Beauty and tameness—The travelling hill—Ross—The silver tankard—The Man of Ross—The sympathetic trees—Penyard Castle—Vicissitudes of the river—Wilton Castle—A voyage to sea in a basket—Pencraig Hill.
Comparatively speaking, there is little worthy of remark between Hereford and Ross; and yet Gilpin’s charge of tameness is unjust. What it wants is excitement. The valley of the Wye is here beautiful—neither more, nor less; but its beauty is similar to that of the portion we have just traversed between the Hay and Hereford, and we therefore call it tame. Why did we not apply the word before? Because the contrast presented by the valley after leaving Hay with the wilder or grander features we had passed formed one of the vicissitudes of the river. This will be understood by a traveller who journeys up the stream. On reaching Ross, after emerging from the tumult, or sublimity, of the lower passage, he will gaze with delight on one of the most quietly beautiful landscapes in England—whose smooth green eminences, gentle groves, orchards and hop plantations (the latter far finer objects than the vineyards of the continent), white cottages, villages, and village spires, give an endless and yet simple variety to the picture. After passing Hereford, in quest of new excitement, the scene-hunter will pronounce a similar character of landscape tame.
Six miles from Hereford, the Lay adds its waters to the Wye, and near the confluence we remark an abrupt elevation, which being wholly different in character from the rest of the soil conveys the idea of an accident of nature. And such it actually is.
Marclay Hill—for so the elevation is called—in the time of Elizabeth, according to Camden, “rose as it were from sleep, and for three days moved on its vast body with an horrible noise, driving everything before it to an higher ground.” Fuller states that the ascent gained by the surprising traveller was eleven fathoms, that its bulk was twenty acres, and that the time it took to perform the feat was fourteen hours. Sir Richard Baker, in the “Chronicles of England,” is still more minute. “In the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth,” says he, “a prodigious earthquake happened in the east parts of Herefordshire, at a little town called Kinnaston. On the seventeenth of February, at six o’clock in the evening, the earth began to open, and a hill, with a rock under it, making at first a great hollowing noise, which was heard a great way off, lifted itself up, and began to travel, bearing along with it the trees that grew upon it, the sheepfolds and flocks of sheep abiding there at the same time. In the place from whence it was first moved it left a gaping distance forty foot broad, and fourscore ells long: the whole field was about twenty acres. Passing along it overthrew a chapel standing in the way, removed a yew tree planted in the churchyard from the west to the east: with the like force it thrust before it highways, sheepfolds, hedges, and trees; made tilled ground pasture, and again turned pasture into tillage. Having walked in this sort from Saturday evening till Monday noon, it then stood still.” The yew tree still exists as a witness of the fact, and the church bell was dug up not many years ago.
Ross
The traces of a Roman camp on Woldbury Hill, and on Eaton Hill those of an ancient fortification, forming a link in the chain of defences which formerly ran along this part of the country, may be inspected with advantage by the pedestrian who is read in antiquarian lore; but to others there will appear nothing which should detain their steps before the little town of Ross. Here commences the tour of the lower Wye—of that part of the river which is known to fame as the Wye. As for the town itself, it is neat and prim-looking, sitting quietly upon an eminence above the river. It is full of memories of the Man of Ross, which sanctify it from the boisterous vulgarities of a town. The “heaven-directed spire” which he taught to rise is its prominent feature; and this object keeps the lines of Pope ringing in our ears like the church bell, and with a little of its monotony.
This bell, by the way, is something more than an ordinary bell. It bears the name of John Kyrle, and was cast at Gloucester, in 1695, at his own expense. Nay, it possesses a relic more valuable than his name, for there is incorporated with its substance his favorite silver tankard. He attended himself at the casting, and, drinking solemnly the orthodox toast of “Church and King,” he threw the cup into the molten mass. In a local guide-book, we find several little particulars of this fine old fellow, which are interesting from their naÏvetÉ.
