Puzzlewood and The Kymin: Forest of Dean Part 3

An Unusual Wood and a Gentleman's Picnic House Above the River Wye

Puzzlewood

Gloucestershire

Forest of Dean

We had intended to visit Puzzlewood yesterday, but missed the sign and went on to the Clearwell Caves. That could have been that, but we were in no particular rush to get home today, and when we talked to our daughter last night, she brought up Puzzlewood and strongly recommended we go. So we did.

The owners are developing Puzzlewood as a family attraction, but we felt we could ignore the play area and the farm animals, though I could not resist a photo of a chicken – a silkie, I believe, originally a native of China.

A silkie at Puzzlewood

The wood itself is a remarkable landscape; a confusion of boulders, trees and twisted roots, covered with a rain-forest thick layer of moss. We followed the forest paths, which divided and then looped back on themselves and then divided again.

Puzzlewood

Navigation was a minor puzzle and there are no maps but the fields on the far side are only 300m away, and if we walked further than that to get there, we were usually going in the right direction.

Puzzlewood and a 'rickety bridge'

There are fairy doors, and rickety bridges (though more firmly constructed than they are made to look)  and places to pause and access the Puzzlewood app – provided your phone (unlike ours) has the right operating system - but what makes the landscape unique to the Forest of Dean and unusual even within it are the scowles.

Scowle, Puzzlewood

Scowles are labyrinthine defiles several metres deep, though in many places the sides have been eroded into discrete blocks of stone.

An eroded scowle

Long thought to be the remnants of iron-age open-cast iron ore extraction, geologist now believe them to be natural features, though enlarged and exploited by mining activity.

A Gloucester County Council archaeological information sheet entitled The Scowles of the Forest of Dean suggests the present view is that they originated as a natural underground cave system which formed in the Carboniferous Limestones of the Forest of Dean many millions of years ago. Uplift and erosion eventually caused this cave system to become exposed at the surface. The exposed caves were rich in iron ore were easy pickings for the earliest miners and their work and further erosion produced the landscape we see today.

Lynne plods up through another scowle

Our daughter had been right, Puzzlewood is well worth a visit and we spent over an hour wandering round in the wood. Returning to the café we drank cappuccinos (cappuccini?) beneath a sizeable sword. Looking closer, I learned that it was made of Valyrian steel and was formerly the property of Eddard Stark.

The Valyrian steel sword known as Ice wielded by Eddard Stark (allegedly)

I am not aware of Puzzlewood being a location in Game of Thrones, but it does feature in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, four separate episodes of Dr Who, two episodes of Merlin and the BBC’s 2016 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. JRR Tolkien was a frequent visitor and used the wood as a template for some of Middle Earth’s Forests, and maybe Harry Potter’s ‘Forbidden Forest’ is also a relative.

The Kymin

Monmouthshire

Wales

It was time to leave the Forest of Dean so we headed west towards Monmouth which lies beside the River Wye and – more importantly to us – the A40.

We were still a mile or two short of Monmouth when we passed a Croeso i Gymru sign; we had entered our ancestral homeland but were still east of the Wye. I had always believed the border ran along the River Monnow to its confluence with the Wye and then down the Wye to the coast, but not so - for reasons known only to long dead cartographers there is a fun-sized chunk of Wales on the wrong side of the Wye opposite Monmouth.

Always a welcome sight to the exile

Having left the Forest of Dean, in political fact if not quite in spirit, we turned off the main road, following the National Trust signs to The Kymin. The road, narrow with the occassional hairpin, climbed steadily from the Wye Valley to a viewpoint 250m above the river.

In the late 18th /early 19th centuries "the principal Gentlemen of Monmouth and its vicinity" formed the Monmouth Picnic Club or Kymin Club (from the Welsh Cae y Maen – Field of Stones) "for the purpose of dining together, and spending the day in a social and friendly manner". Everyone enjoys a picnic in good weather, but the Monmouthshire weather gods are a fickle bunch, so Philip Meakins Hardwick suggested building a roundhouse for "security from the inclemency of the weather". The members, headed by the Duke of Beaufort and 8 MPs paid subscriptions and building started in 1794.

