The Offa's Dyke Path - Guidebook to the National Trail

The Offa's Dyke Path is a national trail along the Welsh Marches that runs 170 miles from Chepstow in the south to Prestatyn. Route split into 14 stages (average 13 miles). The earthwork dyke was constructed by King Offa of Mercia in the 8th century.

View Sample Route Map

Walk 1: Sedbury Cliffs to Monmouth

The Lower Wye Valley

---

Maps
1:25 000 Explorer OL14    Wye Valley & Forest of Dean
1:50 000 Landranger 162     Gloucester & Forest of Dean

Facilities
Shops, refreshments and accommodation at Chepstow, Tintern, Lower Redbrook and Monmouth; inn at Brockweir.

Parking for Circular Walks
East of Offa’s Dyke:     Forestry Commission, Tidenham Wood (the Park) off the B4228.
On route:     Bigsweir Wood and Lower Redbrook.
West of the Wye:     Chepstow near castle, Under Wyndcliff, Tintern Abbey, Tintern Old Station and Monmouth.

Alternative Routes and Diversions
The official route begins at Sedbury Cliffs, although you can start from Chepstow and reach the official starting point in about 11⁄2 miles.
The ODP doesn’t visit Tintern Abbey, but a diversion to Tintern is included in the text (Option A), reconnecting to the ODP at Brockweir.
At Madgett Hill the Offa’s Dyke Path splits. You can either go down to Brockweir for a low-level riverside walk along the Wye (Option C), or take the high-level route via St Briavels Common and Hudnalls (Option D). The two routes converge at Bigsweir Bridge.
(Option B is the ODP from the Devil’s Pulpit, before the Tintern Turn, to Brockweir via Madgett Hill.)
All the routes have merit, are described in detail, and may be used in combination to provide circular walks.

Mileage Chart
(Note The official route distance is given in brackets where it differs from the suggested route.)
Sedbury Cliffs (GR552928) to junction
with route from Chepstow    (11⁄2  miles/2.4km)
Chepstow Castle to Tintern Turn
(start of diversion to Tintern Abbey – Option A)    5 miles (8km)
Tintern Abbey to rejoin ODP at Brockweir    2 miles (3.2km)
Devil’s Pulpit (before Tintern Turn) via Madgett Hill
to Brockweir (Option B)    (11⁄2 miles/2.4km)
Low-level route from Brockweir via Wyeside to
Bigsweir Bridge (Option C)    3 miles (4.8km)
High-level route from Madgett Hill via St Briavels Common
and Hudnalls to Bigsweir Bridge (Option D)    (23⁄4 miles/4.4km)
Bigsweir Bridge to Lower Redbrook    31⁄2 miles (5.6km)
Lower Redbrook via the Kymin to Monmouth    3 miles (4.8km)
Total for suggested route    161⁄2 miles (26.4km)
Total for official route    171⁄4 miles (27.6km)
   Mostly steady rise and fall, although the diversion to Tintern has a long descent. Height is lost and has to be regained at Bigsweir and Lower Redbrook. Long descent to the valley at Monmouth, steep at first. Note the unfenced cliff edge at Broadrock with its sheer drop.

---

The first stage of the Offa’s Dyke Path follows the Lower Wye Valley on its eastern side as far as Monmouth. The upper-route alternative (Option D) to Bigsweir Bridge keeps to the dyke, with some breaks, as does the reunited route as far as Lower Redbrook.

This is excellent walking country, also blessed with another long-distance path – the Wye Valley Walk, from Plynlimon via the mid-Wales town of Rhayader to Chepstow. Permutations of the Wye Valley Walk with the ODP provide easy-to-follow circular walks with excursions into the nearby High Meadow area of the Forest of Dean. (The Gloucestershire Way heads northeastwards from Tutshill, and the Wye Valley Walk meets the ODP at Lower Redbrook.)

