view the landscape: ‘improvement’ of the landscape. A Claude glass ‘the most perfect river-views are composed of four became an essential item in the tourist’s luggage. grand parts: the area, which is the river itself; the two Increasing appreciation of Britain’s landscapes side-screens, which are the opposite banks, and lead helped make Gilpin’s book an instant success, the perspective; and the front-screen, which points bringing many artists, writers and poets to the Wye out the winding of the river.... They are varied by.... Valley. They left inspiring records of their trips in the contrast of the screens....the folding of the side- paintings, poetry and prose. By 1850 dozens of screen over each other....the ornaments of the Wye.... guidebooks had been published, establishing the ground, wood, rocks, and buildings....and colour.’ Wye Valley as the birthplace of modern British Although Gilpin wrote that, ‘Mr Morris’s improvements tourism. Today at Chepstow Museum you can not at Persfield.... are generally thought as much worth a only see their paintings but virtually experience the traveller’s notice, as anything on the banks of the Wye Tour and explore Piercefield’s rich history. n View from the Wyndcliffe, Ralph Lucas. (© Chepstow Museum) START Chepstow Castle (1) The walk follows the route of the Wye Valley Walk for three miles north of Chepstow. Follow the leaping salmon way markers. An optional route leads to The Lover’s Leap (16). There are some steep drops along sections of this walk. (Numbers in the text also appear on the map.) ALTERNATE START Chepstow Leisure Centre (Closest map point 2) Lower Wyndcliff car park (10) Upper Wyndcliff car park (11) Why not take the No. 69 bus to the Piercefield Inn, n Lion’s Lodge entrance to Piercefield Estate. St Arvans or go on to Lower Wyndcliff / Moss Cottage (© Chepstow Museum) (request stop) and walk back to Chepstow through the Piercefield Estate? 3 The Alcove This was the first of the viewpoints constructed 1 Chepstow Castle around 1750. A small building with an arched opening stood where the stonework remains. Why not The romantic ruins of Chepstow Castle delighted sit on the bench and ponder Arthur Young’s words visitors at the end of the Wye Tour. written in 1768. Follow the Wye Valley Walk to Chepstow Leisure Centre, ‘…..The town and castle of Chepstow appear from where the route leaves the back of the car park and runs one part of the bench, rising from the romantic steps beside the school. Then walk through a gap in the wall. of wood, in a manner too beautiful to express.’ 2 The Piercefield Estate This stone wall encloses the Piercefield estate on three sides, whilst the river Wye forms the eastern boundary. It was constructed after 1794 by one of the park’s later owners, Mark Wood. There were several entrances to the park, including the Temple Doors (17) and the Lion's Lodge (20), which in the 19th century became the main entrance. Louisa Anne Twamley in 1839 described how, ‘At a little distance from the Lodge, we met a small boy, who walked with us to a tall tree, and catching at a rope hanging from it, rang such a sonorous peal on a great bell hidden among the branches….This startling summons… brought the guide to our assistance, we were conducted to the Alcove, the first view-point, n Although little remains of The Alcove building and then in succession to the eight others.’ the view of Chepstow Castle still delights.