The Kymin

The Kymin, as it became known, had kitchens on the ground-floor and a banqueting room above. The view is spectacular and the banqueting room was – and still is - equipped with a telescope. In time the club ran out of steam and eventually the building became a dwelling. That ceased in the early 20th century when the roundhouse was restored and duly found its way into the care of the National Trust.

Banqueting Room, The Kymin

The view is variously said to encompass nine or ten counties. Monmouth is a long way down beside the river and a great deal of effort would be required to drag a picnic/banquet all this way. I doubt that troubled the members, they had servants for that sort of thing and all they had to do was trot up on their nags – a little more effort than my driving up, but they could park closer to the house.

Monmouth and the Wye Valley from the Kymin

The Naval Temple

In 1800, to commemorate the second anniversary of Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile and in recognition of the victories of fifteen other Royal Navy Admirals, the Kymin Club built The Naval Temple.

Tne Naval Temple, The Kymin

This was the early days of tourism; the Wye Valley was prime tourist country and Nelson himself came floating down the river with Lady Hamilton and her husband Sir William Hamilton (as a prize gooseberry). Nelson was greeted by a cannonade and the band of the Monmouthshire Militia playing See, the Conquering Hero Comes (they don’t do that for tourists these days, or was it just me?). During his brief stay in Monmouth, Nelson breakfasted at the roundhouse and visited the Naval Temple of which he said "it was the only monument of its kind erected to the Royal Navy in the Kingdom," which was diplomatic. Others have been more forthright, ‘In very bad taste,’ said antiquarian, archaeologist and artist Sir Richard Colt Hoare in 1803 while architectural historian John Newman has described it as ‘hard to come to terms with.’ And this retired maths teacher and artistic ignoramus agrees with Hoare and Newman - and no doubt he will find that a great relief.

Naval Temple, The Kymin

[Afterthought: November 2019] Being in Wales all the signs were bilingual. It might be worth mentioning that Welsh was the main language of the Forest of Dean until the 9th century, ‘scowles’ probably deriving from the Welsh ‘ysgil’ meaning ‘a recess’. If the English electorate support Boris Johnson’s plan to break up the United Kingdom, then Wales will probably cling on to England like Montenegro clung to Serbia, but in the end it will go. And then maybe we will want our forest back.

And so we left the Kymin and headed home.

Forest of Dean

Part 1: Into the Dean, Goodrich and The Speech House

Part 2:Coleford and Around

Part 3:Puzzlewood and The Kymin

Coleford and Around: Forest of Dean Part 2

A Cave, a History Walk and a Sculpture Trail

Gloucestershire

Forest of Dean

The small town of Coleford (pop 8,500), three miles west of the Speech House, is the administrative centre for the Forest of Dean District. After breakfast we drove into Coleford and then a couple of miles south to the Clearwell Caves.

Clearwell Caves, Coleford

Clearwell Caves are a natural cave system greatly enlarged by mining. The Forest of Dean sits upon a basin of carboniferous shale and sandstone underlain by older carboniferous limestone. In the middle of the forest, coal seams run through the shales and sandstones while the limestone outcrops around the rim of the basin are rich in iron ore.

Coal was mined in the Dean before the Romans arrived while ochre mining is believed to have started 7,000 years ago in the middle stone age, though the earliest tools on display at Clearwell are late stone age, around 4,500 years old. In recent years small scale ochre production has resumed for the art market.

Clearwell Caves Ochre

The section of caves open to the casual visitor are the upper workings….

Abandoned upper workings, Clearwell Caves

…with occasional glimpses into the depths.

A glimpse into th depths, Clearwell Caves

Large scale mining finished in 1945. Owner Ray Wright explored the caves in depth (he was a founding member of the Royal Forest of Dean Caving Club) and opened Clearwell to visitors in 1968. When he died in 2015, his son Jonathan took over. Ray was one of the four Forest of Dean Verderers (see previous post) and for 30 years secretary of the Royal Forest of Dean Freeminers' Association, a post now held by Jonathan.

In the Dean, mining and quarrying have been carried out exclusively by Freeminers for a thousand years. In modern(ish) legal terms, the Forest of Dean (Mines Act) of 1838 says “All male persons born or hereafter to be born and abiding within the Hundred of St Briavels [roughly the same area as the modern Forest of Dean District], of the age of twenty one years and upwards, who shall have worked a year and a day in a coal or iron mine within the said Hundred of St Briavels, shall be deemed and taken to be Free Miners." A Freeminer can register a claim and is then free to work it, although certain royalties must be paid to the Crown. In 2010 Elaine Morman was the first woman to apply to become a Freeminer and it was decided – not without resistance – that the word 'male' in the act should now be interpreted as 'male and female'.