From near Symonds Yat, upstream from Monmouth and not on our route, the Wye has cut a course which for much of its way runs under thickly wooded limestone cliffs. Yat Rock is the best known of these cliffs, but not necessarily the most exciting for the walker – try the unfenced Seven Sisters further down the river! This often-dramatic terrain affords some spectacular views that continue south of Monmouth, including on the ODP the sudden arrival at the top of a 60m (200ft) cliff with a sheer fall to the Wye.

Peaceful as it is today, the Forest of Dean, where coal and iron were being mined before the Roman invasion, was once in equal competition with the iron masters of Kent and Sussex. This industry extended into the Wye Valley, with charcoal burners playing an important part in providing fuel for the forges. Timber from the finest oaks in the forest was reserved for the Royal Navy, to build the ‘wooden walls of England’. The largest of these ships might require the felling of over 3000 trees.

The port towns of the Wye were kept busy with import and export trade over many centuries, and shipbuilding flourished along the river’s banks. The Wye is tidal as far as Bigsweir, and at Chepstow, near its confluence with the Severn, the rise and fall is a remarkable 15m (49ft). The river is famed for its salmon, although they are less abundant than they once were. In Journey Through Wales, written by Gerald of Wales in 1191, the author mentions the large numbers of salmon and trout found in both the Wye and the Usk.

Another of the river’s features, which may be seen in the Tintern area, is the arrival in early spring of huge numbers of elvers (although there has been a dramatic decline in these numbers in recent years). They are completing a long journey from their birthplace in the Sargasso Sea, to spend the next 10 years growing to maturity in rivers and streams further inland. These tiny creatures, no bigger than a thin finger, are in great demand to restock the rivers of Europe, or as a delicacy (aphrodisiac qualities have been mentioned!). The elvers are harvested with simple equipment – a large net, a bright light to which they are attracted, and a bucket. In the season stretches of the Wye’s banks look as if they have just been invaded by a swarm of giant glowworms.

Joining the Route from Chepstow
The official start of the ODP is at Sedbury Cliffs (see below), but you may find it more convenient to begin the day’s walking from Chepstow (see ‘Chepstow to the Tintern Turn’), although Sedbury Cliffs should be visited if possible, if only for the view offered to the Severn.

Sedbury Cliffs to the Junction

with the Route from Chepstow

11⁄2 miles

Sedbury Cliffs. The Offa’s Dyke Path starts from a spot where the watery vice of rivers Wye and Severn has squeezed the land into a narrowing peninsula. A block of rough stone, set on Offa’s Dyke above Sedbury Cliffs, bears the simple inscription, in Welsh and English: ‘Llwybr Clawdd Offa, Offa’s Dyke Path. This marks the start and finish of a 168 mile long-distance footpath designated by the Countryside Commission.’

This is a place where old and new almost meet. Pause for a moment and look over the gorse to the Severn, Britain’s longest river. Upstream there are places where the river is much wider, but between Aust Rock and Beachley Point it narrows to provide a crossing that has been used from at least Roman times. Now, the 122m (400ft) high towers and web of steel wires that suspend the Severn and Wye Bridge stand silhouetted against the sky. The bridge, opened in 1966, has a centre span of 988m (3240ft), with side spans of 305m (1000ft) each. From here the great juggernauts that move amongst the threads are reduced to the size of a child’s plaything, their thunder lost on the air.

Immediately below the cliff, birds such as waders paddle the sandbanks, and you may get a glimpse of the sharp outline of a heron, that ever-patient fisherman standing stock still waiting for the moment to strike. In front of you, a long fence only fully visible at low tide projects into the water. This is a putcheon weir, and another one may be seen from the public footpath on the Severn Bridge as the tide recedes. The weir, a device that has been in use in the tidal reaches of the river for hundreds of years, is a static, and you may think barbaric, method of catching salmon. In season, hundreds of cone-like basketwork traps (although metal framing is now more frequently used), 1.8m (6ft) or so in length, are fixed four, five or six ‘storeys’ high into the structure. The salmon, trapped head first in the narrowing basket, cannot escape and are collected as the tide ebbs.