It appears he was entered a gentleman commoner, of Baliol College, Oxford, in 1654, and that he was intended for the bar but soon relinquished all thoughts of that profession, and returning to Ross gave himself up to agriculture and building, and the improvement of his native town.
An old maiden cousin, of the euphonous name of Bubb, kept house for him many years. In his person, John was tall, thin, and well-shaped; his health was remarkably good, and he scarcely knew any of the frailties of old age until within a very short time of his death. His usual dress was a suit of brown dittos, and a king William’s wig, all in the costume of his day. He disliked crowds and routs, but was exceedingly fond of snug, social parties, and “of dinnering his friends upon the market and fair days.” He was also exceedingly pleased with his neighbours dropping in without ceremony, loved to make a good long evening of it, enjoyed a merry story, and always seemed sorry when it was time to break up. His dishes were generally plain and according to the season, but he dearly loved a goose, and was vain of his dexterity in carving it. During the operation, which he invariably took upon himself, he always repeated one of those old sayings and standing witticisms that seem to attach themselves with peculiar preference to the cooked goose. He never had roast beef on his table save and except on Christmas day; and malt liquor and good Herefordshire cider were the only beverages ever introduced. At his kitchen fire there was a large block of wood, in lieu of a bench, for poor people to sit upon; and a piece of boiled beef, and three pecks of flower, made into loaves, were given to the poor every Sunday. The number he chose at his “invitation dinners,” were nine, eleven, or thirteen, including himself and his kinswoman, Miss Bubb; and he never cared to sit down to table until he had as many as made one of these numbers. He not only superintended the labours of the road makers, planters, and gardeners, but commonly took an active part in them himself, delighting above all things to carry a huge watering-pot to water the trees he had newly set in the earth. “With a spade on his shoulder and a glass bottle of liquor in his hand, he used to walk from his house to the fields and back again several times during the day.”
Without the trees planted by John Kyrle, Ross would be nothing, so far as the picturesque is concerned; and a delightful tradition, the truth of which is vouched by undeniable evidence, proves that the trees were not ungrateful to their founder. A rector, as the story goes, had the impiety to cut down some of these living monuments of the taste of John Kyrle, which shaded the wall of the church beside his own pew; but the roots threw out fresh shoots, and these, penetrating into the interior, grew into two graceful elms, that occupied his seat with their foliage. If any one doubt the fact, let him go and see. The trees are still there; their branches curtain the tall window that opens upon the pew; and their beautiful leaves cluster above the seat,
“And still keep his memory green in our souls.”
Besides the elms in the churchyard and neighbourhood, there is a fine avenue, planted by John Kyrle, called the Prospect, or the Man of Ross’s Walk. It is on the ridge of a hill behind the church, and commands a view of the valley of the Wye, about which there is some difference of opinion. In King’s anecdotes the planter’s taste for prospects is commended; and it is said that “by a vast plantation of elms, which he disposed of in a fine manner, he has made one of the most entertaining scenes the county of Hereford affords.” Gilpin, on the other hand, who travelled with an easel before his mind’s eye, cannot make a picture of it; and Gray the poet asserts, in reference to the spot in question, that “all points that are much elevated spoil the beauty of the valley, and make its parts, which are not large, look poor and diminutive.”The only other relic shown at Ross is a fragment of an oak bedstead, on which Charles I. slept, on his way from Ragland Castle. A house in Church Lane, called Gabriel Hill’s Great Inn, contains the chamber so distinguished.
Here the traveller may hire a boat, if he choose, for the remainder of his journey. The Wye, however, is navigable to Hereford in barges of from eighteen to forty tons; and sometimes in lighter boats even to the Hay, but the shoals in summer and the floods in winter frequently interrupt the navigation. In 1795 the river rose fifteen feet at the former place within twenty-four hours, and carried away bridges, cattle, sheep, timber, and everything that stood in its way.