Redundant mini-railway, Clearwell Caves

The King protected the miners in his Royal Forest, and in return miners volunteered to aid him should a besieged castle need undermining. The system has kept mining small scale, despite 18th century attempts by the Crawshay and Prothero families to expand their empires from the industrial valleys of South Wales. Underhand tactics were employed – including the disappearing of Mine Law Court records from the Speech House, but in the end little changed, though the Verderers gained some fine carved oak chairs from the Crawshays (see previous post).

Clearwell is the sole surviving iron mine, but freeminers still operate six small collieries and eight quarries. Once granted the title of ‘freeminer’ it is kept for life, and as no specific record is kept of freeminer’s deaths it is uncertain how many there are, but there are thought to be around 150 living freeminers, some active others not.

In several caverns the ghostly, silent shadows of working miners now long gone were projected onto walls.

Following the old galleries, Clearwell Caves

Home to a large colony of horseshoe bats, the Caves have been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and there is an attempt in one area to give humans a better understanding of echo-location (I don’t think we were up to it!) Elsewhere electronic magic revives some of the denizens of the deep who once thrived here; some are scarier than others.

Former resident of the area, Clearwell Caves

The mining years are remembered with some nostalgia, but several displays reminded us that children once laboured in these mines (only in 1843 did it become illegal for under-tens to work below ground) and the weights they were expected to carry up rickety ladders damaged developing bones.

Coleford: A Walk Through History

Returning to Coleford we dropped into the Tourist Information Office and picked up a Coleford ‘Walk Through History’ booklet.

Stop 1, the Whitecliff Ironworks eluded us, Stop 2 was the railway bridge. The highlights of Coleford are not Premier League, if the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids are Manchester City and Liverpool, then Coleford Railway Bridge is, well, Coleford Town Reserves (North Gloucestershire Association, Division Three). The bridge was built in 1883 for the Coleford Branch of the Great Western Railway, which linked to the Severn and Wye Railway, making Coleford a transport hub, of sorts. Both lines were dismantled long ago.

Coleford railway bridge and the Baptist Chrch beyond

Stop 3 is the Baptist Church which can be seen through the railway bridge in the above photo. Nonconformism has always been strong in the Dean and the first Baptist Church was built in 1799. This French Romanesque pastiche dates from 1858 and is an imposing building if a little out of place among the 19th century cottages.

So far, so underwhelming, but looking closer we found something to wonder at. Why does a stone lion stand on a small plinth on this otherwise workaday railway bridge?

Lion on the railway bridge, Coleford

Climbing Bowen Hill, we found the parish church of St John the Evangelist (or John the Baptist according to the Town Guide). Built in 1880 to replace a previous 19th century church in Market Square, it is currently closed to visitors and in danger of demolition.

St John the Evangelist, Coleford

The Market Square and the Civil War Battle of Coleford

Continuing to the end of the road and turning towards the market square we encountered the remains of its predecessor. An octagonal church built in 1820, it had become too small for the growing town, and was demolished and replaced by St John’s – though they left the clock tower. A church without a tower is unremarkable, a church tower without a church is maybe unique. It looks odd.

Market Square, Coleford

The next stop on the tour was the Old White Hart Inn, which can be seen on the right above, and full face below. Built in the 17th century, it is one of the oldest surviving buildings around the Market Square – and looks in dire need of some help.

Old White Hart, Coleford

I was beginning to feel sorry for Coleford, so I was pleased to see the Angel Inn, also on the Market Square, looked cared for and welcoming. Coleford’s premier coaching inn has occupied this site since the start of the 17th century, though the current building is only 200 years old.

The Angel Inn, Coleford

Across the end of the street is the handsome Bank House, built around 1768 and now housing the office of the Deputy Gaveller of the Royal Forest. Part of the ancient governance of the Forest, the Deputy Gaveller registers freeminers and collects royalties for the Crown. The once even more important role of Gaveller has been taken over by the Forestry Commission, who also have their local offices in Bank House.