Offa’s Dyke explorers must now turn their backs on the Severn. When it is met again, 110 miles on, it will be a very different river.

From the stone marking the start of the ODP – GR552928, Sedbury Cliffs, found off the minor road near Buttington Tump, south of Sedbury – follow the dyke as it descends between scrubby trees. In spring you will pass a bank of primroses that brightens the way. Sedbury Park House can be glimpsed to the right. Cross a stile by an ancient oak and maintain your direction over a short field to turn left on a track to meet and cross the Beachley road (near Buttington Tump).

Take the signed path to descend diagonally right towards houses. Pass through an ungated gap in a hedge and over a bank (apparently a disused railway) to cross a lane and stream and reach a housing estate, initially with some aptly named streets – until inspiration ran out.
Take the road ahead, and in 40m turn left on the path found opposite Norse Way. This is rather an urban progress to be so quickly reached after the wilds of the Severn, but fortunately not the herald of what is to come. In 100m, turn right on Mercian Way. Continue beyond the road junction by Offa’s Close. The houses are left behind as the road narrows to a track, with white limestone cliffs seen in contrast to the green meadows below.

The track falls to pass Sedbury sewage treatment works. As the track bends left, take the path on the right, over a stile, pursuing it with garden fences on your right and a stable to your left. A further stile is crossed, with the Wye seen immediately below to the left, a row of bungalows to your right and glimpses forward to Chepstow Castle. The path soon meets a road, but keep close to the fence on your left, passing Wye Bank Place, and, briefly, between a hedge and houses.

On rejoining the road turn left through a bungalow estate, following Wyebank Avenue. Turn right at Wyebank Drive to meet a minor road. There turn left, soon crossing the railway and the Chepstow bypass (A48). In about 250m, take the signed tarmac path on the left that provides a good view to Chepstow Castle, the Wye, and John Rastrick’s delicately arched iron bridge of 1816.

As you meet a white house, veer left to follow a narrow way hemmed in by a high wall and an ivy bank. The descending path brings a briefly improved view to Chepstow, before climbing steeply to meet a lane. Here bear left on a path running between almost fortress-like walls, descending to meet the junction with the route from Chepstow. Turn right here. (The route description continues after the information on Chepstow – see ‘Chepstow Castle to the Tintern Turn Diversion’.)

Chepstow is the first port town of the Wye, with a long history of shipbuilding and import and export trading. Wine was shipped in from France from early times, and later, locally quarried stone was sent by boat down the Severn estuary to Portishead and to construct Newport docks. Daniel Defoe, in his Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–6), describes a flourishing town and refers to the
large quantities of wheat exported from Chepstow.There was also a glass factory in the town during the 18th century. From about 1860, the plentiful supply of timber that encouraged the shipbuilders also provided raw material for the large-scale production of bobbins for the Yorkshire weaving industry. Locally grown walnut was used by Birmingham gunsmiths for musket and shotgun stocks.

It is Chepstow Castle (Cadw) that will attract the visitor’s immediate attention. It is reputed to be the first castle in Britain to be built in stone, and standing on a sheer cliff it dominates the town and river, a picture of medieval strength that persisted until the siege cannon brought about a change in military tactics. The castle was built by William Fitz Osbern, a great supporter of William the Conqueror. Fitz Osbern actively encouraged William to invade Britain with the provision of a large number of ships. Following the victory at Hastings, Fitz Osbern was created Earl of Hereford and charged with the protection of the border between England and southern Wales. ‘Military governor’ might conceivably have been a better title, for he was in almost continuous conflict with the Welsh. Fitz Osbern also built other Wye-side castles at Monmouth, Hereford and Clifford.