But even if he determine afterwards to proceed by the river, the traveller will do well to walk from Ross to the ruins of Penyard Castle; not that these ruins are in themselves worthy of his attention, but the road is beautiful throughout, and from the summit, Penyard Chace, he will see the little town he has left, and our wandering Wye in a new phasis. The country is diversified with hills and valleys, and wooded spaces between; and more especially when the shadows of evening are stealing over the landscape, the whole is a scene of enchantment.
Although the lower passage of the river commences at Ross, we do not, for two or three miles further, get fairly into its peculiarities. From the gentle, the graceful, the gay, it glides almost insensibly into the picturesque, the bold, and the grand. The tranquillity of its course from the Hay—a tranquillity dearly purchased by the labours of its wild career during the upper passage—has prepared it for new vicissitudes, and new struggles. The following description, by archdeacon Coxe, applies to a great part of the portion we are now entering upon, and cannot be improved either in fidelity or style.
“The effects of these numerous windings are various and striking; the same objects present themselves, are lost and recovered with different accompaniments, and in different points of view: thus the ruins of a castle, hamlets embosomed in trees, the spire of a church bursting from the wood, figures impending over the water, and broken masses of rock fringed with herbage, sometimes are seen on one side, sometimes on the other, and form the fore-ground or background of a landscape. Thus also the river itself here stretches in a continuous line, there moves in a curve, between gentle slopes and fertile meadows, or is suddenly concealed in a deep abyss, under the gloom of impending woods.” “The banks for the most part rise abruptly from the edge of the water, and are clothed with forests, or are broken into cliffs. In some places they approach so near that the river occupies the whole intermediate space, and nothing is seen but woods, rocks, and water; in others, they alternately recede, and the eye catches an occasional glimpse of hamlets, ruins, and detached buildings, partly seated on the margin of the stream, and partly scattered on the rising grounds. The general character of the scenery, however, is wildness and solitude; and if we except the populous district of Monmouth, no river perhaps flows for so long a course in a well cultivated country, the banks of which exhibit so few habitations.”
A little below Ross, on the right bank of the river, are the ruins of Wilton Castle, which was for several centuries the baronial residence of the Greys of the south, and was destroyed by the Hereford royalists in the time of Charles I. Let us relate, however, as a circumstance of still more interest, that it was left, with the adjoining lands, by Thomas Guy, to the admirable charity in London which he founded, known by the name of Guy’s Hospital.
The Wye here passes under Wilton bridge, a construction of rather a curious kind, which dates from the close of the sixteenth century. Coracles are seldom seen so high up the river as this; but we mention them here because the hero of Gilpin’s often repeated anecdote was an inhabitant of Wilton. This man, it seems, ventured into the British Channel in a coracle, as far as the isle of Lundy; a very remarkable voyage to be made in a canvass tub, the navigation of the estuary of the Severn being quite as trying as that of any part of the British seas. Previously, however, to this exploit, the very same feat was performed by an itinerant stage-doctor of Mitchel Dean in the Forest. The coracles are a sort of basket made of willow twigs, covered with pitched canvass or raw hide, and resembling in form the section of a walnut-shell. Similar rude contrivances are in use among the Esquimaux and other savage tribes, and were employed by the ancient Britons for the navigation of rivers. They are now the fishing-boats of the rivers of South Wales; and when the day’s work is done are carried home on the shoulders of their owners, disposed in such a way as to serve for a hood in case of rain. The early ships of Britain are described by CÆsar and Pliny as being merely larger coracles—clumsy frames of rough timber, ribbed with hurdles and lined with hides. According to Claudian they had masts and sails, although they were generally rowed, the rowers singing to the harp.
At the farm of Weir End, the river takes a sudden bend, and rolls along the steep sides of Pencraig Hill, which are clothed with wood to the water’s edge. Soon the ruined turrets of Goodrich Castle present themselves, crowning the summit of a wooded eminence on the right bank, and as they vanish and reappear with the turnings of the river the effect is magnificent.