Bank House, Coleford

The Kings Head on the corner may be over 300 years old, but it is another building in desperate need of attention. The scaffold suggests help is on its way, and not before time. Legend has it that during the Battle of Coleford (1643) a Roundhead soldier in the King’s Head shot and killed a Royalist officer in the Market Square, near where the tower now stands. Hitting a target at 120m with a 17th century musket required either great skill, immense good luck (or bad lack, depending on point of view) or never happened.

The King's Head, Coleford

A plaque near the clock tower placed by the Sealed Knot re-enactment group commemorates the Battle of Coleford, a minor Civil War engagement.

Battle of Coleford memorial plaque, Coleford Market Square

Early in 1643 Welsh Royalists raised an army of some 2,000 and under the command of Colonel John Lawley (or Lawdly) set off to support the king at Gloucester. Their way was blocked by the strongly Parliamentarian Forest of Dean and on approaching Coleford (which then had a population of around 500) they encountered barricades in the streets.

Troops on both sides were largely inexperienced and casualties were few, but the foresters among the defenders were good shots and Lawley and his two most experienced officers were killed. Eventually the Royalists superior numbers prevailed and the defenders melted into the forest.

Continuing their march, the army was destroyed a month later at the Battle of Highnam.

It was lunchtime and in The Baguette Shop on the Market Square we found two women cheerfully constructing sandwiches to order at a very reasonable price.

The Mushets, Father and Son

Refreshed by a sandwich and a pot of tea we reached the entrance to the Co-op which is marked by a wrought iron gate and a mural by Tom Cousins honouring the Mushets, father and son. David Mushet was a metallurgist and something of an obsessive, which spoilt his relationships with business partners and family. Born in Scotland in 1772 he arrived in Coleford in 1808 as manager of the Whitecliff ironworks – the one we had been unable to find at the start of this walk. He greatly improved the production methods and quality of Forest of Dean iron and steel, work continued by his son Robert after his death in 1847. Between them they were largely responsable for Coleford’s rapid growth and prosperity in the 19th century.

Tom Cousin's Mushet mural, Coleford

A little further up the High Street is the Drill Hall built in 1906 for training militia volunteers. In 1909 Colour Sergeant Richard Reeves started giving magic lantern shows and in 1910 he and a business partner converted the building into the Electric Cinema, and a cinema it has been, albeit with a name change, ever since.

Studio cinema, operating in Coleford since 1910

The last stop on our walk was the relatively modest house of the Mushets, now a hotel.

The home of David and later Robert Mushet, Coleford

But the days of iron, coal and the Mushets have gone and with them Coleford’s prosperity. Four or five of the buildings on the town’s official ‘Walk through History’ are redundant, threatened with demolition or in poor repair and that speaks volumes. There is an industrial estate south of the town where SPP Pumps Ltd, Britain's leading pump manufacturer, employs 300 people, but the largest employer is the Japanese conglomerate Suntory, whose factory produces all the country’s Ribena and Lucozade - brands whose heyday was during my childhood in the 1950s.

There is plenty to see around the Forest of Dean and Coleford is trying to reinvent itself as a tourist centre but there is a way to go yet. On the positive side, we liked the cheerful panache of The Baguette Shop, we liked the hanging baskets round the Market Square and the private displays elsewhere, and we liked the way that twice on our wanderings we were stopped by locals just to chat and give us extra information. Coleford is a town whose heart is in the right place, so there must be hope.

Coleford looking floral and cheerful

The Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail

Heading back towards Speech House we stopped at the Beechenhurst Visitor Centre for a walk in the woods and a look at the sculptures. Visitors have been somewhat dismissive of the sculptures on Trip Advisor, but as reviewers are rarely qualified art critics we approached it with open minds.

The Forest of Dean

The paths were well maintained and gently graded, which suited our footwear, but the sculptures were not easy to find. We were intentionally short-cutting the full 4½ mile trail so perhaps we were missing them.

Further into the Forest of Dean

But then we found one…

We've found a sculpture, Forest of Dean

…. then another….

And this must be another sculpture

And then they came thick and fast. Neither of us have arty qualifications either, but we were also unimpressed. If you cannot tell a work of art from a pile of stuff left over from earlier activity, is it a work of art? That sounds like an A level essay I have no intention of writing.

