Tintern, the town

 When I went to Chepstow and I was examining my possibilities, Tintern Abbey kept coming up. So my
first full day in the area involved a bus ride up the Wye Valley to a small town with a huge abbey ruins. 

I got off the bus at the abbey and walked the 2.5 miles up road, along the river to the far end of the town. I will start my narrative up there

The station was created to encourage the Victorian 
tourist trade.  It lasted until the early 1900s.

Now it is a small park/concession.
Lots of interesting carvings. 

The signage is informative and well done.

They appear to be installing a small gauge railway.

Even the gazebo had carving
in both Welsh and English
Note the kayaks, a big activity on the Wye River

I followed the foot path back toward town, and the first thing I met was these wooden carvings of important people in Welsh History. It is interesting that the line between people that are historic fact, historic possibility, and mythology does not seem to matter much here.

King Arthur

 

 

Geofrey of Monmouth

    

King Tewdrig

  

  

King Offa
You will be hearing about
Offa's Dyke from me in the future,

Eleanor of Provence
Not to be confused with the later
Eleanor of Aquatain

 

Sabrina of Hafran
Goddess of the Sever River

 

 

The river path is along the River Wye. At this point it is a tidal river. The difference of low to high tide can be as much as 14m.  (That is almost 50 feet.) twice a day each direction. A lot of water changes place in a very short period of time. Since some of the photos are on my walk up stream, and some taken several hours later, notice the difference in how much mud you see along the way.  It will show you in some small way the phenomenal amount of water that moves thru here. 

Old train bridge

Stairs down to the river path

The river was quite high at this time

Rookery, very noisy

The path goes thru the church yard of St Michaels.

I find these small churches much more
interesting in some ways than the big impressive abbey.
This is where the everyday folk connected with the deity.

Leaving the church yard, you walk across what used to be the Quay.
It is now a carpark.
I watched a man tossing a large hook made of rebar into the river.  
He said he was casting for firewood.  Been doing it for 50 years.

The path goes along the road.
It is along the right of the picture

I would have missed the path if I hadn't seen it on my way down
To my American eyes, paths can look like private entries.
Gates to public places, or public allowed places look just
like the gates to private yards.

Along the river
several hours earlier.

This is the Angidy. Looks like a creek.
Where you see the cars parked was a mill pond.
But upstream from here were 20 water wheels that  powered
a whole iron and wire industry. This was one of the earliest of the
metal working of the rising industrial revolution.

Abbey Mill
This is the last surviving wheel left.
It is run on a regular basis, but today it
was down for maintenance. 

The water races thru these channels down to the Wye.

I love this dragon.
The restaurant behind it is where I had
the best rabbit pie I have ever had.

The Abbey Mill is on this area that used to be a tidal dock.
The boats would enter over a wall at high tide. (To the left of that blue roof.)
When the tide went out, the wall holds in enough water so the
boats would still be floating.  Very useful when you need
to load and unload goods.

I think I will do the Abbey in a separate post. Stay tuned