Chepstow Castle was considerably enlarged as the Normans tightened their hold on Britain, but the Civil War that broke out in 1642 brought an end to its military value. The castle was held for the Royalist cause by the Earl of Worcester until 1645, when after a heavy bombardment it succumbed to the Parliamentary army. The Royalists were again garrisoning the castle when hostilities reopened in 1646, and again it fell to Cromwell’s forces. The man in command at that time, Sir Nicholas Kemeys, the county’s member of parliament and high sheriff of Glamorgan and Monmouth, was executed after the castle’s surrender. (Sir Henry Wintour (or Winter) was briefly Governor of Chepstow Castle in 1645 but his story will be told as the walk progresses upstream.)

Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Henry Marten was imprisoned here for 20 years. His enforced but not uncomfortable lodgings, although built much earlier, retain the name Marten’s Tower. Henry Marten’s signature appears with 58 others on the death warrant of Charles I, drawn up at the High Court of Justice on 29 January 1648. Little did he know that the signature that condemned the king to public execution in Whitehall was to serve as his own indictment.

Whatever the rights and wrongs that led to the Civil War, Marten’s story is far from attractive. He was a Grays Inn lawyer who married for money, an unhappy, loveless union. By 1640 he was engaged in politics as one of the members for Berkshire. He seems to have been a womaniser with an unsavoury reputation, and Charles I reportedly put it in stronger terms when he is said to have described Marten as ‘an ugly rascal and a whoremaster’.

Marten made no secret of his vindictive opposition to the monarchy. He was one of the members of the Committee of Safety that recommended the raising of an army to resist the alleged intention of the king to bring military power to bear upon Parliament. Shortly before war broke out Charles was seeking Marten’s trial on charges of high treason.

Marten, who was made governor of Reading, donated a large sum of money to the Parliamentary cause and promised to provide a cavalry regiment. In 1643, because of his support for the removal of the monarchy, he was deprived of his seat in the Commons and briefly confined in the Tower of London. Later he became governor of Aylesbury and took part in the siege of Dennington Castle.
Whilst held prisoner at Chepstow he composed his own epitaph in the form of an acrostic, the initial letter of each line spelling out his name thus:


Chepstow’s fine parish church, St Mary’s, has its origin in a Benedictine monastery founded in 1072. Among its interesting monuments is the colourful tomb of Henry Somerset, second Earl of Worcester, Lord Herbert of Chepstow, Raglan and Gower – he and his wife lie here in some splendour, attired in coronation robes. A rather grim Father Time, with hourglass and scythe, looks over the tomb of Thomas Shipman and his wife with their 12 children praying before them.

The town’s 18th-century clock, made by local craftsman William Meredith, is preserved here. The excellence of his work is proved by the clock’s 200 years of service to the community. It used to take a daily trip up the church tower to keep it wound by hand until funds were raised to power it by electricity. A rhyme launched a fund-raising appeal in 1858: ‘When Meredith first placed me here, Of county clocks I was the peer, My voice was sweet, My frame was bright, My pointers ever right and tight.’

There is an unusually named inn on Hocker Hill Street, ‘The Five Alls’. The reference is to a soldier, a bishop, a monarch, a barrister and an ordinary citizen, John Bull, summed up in the phrase, ‘I fight for all, I pray for all, I rule for all, I plead for all and I pay for all’.
Chepstow was a popular port of call for those taking the ‘Wye tour’ during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. A selection of the work inspired by their journey down the river – prose, poetry and prints – may be seen in the museum close to the castle. Many other aspects of the town’s history are featured, including an exhibition of salmon and eel fishing.

It was from the quay at Chepstow, close to the Willow Tree Restaurant, that the leaders of the Chartist march on Newport of 1839 – John Frost a former mayor, William Jones and Sarfarnie Williams – were transported to Tasmania. They had been arraigned at Monmouth Assizes charged with treason, found guilty and condemned to death, later commuted to a long exile.