This was labelled as a sculpture, but is it just a pile of stones?

Then, in defiance of the benign local weather forecast, it started to rain. We sheltered as best we could from the downpour, then completed what had been a very pleasant walk despite the uninspiring artworks and dampness.

Attempting to shelter from the rain, Forest of Dean

Wild boar were hunted to extinction in this country in the 18th century but in recent decades boars have re-established themselves in the wild after accidental (or deliberate) releases from farms. The Forest of Dean boar population (around 1,500) is the largest in England, so we were disappointed not to see one - they are not dangerous, unless you do something stupid. We did, though, see the damage they cause rooting in the undergrowth.

A Fine Dinner at the Speech House Hotel

To celebrate Lynne’s birthday we had a reservation at the Speech House fine dining restaurant, which can be the Verderers Room, where we had breakfast, or the smaller Carolean depending on number of bookings.

Calling yourself a ‘fine dining’ restaurant is a hostage to fortune, particularly if you lack a cluster of AA Rosettes or a Michelin star to back it up. Head chef Gareth Jenkins has been at the Speech House less than a year and bagged the hotel’s first ever AA Rosette in August, so there are clearly ambitions here.

We skipped starters, it is the only way we have a hope of managing a dessert these days - getting older is a bugger. Lynne chose hake with onions, chive oil, baby potatoes and cream. She dislikes her fish ‘messed about’ but her definition of ‘messed about’ seems strangely variable. I would have expected the creamy sauce to be ‘messing about’ but apparently it was not; the hake was perfect, the sauce fine and the chive oil set it off nicely. She was pleased with her choice.

Lynne and her hake, Speech House Hotel

I went for chicken and mash – which hardly sounds like a fine dining dish, nor something I might normally select, but….the chicken was good quality and perfectly cooked, the mashed potato was extraordinarily smooth yet retained enough texture not to be a purée and had been gently smoked. Overdone, smoking takes over the whole dish, underdone and it might as well have never happened, but here the balance was spot on. The leeks were good, the pea purée had an intensified pea flavour, the sauce was glossy and deep and the match sticks of green apple supplied just the right acidity. It was a clever and satisfying plate of food from humble ingredients.

A rather superior chicken and mash

The wine list was less brilliant but a bottle of Rioja Blanco went down well and we did manage dessert, chocolate ganache and a banana confection. [update: the autumn menu now (Nov 19) on the Speech House website is a little more ambitious. They are going in the right direction, I would quite like to return.]

Forest of Dean
Part 1: Into the Dean, Goodrich and The Speech House
> Part 2: Coleford and Around
Part 3: Puzzlewood and The Kymin

Other 1 AA Rosette meal9
The Speech House, Forest of Dean Gloucestershire (2019)
The Hotel du Vin, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire (2019)
The Hotel du Vin, Stratford-upon-Avon. Warwickshire (2022)
The Dukes Head, Kings Lynn, Norfolk (2022)

Into the Dean, Goodrich and The Speech House: Forest of Dean Part 1

A Border Castle, then into the Heart of the Forest of Dean

Our many (very many) journeys from the Midlands to visit friends and relatives in South Wales have taken us around the Forest of Dean, but we have not previously ventured away from the main road and into the woods. With Lynne’s birthday as an excuse and armed with a Travelzoo hotel deal it was time to put that right.

Goodrich Castle

Herefordshire

The Dean, as the locals call it, is in Gloucestershire but our first stop, beside the River Wye at Goodrich, was still (just) in Herefordshire

A rocky outcrop surrounded by a natural ditch (it was never a moat) overlooking an important river crossing was an obvious place for a castle. A wooden keep was constructed on an earth mound in the 10th or 11th century to create one of a line of Saxon forts along the Welsh border. Godric of Mappestone held it in the years after the Norman conquest, bequeathing his name to both castle and village.

The wooden fort was replaced by a rectangular, grey sandstone keep sometime between 1120 and 1176, possibly in connection with the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Maud (1135-1153) or maybe in response to Henry II’s hard line against the Welsh. During much of that time the Castle was in the possession of Gilbert de Clare and then his son Richard, who have previously graced this blog as constructors of Castell Coch, and the castles at Llantrisant and Caerphilly.

Goodrich Castle, the rectangular, grey sandstone keep surrounded by a later curtain wall

A curtain wall was built early in the 13th century. In 1247 Henry III gave the castle to his half-brother William de Valence who rebuilt the walls in the 1280s at the time his nephew, Edward I, was building the great castles of North Wales. Goodrich is thus closer in design to Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech than to other castles in England.

The gatehouse is approached across a drawbridge (now stone footbridge) from a later barbican.

Gatehouse, Goodrich Castle

It was designed to make uninvited visitors feel very unwelcome. If the drawbridge was down there was still a massive wooden gate and two heavy iron portcullises to negotiate, not to mention a murder hole above through which noxious or fatal substances could be thrown or tipped, and arrow slits on either side (off-set so defenders did not shoot each other).

Into the gatehouse, Goodrich Castle

Fearsome as this might have been, medieval Goodrich probably saw little action. The gatehouse even has a window, an obvious weak point, suggesting the inhabitants were confident – supremely confident as the masonry shows the window was once larger than it is now.

Window on the gatehouse wall, Goodrich Castle

It is actually the window to a chapel inside the gatehouse.

Chapel in the gatehouse, Goodrich Castle

Direct sunlight has taken the colour from the window in my photo, so I have borrowed the picture below from Wikipedia. Made using 15th century glass, the window was a millennium project designed by Hay-on-Wye based stained-glass artist Nicola Hopwood and financed by the parishioners of Goodrich, Marston and Welsh Bicknor. It shows the rock on which Goodrich stands, the River Wye and three faces representing the three parishes.

Goodrich Millennium Window, photo by Hchc2009, reproduced under Creative Commons Licence

At the other end of the chapel a memorial window commemorates the scientists, engineers and servicemen involved in the development of radar, particularly those who died when a Halifax testing radar equipment crashed near here in June 1942. Among the dead was electronics expert Alan Blumlein, who in peacetime had invented the concept of stereophonic sound and much of the hardware that makes it work. The flight had originated in RAF Defford, some 30 miles away in the grounds of Croome Court (we visited in July) where much of the development of radar took place.

Memorial window to the pioneers of radar, Goodrich Castle

This is an odd location for a chapel, but space on the rocky outcrop was limited. When the main gate is open the draw bar that secures it comes across in front of the altar (the socket can be seen on the left in the top picture)while upstairs was the mechanism to raise and lower the portcullises.

Housing for the wheels that raised one of the portcullises, Goodrich Castle

Apart from security and religion, William de Valence was concerned with comfort and inside the castle he aimed for the highest standings of 13th century gracious living. He built a solarium with delicate Gothic arches for use of his family,…

The interior of Goodrich castle with the solarium in the opposite corner

…he installed indoor toilets (though without running water so some poor sap still had to shovel the excrement from the ditch) and wash basins in the solarium and the great hall.

Great Hall, Goodrich Castle

The Norman Keep

But over it all looms the Norman keep.

Norman Keep, Goodrich Castle

The upper window is as decorated as they could manage at the time, the middle window was originally the entrance and there was a dungeon in the basement.

The decorated upper window of the Norman keep, Goodrich Castle

The top gives commanding views across the countryside, particularly over the River Wye now largely hidden by trees, but surely kept clear when it was of strategic importance.

The River Wye hidden in the trees - there is still a glimpse of the river, just over half way up, three quarters left

In the 14th century the Talbot family held the castle, repelling incursions by Owain Glyndŵr’s supporters in 1404. The Talbots became Earls of Shrewsbury in 1442 and played a significant part in the Wars of the Roses, but from their Castle in Sheffield not from Goodrich which they rarely visited. Goodrich was in decline and as castles ceased to be the residence of choice of the wealthy nobility in the 16th century, the decline looked terminal.

Roaring Meg

The Civil War dragged Goodrich back into service. Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities (August 1642) the castle was garrisoned by the Earl of Stamford for Parliament. Royalist pressure led him to withdraw to Gloucester in December 1643 and Sir Henry Lingen took the castle for the King. By 1646 the Royalist cause was in disarray and in June Goodrich was besieged by Parliamentary forces under Colonel John Birch. Despite having little more than its medieval defences, taking the castle proved difficult so Birch had local craftsmen build an enormous mortar capable of lobbing 90Kg gunpowder filled shells over the walls. This tipped the balance and when the west tower was reduced to rubble Sir Henry Lingen surrendered. ‘Roaring Meg’, as the mortar was dubbed, still sits at the base of the tower she demolished.

Roaring Meg, Goodrich Castle

Like most English castles Goodrich was slighted at the end of the war so that it could never be used again.

The 18th and 19th centuries saw the beginnings of ‘tourism’. William Gilpin introduced the concept of ‘the picturesque’ and in his snappily entitled book Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year of 1770 he cited Goodrich as an example of the ‘correctly picturesque,’. William Wordsworth called it the " noblest ruin in Herefordshire" while early Victorian painter, engraver and author Theodore Fielding wrote of the "castle's situation, far from human dwellings, and the stillness which that solitude insures to its precinct, leads contemplation to all the solemnity that is inspired by the sight of grandeur sinking in dignity, into decay"

In 1820 the visitor to Goodrich could pay 6d for a guidebook, but nobody thought of doing anything to arrest the ‘grandeur sinking into decay.’ In 1919 the collapse of parts of the curtain wall and north west tower persuaded the owner to give the castle to the Office of Works who set about repair and stabilisation of the ruin. Goodrich Castle is now in the care of English Heritage and is a Grade I listed building and Scheduled Monument.

The Speech House, Forest of Dean

Gloucestershire

Forest of Dean

Goodrich Castle stands just outside the Forest of Dean; the Speech House Hotel, where we spent the next two nights, is right in the middle – the monument marking the alleged exact point stands on the road opposite the hotel. Getting there from Goodrich took 15 minutes along the sort of roads that only sat navs know.

Allegedly the exact centre of the Forest of Dean

In 1660, 14 years after the destruction of Goodrich Castle and only 11 after the execution of Charles I, the monarchy was restored. Nine years later The Speech House was built as a hunting lodge for Charles II. Part of the building is original, but part dates from an 1881 rebuilding. It was not obvious to me which is which, but the various extensions and outbuildings at the back – essential parts of the modern hospitality industry - looked more recent.

The Speech House Hotel, Forest of Dean

Since 1676 The Speech House has housed the Verderers’ Court of the Forest of Dean. Verderers are a vestige of the medieval forest administration who survive here and in the New Forest and Epping Forest. Since at least 1281 the Verderers of the Forest of Dean have protected the ‘vert and venison’ (vegetation and habitat) and formerly acted as magistrates. Although they only dealt with minor crimes, the punishments they could hand out were major; gallows once stood outside the Speech House and the whipping beam can still be seen in one of the bedrooms.

There are four verderers each elected to the unpaid position for life by an ancient and arcane procedure. They meet quarterly in their courtroom in the Speech House - which otherwise serves as the hotel’s breakfast room – to discuss forest matters, but no longer get to hang or flog anybody.

The carved oak chairs were donated by the Crawshay family in 1820. The Crawshays were ‘Iron Barons’ owning the Cyfarthfa Ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil among other assets. Richard Crawshay, the founder of the dynasty (died 1810) was known as ‘The Tyrant’ and the Crawshay name is still remembered – and without fondness – in industrial Monmouthshire.

The Breakfast room and Verderers Court with carved oak chairs, Speech House Hotel, Forest of Dean

18 years ago, the chairs were stolen and after travelling through Spain and Portugal found their way to a London auction house. The auctioneer saw their quality, checked with the police stolen arts squad and they were subsequently returned to their proper home.

We dined in the Orangery, the ‘pub’ restaurant of the Speech House, leaving their ‘fine dining’ restaurant for tomorrow. It was reasonably priced pub food, washed down with the ‘free’ bottle of house red from our Travelzoo deal. Lynne’s faggots were particularly good, the product of a local artisan butcher, not a factory. A commendation, too, for Wye Vale Gin, distilled by the Silver Circle distillery just across the Wye in rural Monmouthshire. The mushroom growth of artisan gins has led to some mixed quality, but Silver Circle seems to have got it right.

Forest of Dean

Part 1: Into the Dean, Goodrich and The Speech House

Part 2: Coleford and Around

Part 3: Puzzlewood and The Kymin